A senior Victorian government minister has apologised for questioning the state of mind of an MP who levelled serious allegations of bullying at the Labor Party, now being investigated by the workplace safety watchdog.
Kaushaliya Vaghela last month spoke out publicly about alleged sustained and debilitating bullying of her by individuals within the Victorian ALP, claiming her complaints were ignored and her confidence decimated.
Ms Vaghela claimed she suffered in silence for years and was treated as a nuisance by the Premier’s office when she initially made a bullying complaint in 2019.
Responding to Ms Vaghela’s comments, Treasurer Tim Pallas initially appeared to question the mental state of the embattled MP.
“It is worrying for me that she said that, and it goes toxjmtzyw her state of mind,” he said at the time.
“I can assure her, should she need assistance from the government, in any way, to help with her state of mind, we will support her in the way through this.”
But in an extraordinary backtrack on Tuesday – two weeks after he made the comments – Mr Pallas apologised over his “choice of words”.
“I’ve had the opportunity to look at the transcript of my comments,” he said.
“I regret my choice of words, I think it was pretty poorly structured and I unreservedly apologise.”
Ms Vaghela was first elected to parliament in 2018 to represent Melbourne’s outer west but was dumped from preselection for the 2021 election.
Following comments from Mr Pallas and Premier Daniel Andrews, Ms Vaghela accused the party of victim blaming after she came forward with her allegations.
“I have been sickened by the government’s victim-blaming attitude even going as far as questioning my state of mind and my motives by insinuating that I have recently made up these claims because I have not been preselected,” she said.
“I have been bullied from the day I got elected.”
Earlier this month Ms Veghela broke party rules and crossed the floor to vote with former minister Adem Somyurek to refer Labor’s red shirts scandal back to the Ombudsman.
At the time Ms Vaghela claimed branch stacking was “endemic” within Labor and that she felt compelled to speak out about corruption.
“I was a former staff member for the Socialist Left faction, so I know all about their branch-stacking activities and their electorate officers being used for factional purposes,” she said in a statement.
“If branch stacking and factional operatives working in electorate officers (sic) is corrupt, then the Socialist Left and all the other factions must be investigated.”
