Richard Marles’ chief of staff Jo Tarnawsky resigns in bombshell press conference

The chief of staff to the Deputy Prime Minister has made bombshell allegations of bullying in the nation’s highest offices after resigning from her job.

In a press conference on Thursday morning, Jo Tarnawsky said she had made reports of bullying and other inappropriate behaviour among staff in Richard Marles’ office, and felt she was then driven out of parliament.

Her initial complaint did not contain any allegations against Mr Marles.

But her lawyer, Michael Bradley, told reporters Mr Marles ultimately made the call to dismiss Ms Tarnawsky.

“So what happened was Jo raised a legitimate concern about issues within the office of the deputy prime minister, including bullying behaviour, and the response to that was to effectively drive her out of her job,” he said.

“Jo accepts that it’s a relationship of trust and confidence, and if that trust and confidence isn’t there, then of course, it can’t continue.

“She’s like every worker in the country, entitled to fair treatment, procedural fairness and her rights as as an employee had not been respected.”

Ms Tarnawsky called on the Prime Minister to take action on her allegations.

“The Prime Minister has committed the government to parliamentary workplace reforms, to ensuring the safety of women in this building and to higher standards in the ministerial code of conduct,” Ms Tarnawsky said.

“I asked the Prime Minister, I asked the Prime Minister to hold these commitments in full. No political party is immune from poor, poor workplace behaviour, but the real test is how they handle it when it happens.”

The allegations come after the government passed legislation establishing a new independent body to crackdown on bad behaviour in parliament.

Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission (IPSC) began operations on October 1.

MPs also voted yesterday to create a joint committee on parliamentary standards to oversee the new codes of conduct.

More to come.