Lucy Gichuhi says she will use parliamentary privilege to expose ‘intimidation’ as minister for women speaks out

The minister for women, Kelly O’Dwyer, has said government MPs were intimidated during the Liberal party’s leadership crisis, as the South Australian senator Lucy Gichuhi said she would use parliamentary privilege to name names about her personal experiences with bullying in politics.

Speaking about the Liberal party’s leadership war on Monday night, Gichuhi said she now believed the conservative-led strike against Malcolm Turnbull was under way from at least June.

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Gichuhi told the ABC: “I had senators and ministers in tears. That’s how bad it was. One of my colleagues was in tears the whole day.”

She said colleagues found themselves at “a crossroad where they could not choose” which candidate to support in the leadership ballot – with Victorians enduring a particularly rough time because their preselections were threatened.

O’Dwyer validated the account and others like it during a separate interview on the ABC’s 7.30 program. O’Dwyer said she’d had a number of conversations with male and female MPs and it was clear that people were subject to “threats, intimidation and bullying”.

abc730 (@abc730) Minister for Women, @KellyODwyer, says it’s clear to her that #Liberal MPs “were subject to threats and intimidation and bullying” during the recent leadership spill. More tonight on #abc730. @leighsales #auspol pic.twitter.com/qerTAYQZGS

O’Dwyer said there were people within the Liberal party organisation that had “tried” to bully and intimidate her on occasion.

She said she had been “a little bit disgusted” by some of the commentary in recent days directed at women in the Liberal party to toughen up, or implications that women were being snowflakes or princesses.

Gichuhi declined on Monday night to name names without the protection of parliamentary privilege, but signalled she was prepared to make a statement when parliament returned.

“It was a very tense week,” the South Australian senator said. “I just tried as much as possible to keep out of it but it just wasn’t possible.

“I don’t think anybody would want to be in that kind of an environment where your friends are no longer friends and the colleagues you sit next to they are no longer looking at you with the same eyes – that we are parliamentarians together.

“It is also the betrayal. You can imagine that people who have been your mentors, all of a sudden you don’t know who they are.

“You can imagine that people who have been your friends, then you are deemed to be in different camps, and even what is the worst thing is to have to choose when you don’t think you have to choose.”

She said the speed of the government’s political crisis contributed to the febrile atmosphere, and the stress felt by parliamentarians and their staff. “We didn’t have the time to think through things.

“Everything was happening so fast. And that in itself is a form of intimidation because we were supposed to make a very important decision within a very short time.”



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Gichuhi said when she went through a Liberal preselection process in June, she was asked by a preselector, whom she declined to name, whether Turnbull was the right person to lead the Liberal party to the next federal election.

She said her conclusion in light of recent events was that the internal push against the former prime minister had been under way for some time. “For that question to arise then, something was already happening then I guess.”

The senator said she believed the Liberal party now had to seriously consider a significant intervention, establishing a formal process where parliamentarians could resolve their disputes before they escalated to the removal of another party leader.

She said the deterioration in political culture had reached crisis point, so what was required was “a formal professional way of dealing with disputes” whether in parliament, or with staff, or with the party leader.

“The way it is now is pure kangaroo court. I think we need a formal structured protected way of dispute resolution.”

She said the culture in Australian politics needed to change, otherwise it was possible another group inside the Liberal party could move against the newly installed prime minister.

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“The minute you have to toe a certain line, you are being intimidated, you are no longer using your free will.



“Politics can be a decent career for all. Even in politics I should be able ... to make free will decisions. Any time somebody is overpowering you ... that’s not political. We should be able to work in a professional environment.”

Gichuhi joins fellow Liberal Julia Banks in articulating publicly the experiences some MPs say they endured during the backroom number-crunching during the leadership crisis.

At the height of the chaos, the Western Australian Liberal Linda Reynolds told the Senate chamber she was “distressed and disturbed” by the some of the backroom behaviour.

Turnbull supporter Craig Laundy said last week he heard complaints had been made to the prime minister’s office and the party whip’s office about bullying. Laundy said he was confident the Liberal party whip, Nola Marino, would investigate. “I’m sure Nola Marino has received them and I know she will deal with them through any process she puts in place.”

On Monday the prime minister did not answer a direct question on 3AW about whether any perpetrators would be named in the event the accusations were found to have merit.

“I’m working with that internally in my party with my party organisation” Scott Morrison said. “We will absolutely deal with this issue as a party, as colleagues, and I have no truck with bullying whether it’s in a classroom, whether it’s in a workplace, or with a broadcaster”.