Senior Labor senator Don Farrell has offered to mediate internal issues within the Greens after Jordon Steele-John released a statement denying allegations of inappropriate conduct.
The Special Minister of State — who is responsible for electoral matters — has said he would be willing to speak confidentially to anyone about allegations against the 32-year-old WA Greens senator.
Senator Steele-John has openly accused a “clique” within the Greens of orchestrating a preselection smear campaign in the wake of claims about his conduct towards female colleagues.
Allegations made from both inside and outside the party in relation to incidents between 2017 and 2025 were outlined in a letter sent to Greens leadership on Tuesday evening by seven staffers and party members.
Nine newspapers also reported last week that a secret 47-page crisis communications manual had emerged, cataloguing Senator Steele-John’s allegations and ways to shut down any media coverage.
But in a 15-page response posted to his social media on Sunday evening, Senator Steele-John denied the claims and offered graphic detail about the serious sexual misconduct allegations which he says stems from a former partner.
“It is no coincidence that the letter arrived at the Leader’s Office the day after we agreed on the timeline for the next pre-selection,” he wrote.
“It is my opinion that this is an attempt to influence forthcoming party pre-selections by deliberately leaking out of context or misleading information to smear potential candidates and myself.”
He said Federal Greens’ new leader David Shoebridge had “let him down” by announcing the WA senator had taken leave, which he labelled a “bad call”.
Senator Steele-John said his leader had “repeatedly” pressured him to say he would take leave during meetings between the pair before the allegations came to light.
“To be clear, I am not on leave and did not agree to the inclusion of that line within David’s statement ... I will continue to do my job in a way that supports my staff team, my family and my community.”
Senator Farrell told ABC News Breakfast on Monday that while no one had approached him, he was available to assist the minor party.
“As Special Minister of State, I have a special responsibility to deal with these issues if they come to my attention and I then refer them to the relevant bodies and I’d be happy to do so in these circumstances. Nobody has asked me to do that,” Senator Farrell said.
“If somebody comes to me, I’m happy to deal with the issue on a confidential basis, as I do every day of the week.
“That’s the job of the Special Minister of State. But if people have issues, my door is always open. I’m always happy to listen to try and resolve these issues.”
Senator Shoebridge has claimed the letter sent last week was the first he had heard of the allegations, which have since been referred to the WA branch of the party for independent investigation.
Senator Steele-John said in the statement he wanted any allegations investigated “fairly and thoroughly” as they were “extremely serious” but also noted they had been “made without specifics”.
If you or someone you know needs help, contact 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732), or Sexual Assault Counselling Australia on 1800 211 028, the WA Sexual Assault Resource Centre on 6458 1828 or 1800 199 888 or Lifeline on 13 11 14.
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