Prime Minister Julia Gillard at ease in Question Time / Pic: Kym Smith Source: The Daily Telegraph
Dumped ... Labor Senator Trish Crossin / Pic: Daniel Hartley-Allen Source: The Daily Telegraph
DUMPED Labor Senator Trish Crossin has revealed the brutal details of the night her political career was terminated at the Lodge in an "unfair dismissal", including the moment the Prime Minister told her: "I am offering you nothing."
Ms Crossin, who will be awarded a taxpayer-funded pension for life when she leaves politics at the next election, has confirmed she asked Julia Gillard for an appointment to a board or an ambassadorship on learning she would be dumped, a suggestion angrily rebuffed by the Prime Minister.
Accusing the Prime Minister's office of asking her to sign off on a press release that falsely claimed she backed the installation of Olympian Nova Peris as her replacement, Ms Crossin also said Ms Gillard had conceded she would win a rank-and-file ballot.
However, she said Ms Gillard insisted her "legacy" as Labor leader must include installing an Aboriginal woman in the Senate.
Supporters of Kevin Rudd's return to the leadership are using the story of Ms Crossin's political execution to try to push Gillard supporters to switch camps this week amid claims Mr Rudd is closing the 71:31 gap at the last leadership ballot to just a handful of votes.
Admitting she had nothing left to lose, Ms Crossin said her treatment should prompt MPs to think long and hard about Ms Gillard's judgment. "I do think people are now seriously questioning how she might behave in the future," she said.
"She can't do anything else to me now. People have said to me, 'I could be next. What if I am next?' Of course, it was unfair dismissal."
Many MPs had assumed Ms Crossin was sacked by phone but it has emerged she was ordered to fly to Canberra to attend a meeting at the Lodge, suspicious of what it meant but oblivious to the fact Ms Peris was already travelling to Canberra to be announced as her replacement.
Ms Crossin had spent the morning in Melbourne organising the sale of her elderly mother's home to raise a nursing home bond before flying to Canberra for her political execution.
She told the Prime Minister: "I don't think I am here for a sleepover", prompting Ms Gillard to admit she was not endorsing her for the Senate seat and would be backing Ms Peris to replace her. Ms Crossin also confronted Ms Gillard over whether her dumping was a result of her support for Mr Rudd - a suggestion the PM rejected.
Instead, Ms Crossin said Ms Gillard again insisted it was about her "legacy" as Labor leader. "I said, 'Is there something for me - a board position, an agency, an ambassadorship'," Ms Crossin said.
"She said, 'I am the Prime Minister, I don't get involved in organising those sort of arrangements'. I said to her, 'Well, that can't be possible you are just about to organise a Senate preselection unilaterally. And surely if you wanted people to go willingly you would arrange for life after politics for them'.
"That's when she said to me, 'I've got nothing to offer you. I am offering you nothing'. People have said to me, what are you getting from this? Where are you going? And when I have said to them 'well, nothing, absolutely nothing', they are quite surprised.
"They are shocked at the brutality of it.
"They are shocked at me personally because I am a hard worker."
The next day, Ms Crossin was sent a draft press release by the Prime Minister's chief of staff Ben Hubbard which included a line from Senator Crossin endorsing Ms Peris as her replacement, despite her telling the Prime Minister she would not do so. Senator Crossin instructed the Prime Minister's office to remove the line from the official press release because it was a lie.
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