Julia Banks will stay in place until election says Scott Morrison

Scott Morrison believes backbencher Julia Banks will continue to vote with the government and remain in office until polling day.

Liberal Member for Chisholm Julia Banks during Question Time in the House of Representatives at Parliament House in Canberra, Tuesday, May 8, 2018. (AAP Image/Mick Tsikas) NO ARCHIVING

Prime Minister Scott Morrison believes his retiring backbencher Julia Banks will continue to vote with the government and remain in office until polling day.

Asked today about her future voting intentions, Mr Morrison indicated that he expected her to back the party and remain in her Melbourne seat of Chisholm until polling day.

He said Australians were not interested in political distractions.

”I have got no truck with bullying,’’ he said while campaigning in Melbourne.

“I’m setting the standards for the future of my party and people know what to expect. And that’s what I’ll demand from them.’’

Mr Morrison has been actively involved in trying to keep Ms Banks in the seat until polling day and ensure that she votes with the government.

The government is worried that the pressure of the bullying controversy will force an early exit from politics

Ms Banks announced after the recent leadership change that she was quitting politics, in part due to bullying from both sides of politics.

The Australian revealed today Ms Banks has also been ensnared in the controversy over political conduct, with the leaking of a report that contains allegations she mistreated campaign workers.

Ms Banks has strongly denied the claims, which were included in an official post-election campaign report into her successful 2016 election tilt for Chisholm.

The confidential report was written by a veteran Liberal political adviser, as a formal post-­campaign briefing to party headquarters, and sent to then-Victorian Liberal director Simon Frost under a formal review process to help improve campaigning at future elections.

The existence of the report, which sources said had been circulated locally, emerged after Ms Banks quit politics.

Ms Banks last night emphatically denied the report’s allegations, saying: “Should such false allegations be published I reserve my full legal rights.’’

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

Mr Morrison said today: “I am satisfied that I have the right structures in place within our party and through our party whips and through the support provided by colleagues to deal with all issues within the party.’’

He said the Victorian Liberal Party had dismissed the 2016 report quoted by The Australian.

Mr Frost’s replacement, Nick Demiris, said last night: “It is only in recent days that members of the (current administrative) ­committee have heard of its ­existence.’’

Mr Demiris, who took over as state director a year ago, asserted that the party did not have a record of the report and claimed that it was not commissioned by the party. The Australian believes that the party has full knowledge of the report.

Mr Demiris said: “The party also wishes to make clear that Julia Banks was never given a chance to respond to any report. Julia Banks is a respected member of the Liberal Party.’’

The report into Ms Banks’s campaign detailed how at least two women and two men quit the campaign. Ms Banks was afforded two full-time staff from Liberal headquarters and given $250,000.

The report, which was received by party headquarters after the 2016 election, states that some of Ms Banks’s meetings with the local Liberal federal electorate council and the Chisholm campaign committee in 2016 were marked by “snide and sarcastic comments and often descended into raised voices and bitter ­accusations’’.

“There is no other way than saying her treatment of most members of the FEC was appalling and would be completely unacceptable in a workplace let alone a volunteer organisation,’’ the party report says.

“FEC members were extremely frustrated with the candidate’s attitude and performance.’’

After one adviser quit, Ms Banks is accused of blaming the woman behind her back for problems with the campaign.

The report says that an elderly male volunteer, aged about 75, had arrived at the campaign office distressed after allegedly excessive, late-night demands over election posters.

And when one woman quit the campaign, her male replacement lasted two or three weeks before quitting to work on the Kooyong campaign for now Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, the report said.

Despite the internal battle in the seat, Ms Banks was lauded after the campaign for having been the only Liberal candidate to win a seat from Labor in that election.

Victorian Liberal president Michael Kroger would not comment on the report but said: “As far as we were concerned, Julia was an excellent candidate.’’

The report said Ms Banks had described herself as the campaign director in the seat, which is in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs.

“This led to a ‘top down’ approach to the entire operation of the campaign, meaning that if any of the people underneath her disagreed with something, they were seen as undermining her and the campaign and they would quickly be marginalised,’’ the report said.

“They would then be denigrated to their face and behind their backs sometimes for weeks afterwards.’’

The Morrison government hierarchy is deeply concerned that Ms Banks will further imperil the government by forcing an early by-election because of the constant scrutiny that has followed her controversial resignation.

Chisholm is held with a margin of just 2.9 per cent and would be virtually impossible to defend at a by-election.

When Ms Banks quit politics, she claimed to have been the victim of bullying from both sides of politics. A former corporate lawyer, she is also a property owner with multiple inner-city properties and a bayside holiday home.