Former NSW Labor premier calls for Kaila Murnain to become general secretary after sexual harassment allegations against Clements

The former New South Wales premier Kristina Keneally has called for Labor’s state general secretary, Jamie Clements, to resign in the wake of sexual harassment allegations – and for a woman replace him.

The former Labor staffer Stefanie Jones, 27, alleged Clements intimidated her and tried to kiss her in an office in Parliament House in June last year. The alleged harassment took place after she told Clements she was going to reveal their 2013 one night stand to her fiance, the Labor organiser David Latham, she told Sydney’s Daily Telegraph.

Jones applied for an apprehended violence order against him but dropped it on Wednesday when he agreed to stay away from her for the next 12 months and have his NSW parliament pass revoked so he cannot go into the building unaccompanied.



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Clements has denied the allegations, and the deal included no admission of guilt from him.

Jones described her treatment by the party as “disgusting” and “soul-destroying”.

Keneally, a Guardian Australia columnist, said the allegations had made Clements’s position untenable and he should be replaced by the assistant general secretary, Kaila Murnain.

“The ongoing challenges of head office are many: a lack of governance and accountability and transparency; a culture that at best devalues women and at worst utterly disrespect them; and the very public saga of the general secretary being involved in a case of sexual harassment,” Keneally told Guardian Australia.

“No woman takes out an AVO lightly, Ms Jones is clearly being traumatised, this situation is in full public view, it’s not tenable for the party office to continue under the leadership of Mr Clements.

“How can we fight a federal election campaign? How can we take up the fight against Mike Baird’s flawed public transport plan? How can we argue for students to have access to affordable Tafe courses? How can we fight for working people when we have an office racked by these challenges?”

Keneally said the party needed to reform “from the top down and the bottom up”. She said the first step in that would be appointing Murnain as general secretary, calling her “experienced, ethical and smart”.

“This type of appointment would send a clear signal, it would be more than symbolic, Kaila would deliver transformative and transparent leadership,” she said.

Keneally stopped short of saying the NSW Labor party had a misogynistic culture but said there were elements that were hostile to women.

“It’s hard to say that there is one overarching culture of sexism – for goodness sake, the New South Wales Labor party gave Australia its first government led by two women [Keneally and her deputy Carmel Tebbutt]. On the other hand it is true to say there are elements in the party for whom casual sexism and a sexualised view of women is part of the norm.”

The federal Labor leader, Bill Shorten, said on Thursday he had demanded a report on what action the NSW division of the party intended to take. “I have now stepped in,” Shorten said during a media conference in Tasmania.

“I want to see this matter resolved. I have zero tolerance for workplace harassment. I’ve asked for a report from the NSW president, Mark Lennon, to be provided to my national secretary [George Wright] as a matter of urgency.”

Jones, a former staffer for the Campbelltown MP Greg Warren, said if she had her time again she would not have come forward.

“I think if I had my time over again I would just run,” Jones told the Telegraph. “I would never want to go through this again. It’s been soul-destroying. Everybody wants it under the carpet.

“There’s such a lack of support [and] as long as the party has people like [that in it], the filth … the continuation of disgusting treatment of women will continue.”

The NSW Labor leader, Luke Foley, has not commented publicly on the allegations and Jones compared his response unfavourably to Malcolm Turnbull’s when the former cities minister Jamie Briggs acted “inappropriately” with a public servant in a Hong Kong bar.

“The fact Foley has stayed quiet says worlds about him when you see how Turnbull handled [the Briggs issue],” Jones said. [Foley] never wanted to meet with me, I never heard anything from him.”

Turnbull accepted Briggs’s resignation after an investigation.

“I would say if you’re a woman in the Labor party be careful,” Jones said. “It’s heartbreaking when you come forward; when you’re the person who has not done anything wrong and you have people openly calling you a ‘slut’; it could not be further from the truth.”

The federal opposition’s spokesman on workplace relations, Brendan O’Connor, said the Clements issue needed to be resolved “as quickly as possible”.

“We should always criticise harassment where it occurs. That matter’s being investigated internally by the Labor party, and needs to be dealt with swiftly,” O’Connor said in Sydney.

“Any person who acts improperly towards a staff member or to a colleague in a workplace – I don’t care who they are – needs to be dealt with swiftly.”

Foley’s office said he was on leave with his family when asked if Clements still had the Labor leader’s confidence.

Clements has been contacted for comment.