Alan Tudge with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton,who spoke of the attacks endured online by politicians on all sides.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
As Tudge,51,rose after question time to deliver his resignation speech,eight of his Liberal Senate colleagues visited the House of Representatives to pay their respects.
Watching above in the public gallery was Rachelle Miller,the former Tudge staffer who publiclyaccused him of emotionally and physically abusing her during a romantic affair. Wearing a plain white shirt,Miller sat alone,watching silently. She had come,she told confidantes,to gain a sense of closure after a traumatic period in her life. At one stage she was seen wiping away a tear.
Tudge began by saying his three children had put up with things “no teenager should have to”,including death threats as recently as last week. Putting aside partisan differences,Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton paid tribute to Tudge and agreed politicians’ families were often subject to vile abuse on social media.
“The online environment has created an opportunity for spineless people,and people without the integrity of most decent Australians,to conduct themselves in a way that they should be ashamed of,” Dutton said. In Tudge,he said parliament had lost a man of “great intellect”.
Before entering parliament in 2010 as the member for Aston,in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs,Tudge was a management consultant and an adviser to Brendan Nelson and Alexander Downer. He also served as deputy director of Noel Pearson’s Cape York Institute. As Tudge explained in his farewell speech,he was an unusual Liberal in that he was always most drawn to social policy rather than economics or national security.
A member of the party’s conservative wing,he supported Tony Abbott when Malcolm Turnbull challenged him in 2015. Three years later,he supported Dutton in the showdown against Turnbull and Scott Morrison.