Hugs, kisses and dread: the politics of sexual harassment
A Liberal adviser working for Craig Kelly alleges she was sexually harassed regularly by office manager Frank Zumbo in the MP’s private Sydney office.
A Liberal adviser working for Craig Kelly alleges she was sexually harassed regularly by office manager Frank Zumbo in the MP’s private Sydney office.
The former commerce-law student lodged a police complaint last November regarding Mr Zumbo’s alleged conduct when she worked for him as an electorate officer in his Sutherland office from June 2015 — when she was 21 — to June 2018.
The woman, the first to give a detailed interview of what it was like to work inside Mr Kelly’s office, spoke on condition of anonymity because she now works for a public official and is running for political office in Britain. But The Australian has obtained a copy of her police complaint and spoken to those in whom she confided.
The police statement details alleged incidents when Mr Zumbo exposed himself to her, grabbed her breasts repeatedly, frequently kissed her and lay on top of her in the back seat of his car.
The adviser, now 27, told The Australian of the trauma of the three years she spent working for Mr Kelly, saying she was hospitalised with stress and anxiety partly as a result of the ongoing sexual harassment.
“He’d say ‘it’s just a hug’, but it’s not just a hug, it’s a 50-year-old man who’s your boss sprawling all over you in the back seat of the car,” she said. “Or he’d say, ‘give me a hug goodbye’ and then he’d start kissing you.
“It was awful. I had to go home to a boyfriend who’d say ‘how was your night?’
“You just feel disgusting and used and scared to go into work again, but what else do you do? This is my job and it’s a good job.”
Her claims come amid continued debate about the treatment of women in politics after rape allegations by former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins against a colleague who worked with her for Defence Minister Linda Reynolds.
Mr Kelly this week defected from the Liberal Party in part because Scott Morrison asked that he replace Mr Zumbo, who is now the subject of a Finance Department investigation.
Mr Zumbo has separately been accused of inappropriate behaviour toward two women — one who was a teenage intern in Mr Kelly’s office — and is the subject of court action.
Mr Zumbo has denied wrongdoing and no charges have been made against him. He has claimed the earlier allegations were “uncorroborated, false and defamatory”. Through his lawyers, he firmly denied the allegations raised by the adviser in The Australian.
In a statement, the NSW Police Force said: “This investigation remains live and as such, we will not comment further.”
Mr Kelly said he had investigated the previous allegations and found they had no basis. Earlier this week he said he had provided a report about his investigation to the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, John Kunkel.
The woman who spoke to The Australian, said: “I don’t want to be seen as a victim and I also would have fear of what that would mean of getting hired again because I don’t want to be seen as someone who causes problems.
“I don’t want it to be the first thing that comes up when someone Googles me.”
Working for Kelly
The adviser met Mr Zumbo at the University of NSW, where he was her business law professor.
She recalls he “talked about how he ‘saw something special’ in me’’ and “asked if I wanted to work a couple of days during the university recess at Craig Kelly’s office”.
She worked two or three days a week for 18 months and became a full-time electorate officer for another 18 months.
None of the staff travelled to Canberra, and were not allowed to speak with other Liberal Party advisers, and were warned other staff were all out to get Mr Kelly.
“Initially, I really enjoyed the job I was doing and appeared to be good at it. Frank appeared friendly towards me and would often buy me lunch each day,” she said.
She alleges that Mr Zumbo started to become “more demanding” and insisted she greet him privately in Mr Kelly’s private office each morning — with the door closed.
Behind closed doors
Initially this private greeting was a kiss on the cheek and a hug, but before long Mr Zumbo allegedly tried to kiss the adviser on her lips each morning and would rub her breasts and try to rub his crotch on her.
“Before long he also wanted me to kiss him back on his cheek, which I did, but I expressed on numerous occasions that I would prefer not to kiss him back,” she said.
“Frank would say ‘stop being silly, we are friends and that is what friends do’. This progressed onto Frank trying to move his lips towards my lips, as I kissed his cheek, and was also accompanied by a hug where he would pick me up, by putting both arms around me and pulling me close to him, and rub me against him.
“This would involve him rubbing my breasts against his chest, but I would try to hold my legs away to avoid being rubbed against his genital area.
“As time went on, moving into 2016 and beyond, Frank would also begin the day with grabbing my breasts as I went in to hug him.
“This would mean that when I would greet him in Craig Kelly’s office, he would go to hug me, but then put his hands out to feel my breasts. He would also occasionally grope my arse in the office.”
The physical contact was accompanied, she alleges, by Mr Zumbo calling her inappropriate names. “Frank referred to me as sexy, or ‘a hot piece of arse’,” she said.
“When I raised with Frank that I was uncomfortable with certain things, he would tell me to be a team player, or that I was ‘more experienced than the other girls’ and that I should be used to it.”
Dinners and wine
The woman said that Mr Zumbo made it compulsory to go out for dinner at least once a week from late 2016 onwards and “would become very annoyed” if she did not agree.
At these dinners, Mr Zumbo would allegedly insist on her drinking to ensure she was “merry”.
After dinner, she alleges that Mr Zumbo would often ask for a hug which “would often lead to groping under the pretext of a hug”.
On one occasion, on April 8, 2016, Mr Zumbo allegedly sexually harassed her in an incident that was allegedly witnessed by two other people. The adviser has included this incident in her complaint to police.
“Frank put his arm around my back and pulled me close before pushing his face and lips up against my face and trying to kiss me,” she said.
“I pushed him away by putting both hands on his chest and saying ‘Stop, I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to kiss you’.’’
The pair had been at a restaurant in the city, with two other people, where one bottle of wine had been consumed.
A second bottle was finished after dinner and then Mr Zumbo allegedly “insisted” she drink another bottle of wine before she could go home.
She recalls being parked in Mr Zumbo’s car, somewhere with a view of the Harbour Bridge, and she has a recollection of being in the back seat of his car and Mr Zumbo trying to kiss her — but cannot recall what else happened.
She was horrified when she received a text message from Mr Zumbo that implied that sexual relations had unfolded.
“The next day I received a message from Frank saying ‘Thanks so much for a great night. I really hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I’m even more convinced that we’ll make a fantastic political team. How does that sound? Give me a call when you can’.’’
She says she asked Mr Zumbo multiple times what had happened but he would not tell her.
“I had no idea what had happened in his car that evening although I do remember being in the back seat of his car and him trying to kiss me, but I do not remember what happened beyond this point,” she said. “I confronted Frank about this at work in private. I asked him ‘what happened in your car on Friday night?’ All he would say back, was that ‘anything that happened, you were OK with’, and ‘we didn’t have sex, nothing like that, as we didn’t have a condom’.
“I did press him for more information, asking that if we didn’t have sex then what did we do, but he refused to say anymore or provide me with any details … still to this day I could not tell you what actually went on.”
In Zumbo’s car
On another occasion, in early 2018 after a meeting in Chatswood, Mr Zumbo allegedly drove her to the Bales Park car park in Willoughby for a cigarette.
“After my cigarette, he made me sit in the back seat of his car with him and tried to kiss me,” she said. “He got me into the back seat of the car, saying it would be easier to talk in the back. We were discussing work. Frank was sitting behind the drivers seat and I was sitting behind the passenger seat. He pulled me over to his side and was hugging me, trying to kiss me. I kept on saying that I didn’t want to do that as I had a boyfriend.
“I remember trying to break out of the hug, saying that it was wrong and after he got annoyed at me, he said that at the very least, I had to hug him.
“This meant we had to change positions and Frank laid down in the back seat and I had to hold him in my arms, for about five minutes.”
Controlling behaviour
The controlling behaviour extended into her private life; if Mr Zumbo saw she had an “active status” on Facebook, even outside of office hours, he would allegedly call her and say if she had time for Facebook, she had time to speak to him.
If she were active on Facebook at the same time as another female employee, he demanded to know whether they were speaking to each other.
She alleges he set up fake Instagram accounts to “check out” what they were doing. The women were banned from communicating outside the office; an order they defied to discuss the antics in the office.
On one occasion, Mr Zumbo allegedly took an employee’s phone and went through all of the employees’ messages.
Ending up in hospital
In 2017, with the stress of the alleged sexual harassment at work, and the stress of a difficult relationship outside the office, the adviser ended up in hospital suffering from anxiety and severe stomach pains.
“Whenever I’d go into work, we’d end up yelling. And just the thought of having to go in and have the one-on-one talks with him,” she said.
“I couldn’t face getting out of bed.
“They said it was stress and anxiety that was causing me to have severe (stomach) pains.”
She confronted Mr Zumbo at least once in 2017 and accused him of sexually assaulting her, but he allegedly threatened to sack her and say that her claims were as a result of being terminated.
She said she wanted to leave but she alleges that Mr Zumbo told her she wouldn’t get another job in politics if she left the office.
“He told me I wouldn’t,” she said.
“He said ‘if you leave this office, that will be it; I know people and you don’t have a career unless it’s with me’.’’
Courage to leave
What she describes as “the final straw” working in Mr Kelly’s office came when she had a fight with her boyfriend in May 2018. She called the police.
“I was meant to be seeing Frank that Saturday evening, and sent him a text message cancelling as I wasn’t feeling well,” she said.
“Within the hour Frank had turned up uninvited to my house and insisted that I get in the car right away and come with him and another colleague. He said I had to go to the comedy show as it was a job requirement and I had promised to spend the evening with him.”
When she arrived at work the following week, Mr Zumbo allegedly became angry at the adviser for trying to cancel, with the argument taking place in front of another colleague.
“He told me that I was a bad friend to him and he was the victim in this situation as he had been used and lied to by me,” she said. “I did not return back to the office after this day.”
Alleged exposure
The next month, in June, the woman says Mr Zumbo took her for dinner to make amends. She only accepted hoping to get a reference for her move to Britain, which she felt she needed to break into politics,
After dinner, which was attended by a third individual, she says Mr Zumbo stopped at Willoughby Park and exposed himself to her.
“Frank put his arm around me while sitting on the park bench and began kissing my cheek, which was one prolonged kiss,” she said.
“I looked over at Frank and noticed he had taken his penis out of his zipper on his pants. I began crying while saying ‘Frank I don’t want to do anything like that. Please just take me home’. Frank tried to encourage me by saying ‘Come on’ but as I continued crying, he put his penis away.”
‘He saw us crying’
Mr Kelly allegedly saw several woman crying in the office, but, according to the adviser, looked the other way. “Craig himself — and this is what frustrates me — he would come into the office and he would see girls crying, Frank would tell him to leave and he would just turn around and leave,” she said.
“He says he did an investigation and couldn’t find any evidence so can’t fire Frank. He should have been looking. If you’ve got all these young girls in the office and see them crying or hear them screaming and yelling at Frank because we had full-on fights.
Mr Kelly told The Australian that he had never heard “yelling arguments” between staff. “Certainly over a 10-year period, like any workplace where staff are working in a small office, there have been differences of opinions — and disagreements — but these have never escalated into ‘yelling arguments’,” Mr Kelly said.
“In 10 years of knowing Mr Zumbo, I have not witnessed Mr Zumbo engage in any improper conduct in my office or outside my office.
“Mr Zumbo is entitled to natural justice and the presumption of innocence. He has not been charged with any offence. I have had extensive discussions individually with my current staff and they have no complaint against Mr Zumbo.”
The adviser’s mother said she had felt “horror” when she read her daughter’s statement to police. “It was almost like, oh my god, I should have trusted my gut instinct, I should have known better,” she said.
“I had my suspicions because I wondered why he was dropping her at home at 2am but he wormed his way into our lives … to make it seem like he was a godfather to her. Because of his power and position in society, and how he got her into politics, I sort of pushed my instinct aside.”
