Federal Education Minister Alan Tudge has stood aside over abuse allegations, Prime Minister Scott Morrison told Parliament today.
Morrison said he asked Tudge to stand aside pending allegations from a Liberal staffer, who had previously been in a consensual affair with the Minister in 2017.
The fresh allegations centre on an incident back in 2017 when the two “drank heavily” and Miller received an early morning call while she was in Tudge’s hotel bed.
“It was about four in the morning and a morning media producer … was calling about the front page story we'd lined up. I started to talk to her to arrange a time, but I was still half asleep,” Miller said in a statement at Parliament House today.
“Then I felt someone kicking me on the side of my hip and leg. As I tried to sit up in bed. It was the minister, he was furious.”
Tudge denies the allegations, saying he “completely and utterly rejects Miller's version of events.”
After the allegations surfaced, the Prime Minister asked Tudge to step aside while an independent review seeks to establish whether he breached ministerial standards.
“I wish to stress that this action in no way seeks to draw a conclusion on these matters, but this is the appropriate action for me to take under the ministerial standards,” Morrison said.