Andrew Penfold from the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation has been named as the person allegedly abused by a staff member from Tony Abbott's office. Credit:Claire Martin ''As a result of the investigation, Dr Roberts has been demoted from his role as Director of Policy. ''The contact last evening was initiated by Dr Roberts and in no way reflects on the individual concerned or the organisation he represents. ''While the incident is out of character, Coalition staff are expected to maintain high professional standards at all times.'' Earlier on Friday, Mr Abbott said his staff member had denied making the threat, but confirmed an ''unfortunate exchange'' had taken place, for which the staff member had apologised.

Mr van Onselen told Sky News on Friday he had clearly heard the exchange between Dr Roberts, and Mr Penfold, a former investment banker and lawyer. Mr van Onselen said while he could not remember the exact words Dr Roberts used, he had heard him threaten to cut or slit the throat of Mr Penfold's organisation. He said the threat was not a personal threat but related to funding for the foundation. ''I heard him say slit the throat or cut the throat, I heard the cutting of funding as an exact quote, those are the two things that I heard him say,'' Mr van Onselen said. Mr van Onselen said Dr Roberts had made a throat cutting gesture which was witnessed by his wife and other guests at the dinner. Mr van Onselen said Mr Penfold had been having a discussion with Dr Roberts about the foundation's work and he did not understand why the staffer had become aggressive, but said Dr Roberts had ''had a fair bit to drink''.

''I was pretty disgusted by the approach that he took to Andrew, because I didn't see any reason for him to go down that path,'' he said. ''I didn't hear anything that Andrew did that was in anyway untoward.'' Mr van Onselen said Dr Roberts later approached him and offered to give him information from within Mr Abbott's office in return for keeping quiet about the incident, but Mr van Onselen had sent a text message to another member of Mr Abbott's staff, complaining about Dr Roberts' behaviour. Earlier on Friday, Mr Abbott said the staffer had denied threatening to cut Mr Penfold's throat. ''That particular phrase is denied, it's denied,'' he said. ''I understand there was an unfortunate exchange between a staffer of mine and someone at a dinner last night. The incident is out of character as far as the staff member is concerned,'' he said.

''It's been investigated, and I understand the staffer has apologised to the person with which he had the incident, and it seems that the matter is now at an end. ''The staff member in question has been counselled.'' The gala dinner was held at Hanger 96 at Sydney's domestic airport on Thursday night to celebrate Qantas' new alliance with fellow airline Emirates. Among the 1000 guests who attended the event were supermodel Miranda Kerr, actor and Qantas ambassador John Travolta and his wife Kelly Preston, and singers Tina Arena and Ronan Keating. The who's who of Australia's business community also attended, including Macquarie Group chief executive Nicholas Moore, Business Council of Australia president Tony Shepherd, Qantas chairman Leigh Clifford, Fairfax chief executive Greg Hywood and Sydney Airport chief executive Kerrie Mather.