Victorian Liberals accused of sacking staffer in retaliation for bullying claims

The Victorian Liberal Party has been rocked by damaging claims from a former staffer that she was sacked in retaliation for blowing the whistle on bullying within the party’s headquarters.

Nadine Jones has made the claims in an unfair dismissal application lodged with the Fair Work Commission, as the party struggles to contain fallout from Moira Deeming’s defamation victory over John Pesutto that has split the state party room, left the former leader facing bankruptcy and embroiled three former Victorian premiers.

Victorian Liberal Party state director Stuart Smith sacked Nadine Jones after a failed mediation.Credit: Simon Schluter

Jones’ application is yet to be formally accepted by the commission. The Victorian Liberal Party is not yet required to file a defence. Sources within the party, but unauthorised to discuss it publicly, say all allegations are denied, that there was no record of earlier complaints from Jones and that she was lawfully terminated for misconduct.

Jones was stood down as executive director of the party’s fundraising arm, Enterprise Victoria, the day before the federal election was called and the morning after state president Philip Davis made a faux pas about Gina Rinehart at a $10,000-a-head dinner.

Enterprise Victoria executive director Nadine Jones at a separate function.Credit: LinkedIn

“On the eve of the announcement of a federal election, the director and president chose to stand down the party’s most successful fundraiser in five years, following the party’s and [Enterprise Victoria’s] most successful event in five years, based on retaliation and self-interest,” Jones alleges in her Fair Work application lodged last week.

State director Stuart Smith, on March 27, gave Jones 24 hours to respond to three claims of workplace misconduct – giving away complimentary tickets to a lunch, and disclosing confidential as well as financial information to third parties.

She has rejected the claims as false, misleading and unfair. Smith also wrote in the stand-down letter that she had been performance-managed for months, which she further disputed in her Fair Work application.

Smith formally sacked Jones on May 14, the day after a failed mediation meeting, claiming further breaches had been discovered in the weeks since she was stood down.

She has now made a 36-page statement for a Fair Work application claiming she was set up to fail, excluded, given unachievable key performance indicators, denigrated, and was the target of a more than year-long campaign to “get rid of Nadine”.

Her application refers to discussions within a WhatsApp group, which is understood to have involved Smith and other staff.

Philip Davis was elected Victorian Liberal Party president in 2023.Credit: Simon Schluter

Jones claims she was stood down in retaliation for making bullying complaints against Smith and Davis, and for Davis’ embarrassment over the Rinehart incident. She claims she was then sacked in retaliation for taking her case to WorkCover.

The Liberal Party declined to comment on the allegations.

The Age has seen the Fair Work application lodged against the party last week, Jones’ witness statement, and the stand-down and termination letters issued to Jones. The same documents have been provided to all members of the party’s 19-person administrative committee, which includes Opposition Leader Brad Battin.

The administrative committee has separately received a request to intervene in the damaging dispute between Deeming and Pesutto by authorising the use of party funds to pay for or loan the money for legal costs owed by the former leader to his party room colleague.

Deeming last year successfully sued Pesutto for defamation before the Federal Court after he falsely implied she associated with neo-Nazis. Battin replaced Pesutto as party leader weeks after the judgment.

The court this month ordered Pesutto to pay Deeming $2.3 million in legal costs by this Friday. Deeming’s lawyers have flagged their intention to pursue third parties for costs — including former premiers Jeff Kennett, Denis Napthine and Ted Baillieu and serving MPs Georgie Crozier and David Southwick — if Pesutto is left bankrupt.

This masthead has spoken to a dozen party members and staff who requested anonymity for this story.

Four Liberal sources said standing Jones down from the fundraising body on the eve of the federal election hampered campaign fundraising efforts.

The complaint against Smith and Davis emerged at a time when the party organisation and its office holders were under intense pressure to account for the party’s disastrous result in last month’s federal election, at which it lost two more suburban seats to Labor. Both men were contacted for comment.

The latest federal election drubbing follows successive Liberal wipe-outs at the previous two state elections.

Suggestions by supporters of Smith and Davis that Jones’ complaint was part of a bigger factional play for control of the party have been rejected by four sources close to Jones.

Battin has privately canvassed a clear-out of senior positions at party headquarters to end infighting and become electorally competitive in Victoria, several sources have confirmed to The Age, although Battin has publicly disputed this.

Jones, in her Fair Work application, claims she had almost quadrupled Enterprise Victoria’s membership in the two years in her role, and that annual revenue had increased about fivefold. She claims she was the target of a misinformation campaign about her performance to legitimise standing her down.

She is seeking compensation for lost income, unpaid commission and damages.

Gina Rinehart was a guest at a recent Liberal Party fundraising dinner at Zagame’s House in Carlton.Credit: Trevor Collens

The Fair Work claim provides further details about a March 26 fundraising dinner at Zagame’s House on Carlton’s Lygon Street that Jones secured Rinehart for, in what was seen as a coup for the party. Davis rebranded the Enterprise Victoria event as a Victorian Liberal Party function and insisted on hosting. Jones offered him speaking notes, but according to Jones’ claim, Davis replied: “This is not my first rodeo.”

He then introduced Rinehart as a sponsor of Netball Australia, which Jones in her application describes as a “very public and embarrassing gaffe”. Hancock Prospecting withdrew its $15 million four-year sponsorship with Netball Australia in 2022 amid a flurry of headlines after Diamonds players said they did not want to wear uniforms featuring the mining company’s logo.

Jones was stood down the next day. She claims the misconduct allegations against her had never previously been raised and that the action was retaliatory.

The party, in its stand-down letter to Jones, accused her of improperly giving complimentary or discounted tickets to an earlier $2000-a-head lunch with Western Australian senator Michaelia Cash without approval, sharing confidential and financial information, and using her private email and device to transmit and store sensitive party information.

Jones disputes the characterisation of the claims and argues they were contrived.

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