Emotional: James Ashby on 60 Minutes. Credit:Channel Nine He said Mr Roy put him in touch with Mr Pyne, who offered to find him legal assistance and a job in state politics. Mr Pyne has always denied that he spoke to Mr Ashby about his concerns at a widely reported drinks session in the speaker's office a few days earlier than their alleged meeting. But Mr Ashby said the day after the alleged meeting he received a call from Mr Roy with a solicitor's name, number, and email, and was told he could trust the lawyer. He said he later went to confirm this with Mr Pyne.

Alleged threat: Christopher Pyne. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen "The conversation didn't last too long at all," Mr Ashby told 60 Minutes. "We literally got up from his table, um, he walked me towards the door; he said to me 'You're a braver man than I am" as we exited, and [then] said, 'If you discuss or tell anyone we've had this discussion, I'll be forced to come out publicly and call you a pathological liar.' " 60 Minutes journalist Liz Hayes said: "You'd been, according to you, assured by Christopher Pyne that you would have a job and you would have a solicitor who would be paid for." "That's right ... It gave me a lot more confidence knowing that the complaint I was about to make wasn't going to be held against me, because I hadn't done anything wrong," Mr Ashby replied.

At the time, Mr Slipper was a political enemy of the federal Coalition for leaving the party and becoming speaker, a move that allowed the Gillard Labor government to remain in power. Mr Ashby dropped his suit against Slipper in June after more than two years of legal wrangling. Coalition MP Mal Brough, who a judge said was involved in the move by Mr Ashby to make the sexual harassment claims against Mr Slipper, admitted to 60 Minutes that he asked Mr Ashby to download Mr Slipper's diary, which was leaked to News Corp. "Yes I did," Mr Brough told 60 Minutes, "because I believed Mr Slipper had committed a crime, because I believed he was defrauding the Commonwealth, and the courts have fundamentally now proven that to be the case". In July, Mr Slipper was found guilty of dishonestly using almost $1000 in Commonwealth Cabcharge vouchers to pay for hire car travel to wineries around Canberra. He is appealing the conviction.



Mr Brough, a former Howard government minister, took Mr Slipper's former seat of Fisher at the 2013 election. Mr Brough said it was for others to judge whether he had acted properly and hit back when asked if he was motivated by his desire to win Mr Slipper's seat. "You're trying to draw a bow between the two?" Mr Brough asked Hayes. Mr Brough refused to say if he had informed any of his colleagues, including Prime Minister Tony Abbott, about his actions. "We can canvass everybody and anyone and I can rule people in and I can rule people out, I'm just simply not going to do that because it is simply not the issue that matters," he said.

When told his refusals to specify who he had informed would lead people to assume he had told his now parliamentary colleagues, Mr Brough said the media would assume "because that's what the media does". Asked for comment on Sunday night, Mr Pyne reiterated his previous contention that he "had no specific knowledge of the allegations made by Mr Ashby and the first I knew that he was suing Mr Slipper was when I read it in the newspapers". "This is a dispute between two individuals - not a dispute that includes me or any other member of the government," he said. Slipper's lawyer, Simon Berry, on Monday was critical of Mr Ashby's decision to again raise the sexual allegations. He also pointed to inconsistencies in Mr Ashby's affidavit and what he told the program.

"There appears to be a whole lot more evidence that wasn't in his affidavit that ... probably should have been in the affidavit," he told ABC radio. Mr Berry suggested authorities might need to consider the inconsistencies. "I mean the question was put to him [Mr Ashby] in the interview had he perjured himself, and I'm not sure he answered it," he said. Mr Berry said it was a travesty Mr Slipper had not been given an opportunity to clear his name and for the real story to come out now. Loading

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