Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard defended her appointment of Peter Slipper as Australia’s speaker yesterday after court documents alleged he used his position to pursue sexual relations with male employees.
The married Slipper, 62, stood aside from his role on Sunday after claims he harassed former staffer James Ashby, 33, with explicit text messages, unwanted advances and inappropriate comments between January and last month. He is also accused of fraudulently misusing taxpayer-funded taxi services.
In court documents published yesterday, Ashby accused Slipper of “using his position to pursue relationships of a sexual nature with young male employees.”
Photo: Reuters
Ashby, who is openly gay, claimed the Australian Commonwealth knew that in 2003 Slipper had a sexual relationship with another younger male member of his staff.
He alleges the commonwealth “failed to take reasonable and effective steps to prevent [Mr Slipper] from utilizing his office to foster sexual relationships with young male staff members.”
Ashby is seeking compensation and orders for his former employer to undergo counseling and anti-discrimination training.
Slipper has denied all the allegations. Besides the civil proceedings over the harassment claim, he is also facing an investigation into the possible criminal misuse of taxi vouchers.
News Limited newspapers published more allegations yesterday, claiming he also breached rules relating to travel entitlements of members of parliament.
Slipper defected from Tony Abbott’s opposition Liberal Party last year so he could be appointed speaker. It stripped one vote from the opposition and shored up Julia Gillard’s ruling Labor Party’s wafer-thin hold on power.
Gillard said she had not spoken to him in recent days, but defended her judgement in engineering his promotion to the role last year.
“I don’t claim to know Mr Slipper personally or well but I formed a professional judgement about his ability to do the job,” she told reporters in Singapore.
“And Mr Slipper, as he has done his work as speaker, has kept firm control of the parliament particularly during what can be quite a raucous period — question time,” she added.
However, she said it was appropriate that he stood aside.
“Australians rightly expect parliamentarians to play by the rules and to uphold the respect and integrity of the Australian parliament,” she said.
With Slipper unable to vote while he stands aside, Gillard’s Labor government is on a parliamentary knife-edge, having their numbers in the lower house reduced to 74 while the opposition has 73 votes.
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS