ABC board member Georgie Somerset ‘present at Joyce pub fracas’

ABC board member Georgie Somerset has been dragged into the scandal engulfing Barnaby Joyce.

ABC board member Georgie Somerset and ABC staff elected director Matt Peacock during the ABC Annual Public Meeting in Ultimo, Sydney, last week.

One of the ABC’s newest board members, pastoralist Georgie Somerset, has been dragged into the scandal engulfing Barnaby Joyce with confirmation yesterday that she was present at a Canberra pub on the night he was accused of inappropriate behaviour towards women.

There is no suggestion Ms Somer­set, appointed to the ABC by the Turnbull government in February last year, witnessed any untoward behaviour by Mr Joyce, and she has offered no comment on the fact her name has been drawn into the saga.

It has been alleged Mr Joyce was drunk on the night in May 2011 when drinks were being held to celebrate the Rural Women’s Agriculture Awards. Many guests at the awards night, and at the pub later, were, like Ms Somerset, graziers and pastoralists. Mr Joyce was then a Queensland senator.

One of Mr Joyce’s political foes, John Clements, said he met Mr Joyce for the first time that night, and confronted him over his “drunken behaviour” after “one of my oldest friends, somebody I’ve known since she was a girl, told me she was upset with him”.

Yesterday, Mr Clements said “There is all this talk about how we (he and Mr Joyce) are bitter political rivals and how I’m his enemy, but I had never spoken to him before that night. I didn’t know he was going to run in New Eng­land one day, how could I know that? He was just a senator from Queensland.

“I went up to him and, I swear to you, the first words I ever said to him in my life were: ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Because he’d upset a girl I’ve known for 50 years.

“A circle sort of formed around him. And I tell him, ‘You should f..k off out of here’.

“I’ve got no reason to disbelieve her about what happened.”

The former independent member for New England, Tony Windsor, who is likewise one of Mr Joyce’s keenest political foes, tweeted yesterday that Ms Somerset was in the pub near the corner of Northbourne Avenue and London Circuit in Civic, Canberra, on the night in question.

He suggested on Twitter she was expected to make a formal complaint, but The Australian has been unable to ascertain what, if anything, she saw to complain about.

Mr Joyce is adamant his behaviour that night was entirely appropriate. He has threatened legal action against anyone who suggests otherwise. The Australian is not suggesting he was engaged in misconduct of any kind.

In remarks to the media earlier this week, Mr Joyce said: “The story is not the truth. It did not happen.” He said the story about his alleged misbehaviour that night had been put around for years and was pedalled by “bitter political enemies”.

Ms Somerset was one of 12 candidates to put up their hands for preselection for the Liberal National Party Senate seat vacated by Mr Joyce.