Launched in a blaze of publicity, Ryan v Rugg settles in a whimper

Political activist Sally Rugg has quietly settled her unfair dismissal claim against independent federal MP Monique Ryan and the Commonwealth for a modest sum, with no admission of fault by her former boss or the government.

The anticlimactic end to a lawsuit launched three months ago in a blaze of publicity was reached on April 28, with Rugg accepting an offer of about $100,000 to abandon her claim. All sides have agreed to pay their own legal costs, sources with knowledge of the settlement negotiations confirmed.

In happier times: Kooyong MP Monique Ryan and her then-chief of staff, Sally Rugg, at an AFLW game.

The in-principle settlement is subject to the parties agreeing on the wording of a final deed. Once completed, it will spare Rugg and Ryan from giving evidence in a case which, for all its public fascination, had become a bruising affair for both women.

It also leaves untested a previously little known provision in the Fair Work Act which allows employees to refuse unreasonable requests by their bosses to do additional work.

Had the case gone to trial, Federal Court Justice Debbie Mortimer would have been asked to determine what working hours are reasonable for political staffers trying to meet the needs of MPs within the intense demands of a parliamentary sitting week.

Rugg’s high-profile lawyer, Maurice Blackburn partner Josh Bornstein, previously described his client’s claim as a test case with implications beyond Parliament House.

Sally Rugg (left) and her partner, actor Kate McCartney. outside the Federal Court in Melbourne in March.Credit: Paul Jeffers

“If Ms Rugg’s case succeeds, it will open the door for further litigation including class actions, not just for employees of the Commonwealth but for every Australian worker experiencing exploitation because of a contractual obligation to perform undefined ‘reasonable additional hours’,” Bornstein said last month.

Instead, the settlement was reached within days of Rugg’s legal team lodging an amended statement of claim, which sought to expand the case against the Commonwealth and personally draw in Prime Minster Anthony Albanese.

Sources familiar with the negotiations said the settlement offer was essentially unchanged from early March, when Rugg failed to secure an injunction to stop Ryan ending her employment.

Taxpayers will foot the bill for the Commonwealth and Ryan’s court costs.

Independent MP Monique Ryan outside the Federal Court in March.Credit: Jason South

Rugg and Ryan declined to comment on Monday.

The abandoned lawsuit brings to an end an unlikely and ultimately, ill-fated partnership between a former director of neurology at the Royal Children’s Hospital and a former campaign director of GetUp!, in their new respective roles as MP for Kooyong and chief of staff, in the heady months after last year’s federal election.

Ryan and Rugg initially formed a close working relationship, which included attending AFLW matches together and introducing their families to one another as they tried to find a way to realise Ryan’s ambitious political agenda with Rugg as her only full-time adviser.

This followed a decision by Albanese to cut the Commonwealth’s staffing allocation to independent MPs from four advisers to one.

Although Rugg was nominally employed as Ryan’s chief of staff, her base salary of $136,607 is the pay rate set for a junior adviser. Rugg received an allowance of $30,205 to compensate her for “reasonable additional hours of work” but within months of starting her job, a disconnect emerged between what Rugg and Ryan considered reasonable.

An already strained relationship fractured in November last year, shortly before the Victorian election, at a time when Ryan was frustrated by difficulties of the “teal” movement to have an impact at the state political level.

On November 22, Rugg dismayed her boss by catching a flight home from Canberra to Melbourne shortly after testing positive to COVID-19. “I wish you’d let me know you were considering doing that,” parliament’s most demonstrably COVID-cautious MP told her then-staffer.

Rugg was effectively sacked by Ryan a month later, on December 23, with Ryan telling her that the termination would take effect on January 31 this year.

A week before her employment was due to formally end, Rugg initiated legal proceedings in the Federal Court.

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