Bill Shorten Is "Livid" After Flying White Wine Incident At Boozy ALP Party
Just WTF is going on at NSW ALP HQ.
When David Latham hurled a glass of sauvignon blanc into the face of one of Bill Shorten's most senior advisers last Saturday it was the final act of a man fed up with the NSW Labor party.
David Moir / AAPIMAGE
Latham (left) is the fiancé of Stefanie Jones (right) who is the woman who broke ranks and called out NSW ALP general secretary Jamie Clements for allegedly sexually harassing her in the workplace.
The scandal splashed on the front pages of the Daily Telegraph last month with the headline "Party of Filth". Jones claimed the party was led by sexist men. Bill Shorten's office had a simple message to the NSW ALP office on Sussex Street: make this go away.
Hours later Clements resigned and BuzzFeed News understands he was left with a redundancy package equivalent to 18 months pay on a backbench MP's salary... more than $180,000.
Many people thought the embarrassing soap opera had ended but at last weekend's NSW labor conference it reared it's head in dramatic fashion.
The incident, first reported by Crikey earlier this week, took place at a dinner for Labor's right faction on Saturday night. It was a boozy catch-up. Earlier in the day it had been revealed that Jones' fiancé Latham would leave his influential role as State Organiser and that he and Jones would be looking for new jobs.
Paul Miller / AAPIMAGE
In walked Ian McNamara (above); Bill Shorten's Director of Strategy. McNamara made comments to Jones that he thought she'd been acting for her personal/political benefit in revealing the harassment scandal.
Latham who was nearby decided at that point, he'd had enough and decided to throw what was left in his wine glass right into the face of McNamara.