She noted that while she would have voluntarily stepped down to avoid negative headlines, the hostile briefings made the exit unnecessarily painful.
"And afterwards they repeated that.
And it was painful because they could have said, 'Look, these headlines are awful, and it's not going to be nice for you to ride them out'," said Louise Haigh, Member of Parliament.
Ms. Haigh described the personal impact of the handling of her departure.
"And it wasn't.
And to be honest, I would have agreed, and I would have gone on that basis because I didn't particularly want to ride them out.
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It was embarrassing, and it wasn't pleasant to go through," said Louise Haigh, Member of Parliament.
She reiterated that the administration targeted her standing deliberately.
"But to pretend that I hadn't told him and to brief so consistently and so viciously for quite a number of weeks after that was a deliberate attempt to knock my character down," said Louise Haigh, Member of Parliament.
Ms. Haigh contrasted this experience with standard professional management practices.
"I've had to sack people in my political career, and you don't have to do it in a way that it's frankly so hurtful," said Louise Haigh, Member of Parliament.
She challenged denials regarding institutional problems within the former leadership team.
"You know, the idea that there wasn't a cabal of men that were deliberately mistreating women around the Government is just fanciful," said Louise Haigh, Member of Parliament.
