View from The Hill: Shoebridge and his defiant senator at loggerheads over leave

The Greens’ internal crisis has escalated dramatically, with Leader David Shoebridge and Jordon Steele-John at odds over whether the embattled senator should, or agreed to, take leave while allegations against him are investigated.

Last week, after a letter from several (non-parliamentary) Greens members about the Western Australian Senator Jordon Steele-John’s alleged inappropriate behaviour towards women, Shoebridge said the WA Greens were conducting an investigation and the senator was taking leave from the party room.

But Steele-John, in a 2450 word statement late Sunday, challenged Shoebridge’s account, declaring he’s not on leave “and did not agree to the inclusion of that line within David’s statement”.

And just in case Shoebridge might try to enforce leave, Steele-John pointed out, “The leader of the Australian Greens doesn’t have the power to place a Greens MP on leave from Parliament, the party or the formal Party Room”.

In light of Steele-John’s move, Shoebridge on Monday called a party meeting and then issued a statement through a spokesman.

That said

Senator Shoebridge remains of the opinion that leave is appropriate under the circumstances and reiterates that this in no way prejudges any of the matters being referred to an inquiry commissioned by the WA Greens. It was the understanding of Senator Shoebridge that leave was agreed.“

Shoebridge believes Steele-John should not be in parliament while the matter is under review. Parliament is not sitting this week, but Senate estimates are on next week. It is not clear what will happen if the leave question is not resolved by then.

The issue blew up last week after it was reported a number of party members sent a letter to Shoebridge saying they were aware of allegations over years about Steele-John’s behaviour "in the presence of women”.

The letter did not set out detail and the signatories were not complainants. It’s understood one is no longer a party member.

In his Sunday statement Steele-John dealt with three matter in relation to the letter.

The first is the letter’s reference to his nickname “feels on wheels”. He says this arose when he became emotional in speeches about the royal commission into disability. He regarded this mocking as “the kind of ableism and discrimination I continue to face in my workplace”. Later, however, the phrase had taken on “a new, more sinister meaning” – that he had acted inappropriately towards women.

The second matter was a 2024 alleged incident of sexual harassment at a Greens campaign event. Steele-John says there are no details so he doens’t know how to respond.

The third matter goes to his interactions with a woman he dated in 2925. He claims the woman was abusive towards him and when he ended things she bombarded him with messages, sent “invoices” for thousands of dollars, and a report was made to police alleging sexual harassment. There were no charges.

Steele-John also replies to media reports about a “dossier” which he says arose in the wake of a 2016 dispute between himself and two friends.

His opponents “took rumours of that conflict (between friends in their early twenties) and tried to shop them to journalists as part of a smear campaign in the months before Greens members would vote on whether I should continue as a Greens Senator. They did this without the consent of the two women at the centre of it.”

Later a document of information about was produced, which included a statement from one of the women “making it clear that the original issue did not involve any form of sexual harrassment”.

“The whole point of the ‘47-page dossier’ was to make sure that what they said was believed and accurately reported,” Steele-John writes.

Steele-John alleges the leaks to the media against him are in the context of coming pre-selections – although he personally does not face preselection because his term runs to 2031.

The Greens are a highly factionalised party, stretching ideologically from militants (notably former deputy leader Senator Mehreen Faruqi) to moderates (notably Senator Sarah Hanson-Young).

Some are always unhappy. After the election of Shoebridge as leader Faruqi was particularly aggrieved about the election just being done by the parliamentary party rather than the party at large. She vowed to continue to speak her mind.

Over the years, scandals have plagued the party outside parliament.

Within the parliament, the last term saw the defection of Victorian Senator Lidia Thorpe to sit as an independent, while this term WA Senator Dorinda Cox left to join the Labor party.

At the 2025 election the Greens lost three of their lower house seats including that of then leader Adam Bandt. Last parliament the Greens party room numbered 16 (before Thorpe’s defection). Now it has 11, including 10 senators and one lower house member.

The Steele-John affair has now become a serious management issue for a leader whose feet are hardly even properly under the new desk.