"There's one thing I want at the end of this. I want him gone," Jodi McKay said, referring to her demand that former NSW treasurer Eric Roozendaal be expelled from the Labor Party.

"I don't want to belong to a party that has Roozendaal in it," she said.

"I just felt so humiliated and ashamed": Jodi McKay. Credit:Getty Images/Christopher Pearce

The ALP has been rocked by allegations at the Independent Commission Against Corruption that two senior Labor powerbrokers, Mr Roozendaal and Joe Tripodi, and then mining tycoon Nathan Tinkler sought to blacken Ms McKay's reputation and undermine her as she fought to hold on to the seat of Newcastle in the March 2011 state election.

For 10 months after her election defeat, Ms McKay, 45, was unemployed. During that time the former TV anchor applied for 200 jobs but "no one would employ me because I had been part of a government that people thought badly of".