Liberal turncoat Julia Banks faced own claim of bullying

Female executive assistant compensated after making bullying complaint against former Lib MP.

Former Liberal MP turned independent Julia Banks at a Flinders candidates’ forum at Dromana Community Hall last night. Picture: David Geraghty

A young female executive assistant working for pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline was paid compensation after making a bullying complaint against former Liberal MP now independent candidate Julia Banks.

Ms Banks, who defected from the Liberal Party claiming she had been bullied and that the ­Coalition was anti-woman, last night did not deny a settlement was paid in the GSK case.

In 2010, when Ms Banks was a corporate lawyer in Melbourne for GSK, a complaint was made that she was bullying an executive assistant at the company.

The complaint was investigated and GSK paid compensation to the female assistant with an agreed confidentiality agreement.

The executive assistant left her job when the complaint was investigated after working at GSK for 13 years. Ms Banks, who joined GSK in 2009, continued to work for the company until 2014, two years before she entered parliament.

Last night, Ms Banks did not deny the bullying complaint, the compensation or the confidentiality agreement when asked by The Australian.

She said: “Confidential employment matters of GSK should be referred to GSK.”

When approached earlier by The Australian, GSK declined to comment and said the company did not discuss private details of employees.

Ms Banks was the only Liberal candidate to win a Labor-held seat at the 2016 election, claiming the Melbourne seat of Chisholm.

Her resignation from the Liberal Party to join the independent crossbenchers in the House of Representatives after the removal of Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister and her criticism of Scott Morrison created chaos for the Coalition.

She caused an uproar when she said she would not recontest the seat because of “cultural and gender bias, bullying and intimidation” of women in politics.

She described bullying and intimidation as a “scourge” in politics, the media and business, and said she would continue to fight for gender equality because women had been “silent for too long”.

Ms Banks refused to name the Coalition MPs she said were bullying her as Labor used her claims to accuse the Prime Minister and the Coalition of failing women. She said people knew she would “always call out bad ­behaviour and will not tolerate any form of bullying and ­intimidation”.

In a television interview, Ms Banks said the Liberal Party was decades behind the business world in relation to women. “I thought the Liberal Party would be a slick corporate machine, but it wasn’t that at all … in relation to women, it was decades behind the business world,” she said.

After becoming an independent, Ms Banks decided to contest the seat of Flinders, held by Health Minister Greg Hunt, who supported Peter Dutton in the first leadership spill against Mr Turnbull.

Ms Banks attended a Flinders candidates’ forum last night. The Australian revealed last September that a leaked Liberal Party report contained allegations that Ms Banks mistreated campaign workers. She strongly denied the claims, which were included in an official post-election campaign report into her successful 2016 campaign for the seat of Chisholm.

The Liberal Party was told in the report: “The campaign went through a number of staff and ­volunteers. I believe it important to put on record the way staff and volunteers were treated as I have never seen anything like this ­before. It was almost like the candidate (Ms Banks) thought there was a platoon of volunteers sitting at home ready to jump at a ­moment’s notice. The expectations were completely divorced from reality.’’

The Australian is not suggesting the allegations made against Ms Banks are accurate, only that they have been made.