The WA Opposition Leader Shane Love has emphatically denied allegations of bullying and harassment levelled at him by an MP. Upper House Nationals MP, Louise Kingston, sensationally announced she was quitting the party last night, in a move that has left the Nationals with just two sitting members re-contesting their seats next year.
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00:00As MPs were preparing to call it a day, Anne emotional Louise Kingston using parliamentary
00:07privilege to claim she's been relentlessly bullied and harassed by the WA Nationals leader.
00:13The MP didn't elaborate on her accusations, which Shane Love absolutely denies, pointing
00:19to the fact Ms Kingston has never lodged a complaint about him.
00:22Of course such an accusation would make you reflect.
00:26I can think of nothing that I've done which would make Louise feel that way.
00:30Louise Kingston only entered parliament last year, replacing disgraced former MP James
00:35Haywood who was jailed for child sex offences.
00:38But the South West MP was unlikely to be re-elected, having been dropped down the party's ticket
00:44a fortnight ago.
00:45I think that this is as a result of a difficult and bruising pre-selection process, but we've
00:53gone through that and we have now pre-selected candidates for the upper house who are great
00:57champions for regional Western Australia.
01:00The decimation of the Liberals at the last state election left the WA Nationals as the
01:05official opposition party here for the first time.
01:08But of the seven Nationals elected, five have now announced they're either quitting the
01:12party or resigning at the next state election, leaving just Shane Love and his deputy Peter
01:17Rundle as the only sitting Nationals recontesting.
01:21Is your role as leader still tenable?
01:23Absolutely.
01:24I've got the full support, as I understand, from my party.
01:30The allegation was aired as the federal Nationals leader landed in Perth for the WA Farmers
01:34annual conference.
01:36There are structured processes put in place, as I understand it, not just within the National
01:40Party but also within the Western Australian Parliament and they should be respected.
01:45There's a deep principle in this country that there's a presumption of innocence.
01:49While here, Mr Littleproud is also hoping to convince former WA leader Mia Davies to
01:54join him in Canberra when she retires from state politics, an idea she hasn't ruled out.