I’m no bully: Scott Morrison hits back

Scott Morrison has hosed down suggestions he bullied NSW Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, who launched a scathing attack on his behaviour and lack of conscience.

Scott Morrison has hosed down suggestions he bullied NSW Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, who launched a scathing attack on his behaviour and lack of conscience amid calls from Labor for the matter to be ­investigated further.

Senator Fierravanti-Wells, who on Saturday lost a preselection battle that has put her in an almost unwinnable spot on the Senate ticket, said the Prime Minister had “no moral compass” and used his faith as a “marketing tool”.

“Morrison is not interested in rules-based order. It is his way or the highway. An autocrat, a bully who has no moral compass,” she said on Tuesday night.

The Prime Minister said the senator was “disappointed” that her time in parliament was coming to an end.

“When people are dis­appointed, they say things,” he said. “Five hundred members of the Liberal Party went to a preselection and they didn’t select Connie.”

He said Senator Fierravanti-Wells should take any “real complaints” through the Liberal Party’s proper processes.

Anthony Albanese said Senator Fierravanti-Wells’s allegations should be reviewed. “It’s extraordinary that a sitting serving senator, who’s been a former minister, who has served alongside in the ministry with Scott Morrison, says he is unfit to be Prime Minister,” the Opposition Leader told the ABC.

“I think those comments do say a lot. And the Prime Minister who has been quick to talk about the need for reviews and the need for inquiries, I await his response.”

Liberals slammed any comparison between a need for an inquiry into Senator Fierravanti-Wells’s claims and one into claims that late Labor senator Kimberley Kitching was bullied.

NSW senator Hollie Hughes said Senator Fierravanti-Wells’s allegations were “not strong” and the two cases were “completely different”.

“Connie in no way has been isolated by the party at all. Connie has made her own decision on how she related to her colleagues. She has been in the Senate for 18 years,” she said.

“There should be an investi­gation into what happened to Kimberly. We all know what was going on. She was being ostracised, she was being isolated, and the fact that Anthony Albanese is refusing an inquiry (and) he is defending his alleged ‘mean girls’ is absolutely the most hypocritical thing I have ever seen.”

Another Liberal source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Senator Fierravanti-Wells’s characterisations of the Prime Minister’s disdain for preselections had been “quite accurate”.

And former Victorian Liberal MP Julia Banks, who announced she would retire from politics citing “bullying and intimidation” from within her own party, backed Senator Fierravanti-Wells’s comments as well.

She tweeted that while she had “not agreed” with Senator Fierravanti-Wells on many things, “on this occasion” she supported her sentiments.

One Nation senator Pauline Hanson also said in the Senate that Mr Morrison “was a bully” .

“(The allegations) are from a woman who’s given a lot to this parliament, who’s represented the people of NSW to the best of her ability,” Senator Hanson said.

“This is not a Prime Minister for the people. He’s a bully. And I back the senator up completely with that. He’s a bully because I have ­experienced it myself. He’s a man where you do it my way or there’s no way.”