Former senator Brian Burston acted in a “deranged and disturbing” way to a younger staffer he allegedly sexually harassed and then unfairly dismissed, the Federal Court has been told.
In her closing address on Tuesday, Sue Chrysanthou SC said after Mr Burston sexually harassed Terri-lea Vairy for months, he made up reasons to fire her.
This included that she disobeyed his direction not to have sex in a taxpayer funded apartment.
“That he believed that he had a right to dictate whether Ms Vairy had sex at night in an apartment in Canberra … that is deranged and disturbing and terrible conduct towards his employee.”
Mr Burston’s first response is to “deny, deny, deny” and then when he is caught with documents or by CCTV footage, he “tries to make up a new story”, Ms Chrysanthou said.
Earlier, One Nation chief of staff James Ashby gave evidence on behalf of his boss Pauline Hanson, who is being sued for defamation by Mr Burston.
Mr Burston says the One Nation leader accused him of sexual harassment on social media, via a text message to his wife and during a television interview.
The 74-year-old denies all allegations as entirely fabricated.
Mr Burston’s barrister Bruce McClintock SC asked Mr Ashby if it was appropriate to call his client a “traitorous c***” in a text following messages from Mr Burston after the senator left One Nation for the United Australia Party.
He said it was because Mr Burston was a traitorous senator and he “has a habit of using that word himself”.
“Your client is a serial text pest,” Mr Ashby said.
Mr Burston had a “revolving door of staff” who were “cowardly” dismissed via email, letter, or text message, and he was approached about the senator sexually harassing his staff, he said.
Ms Vairy told him in January 2019 that Mr Burston was making her “very uncomfortable,” that he had tried to put money down her top, touched her all the time, and continually commented about her “sexiness”.
Another staffer, Wendy Leach, also approached Mr Ashby saying Mr Burston “had offered her a good f***”, because she wasn’t feeling well.
Mr Ashby penned a speech for Ms Hanson to read, and denied it was a direct attack on Mr Burston but a shot at other “disgraceful” members of parliament who behaved badly towards their staff.
A day later, Mr Ashby was informed Mr Burston had made historical sexual harassment allegations against Ms Hanson that were to be published.
Mr Ashby was waiting for Ms Hanson to leave a dinner so the pair could “prepare” for the story.
He said he wanted to film Ms Hanson in the parliament’s marble hall when Mr Burston entered the frame.
Mr Burston told him to “f*** off” and grabbed the mobile phone, he said.
Mr McClintock said it was obvious Mr Burston did not want to be filmed.
“That’s fair to say,” Mr Ashby said.
“Don’t you think it was courteous to stop filming?” Mr McClintock said.
“It didn’t matter how courteous you were to Mr Burston. He had a fixation on making life very miserable for Senator Hanson and myself,” Mr Ashby said.
“I owed your client no courtesy.”
Following the scuffle, Mr Burston smeared blood from his hand on Senator Hanson’s door “like some hex”.
“We were all miffed by it.”
Ms Chrysanthou said Mr Burston originally denied the “disgusting and bizarre” blood-smearing but was caught “red-handed” by a security camera.
Ms Hanson gave an interview with the Seven Network shortly after, calling Mr Burston’s allegations she sexually harassed him “so hilarious” and “an absolute joke”, the court was told.
The trial continues.
