Thursday 31 December 2015

Former staffer says Jamie Briggs made sexist comments




  • The Australian

  • Xenophon Team candidate for Mayo, Rebekha Sharkie, previously worked for Jamie Briggs.

    A former staffer of Jamie Briggs who will run against him as a ­candidate for Nick Xenophon’s fledgling party went on the attack yesterday, saying she was “not ­surprised” by the Hong Kong ­incident.

    Rebekha Sharkie, who left Mr Briggs’ office to work for then state Liberal opposition leader Isobel Redmond’s 2010 election campaign, said she did not want to capitalise on her political opponent’s misery, but expected his constituents in his conservative South Australian electorate of Mayo would be disappointed.

    Ms Sharkie, who was named as Xenophon Team’s federal candidate for Mayo this month, said she “voted with her feet” and left his office after sexist comments.

    “Certainly, I didn’t feel that Jamie and my personal values were aligned. There were things said that were misogynist in nat­ure,’’ she said. “His was typical of the attitude of the Abbott government: that women were either beauty queens or ironing ladies.

    “As a person living in Mayo I found it disappointing and I certainly feel for (Mr Briggs’) family, particularly his wife. I also feel for the public servant who showed great courage in speaking up.”

    Mr Briggs, who succeeded former foreign minister Alexander Downer in Mayo, fired back yesterday, saying Ms Sharkie’s comments were “a baseless claim made by a career opportunist”.

    While the Xenophon Team has worried Mr Briggs’s former frontbencher colleague Christopher Pyne in his neighbouring seat of Sturt, Mr Briggs’s 12.5 per cent margin was thought to have strengthened under Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership, given Mayo’s growing number of tree-changers moving to areas such as the Adelaide Hills and soft Lib­erals aligned with the new Prime Minister’s views on migration and climate change.

    But this week’s Newspoll analysis, published in The Australian, shows South Australia is the only state to put Labor ahead of the Coalition on a two-party-­preferred basis with 52 per cent support, putting the Mayo electorate in the crosshairs.

    Senator Xenophon plans to run upper house candidates in every state, and lower house candidates in NSW, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia.

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