Barnaby Joyce says the sexual harassment claim against him ‘is not the truth’

BARNABY Joyce has hit out at a damning sexual harassment claim and explained why he won’t be suing for defamation.

FORMER Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has again denied he sexually harassed a West Australian businesswoman back in 2016 but said he won’t be suing for defamation.

Catherine Marriott spoke to 7.30 in an interview last night, telling Leigh Sales the confidential complaint she made about the alleged incident came back to haunt her after it was leaked to media.

Ms Marriott alleges in August 2016 the former National Party leader sexually harassed her at a Canberra function.

An investigation into the allegations by the party was dismissed earlier this month due to “insufficient evidence”.

Appearing on the Today Show this morning, Mr Joyce denied Ms Marriott’s claim and said it was “defamatory”.

“I’m not going to start going through it, but I can — I have absolute clear recollection of everything from that day. I know the person very well. It is defamatory and I will leave it at that,” he said.

Despite the denial, Mr Joyce said he wouldn’t be suing Ms Marriott.

“What happens with defamation laws is when very rich people sue other very rich people because they have a solicitor ... I have tried that path before, all that happens is you get a very big bill,” he said.

Mr Joyce also denied Ms Marriott’s claim on Sunrise.

“It is not the truth and that’s probably the thing that annoyed me the most. I watched it last night and I’m no better informed now than I was at the start,” he said.

Catherine Marriott on 7.30. Picture: ABC/7.30

Ms Marriott, a former WA Rural Woman of the Year, lodged the confidential sexual harassment complaint in February through a lawyer friend.

Days later, the confidential letter had been leaked to the media and Ms Marriott found herself at the centre of a political and media storm. Mr Joyce promptly denied the allegations.

THREE THINGS WHICH MADE HER SPEAK OUT

Ms Marriott said the first thing which made her decide to take action was the growing guilt she was harbouring.

“I was living with this guilt and this growing anger about the fact that I’d spent my entire career building capacity in other people to stand up for what you believe in and everything and, yet, I didn’t have the strength within myself to face up to that,” she said.

“If I went to the police, it’s me versus him, which is a toxic space to be in. It will create no outcome for anyone else. It puts what happened that night on the public record and on top of that, I’m exhausted after eight months.

“I would have had to go through our court system which is two, three, four years long. How much would that cost me?

“How much is that emotional toll and yet I don’t get the outcome which I’m looking for which is to create change across Australian work places to help raise awareness of the fact that this is an issue that is costly. We do need to make changes.”

She said the Me Too movement partially inspired her to act.

Six months after the alleged incident, Ms Marriott heard the words of Dolly Everett, a 14-year-old girl who took her own life after relentless bullying.

In a picture before her death, Dolly had written, “Speak, even if your voice shakes”.

That quote prompted Ms Marriott to contact her lawyer friend and draft the complaint — but she was still terrified.

The sexual harassment complaint against Barnaby Joyce was found to be inconclusive. Picture: Kym Smith

“Little Dolly Everett left the world with wise words far beyond her years,” she said. “I was like take a good look at yourself ‘What’s wrong with you Catherine?’”

The third and final thing which prompted her to speak was a person who knows about the alleged incident.

She reportedly told Ms Marriott: “You’ve spent your entire career building capacity in young people, if you choose to say nothing and five years from now this behaviour is still going on, will you sleep at night?”

“And the answer to that was unequivocally no,” Ms Marriott said. “I wasn’t brought up to run away from things that frighten you, although it took me time to get courage.”

WHAT HAPPENED THAT NIGHT?

She told the ABC she didn’t want to go into the intimate details of the alleged harassment, because she didn’t want to let it define her and what she had achieved in her career as a successful West Australian businesswoman.

“I thought long and hard about this and I have no intention of talking about the incident,” she said. “My reasons for that is that I don’t want to be someone who is defined by that incident. I want to be able to have a career where the first thing that people think about when they meet me is not ‘that happened to her’.

“I want to meet and be able to have conversations to create influence with people I work with, that I will work with in the future without thinking that happened to her. I don’t want to be in a position where I’m a victim. I want to be in a position where I can continue the work that I have.

“Apart from that, every time I look on Google, I don’t want to have to relive what happened to me that night.”

Ms Marriott said she was prompted to speak out by the death of Amy 'Dolly' Everett. Picture: AAP Image/Victoria Racing Club Limited.

However, she revealed what happened shortly after.

“I walked up to my hotel room and I burst into tears,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep that whole night. I didn’t actually sleep for a week. I rang two of my closest friends and I told them what had happened and they said they couldn’t believe it. They were absolutely shocked. They said: ‘You can’t tell anyone, you cannot tell anyone, you will be destroyed’.”

Holding back the tears she said she dealt with the alleged incident by withdrawing from the reality of it.

“I ran away from it all and compartmentalised it and said: ‘I cannot deal with that’,” she said. “When it happened he was the Agriculture Minister and he was very popular at that time. I’m just a little human against a big system and I was terrified.”

‘ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE’

Wanting to keep it confidential, Ms Marriott called a good friend who is a lawyer. She wanted to raise a complaint, but didn’t want “anyone to know”.

“She wrote a confidential without prejudice letter to the National Party and then all hell broke loose,” she said.

“What happened?” asked Ms Sales.

“They leaked it,” Ms Marriott responded, as she burst into tears. “My name was leaked and that is one of the most frightening things that you will ever have to live through and you finally find the courage within yourself to stand up for what you believe in and then all control is taken away.

“I had people knowing my name without me being given permission. I was judged for —

I don’t know how I was judged but the control that I had of my own identity was taken away. “That’s something I will live with now for the rest of my life. I think it was unfair. It was horrific.”

Mr Joyce was battling his own media storm at the time, after it was revealed one of his staff members Vikki Campion was pregnant with his child. The then deputy PM was married at the time.

Ms Marriott’s complaint, one of the triggers that forced Mr Joyce to resign as deputy prime minister and National Party leader, was found to be inconclusive.

Ms Marriott is hoping her complaint will change the way political parties and any Australian company deals with sexual harassment allegations.

The WA businesswoman also maintained she never wanted the complaint to go public.

In February, the Ms Marriott released a statement through her lawyer Emma Salerno.

“On February 20, 2018, I wrote a formal letter of complaint to the Federal Executive of the National Party outlining an allegation of sexual harassment against Barnaby Joyce,” she wrote.

“I want to stress that I never intended for this issue to become public.

Ms Marriott was inspired by a drawing by Dolly Everett. Picture: Supplied

“I requested that a formal and confidential investigation into this incident be undertaken by the National Party to ensure there is accountability in relation to the incident I raise, and to prevent this type of inappropriate behaviour towards women in the future.”

She said the complaint “was not made solely to address the incident against me — it is about speaking up against inappropriate behaviour by people in powerful positions”.

An investigation into the allegations by the Nationals was unable to make a finding, the party announced earlier this month.

The party released a statement revealing the investigation was complete but the result would remain confidential.

Mr Joyce has always categorically denied Ms Marriott’s allegations.

“I absolutely deny any allegation of sexual harassment,” he told 7.30 in a statement.

“I asked that this be referred to the police if the complainant wished to pursue this issue so I had the capacity to defend myself, as I firmly believe the complaint to be spurious and defamatory.

“This allegation should have been dealt with immediately [after] the complainant first believed there was an issue they wished to pursue, and the passage of nearly a year and a half since the time of the event to when the allegation was raised has not allowed a clearer determination on this issue.”