Labor is demanding Premier Jeremy Rockliff come clean on whether further taxpayer money has been spent on Jane Howlett’s legal fees.
It comes after a parliamentary committee hearing on Friday revealed the former minister had been involved in a previously undisclosed TASCAT dispute.
The proceeding was brought by a former Liberal staffer who approached the committee herself, offering to give evidence about her time working for Howlett.
The call comes on top of the $405,000 in taxpayer-funded legal fees already confirmed for Howlett’s Integrity Commission and potential Supreme Court matters.
Shadow integrity minister Ella Haddad said the evidence heard on Friday made it clear there were legal matters beyond what had been publicly disclosed.
“Jeremy Rockliff needs to investigate all of the evidence that was presented on Friday, but he also needs to make it clear whether there’s been further taxpayer money spent on Jane Howlett’s legal fees,” Haddad said.
She said the $405,000 figure only came to light after weeks of sustained questioning in parliament.
“He didn’t come forward with that information easily,” she said.
Rockliff said his understanding was that no taxpayer money had been used for the TASCAT matter.
“Any proceedings when it comes to legal proceedings … we’re having routine disclosures, which we’re committed to,” he said.
He said the government was also working on a better system for how legal indemnities are granted.
Haddad said the Premier’s assurance was not enough given his track record on the issue.
The committee heard on Friday from Sharee Minnikin-Smith, who was appointed to the office of Liberal MLC Leonie Hiscutt in November 2023.
She told MPs that within two weeks she was working “100%” for Howlett, doorknocking, letterboxing, building contact lists and staffing campaign event, despite Hiscutt being her formal employer.
Minnikin-Smith told the committee she raised concerns internally but was repeatedly shut down and that after telling her employer she could no longer work in Howlett’s office she was advised to resign.
Her employment was ultimately terminated by the Department of Premier and Cabinet.
“Following the termination of my employment, I lodged an application with TASCAT concerning my treatment,” she said.
“Those proceedings occurred during the 2025 election campaign. And were ultimately discontinued.”
Minnikin-Smith had written to the committee secretary last month, offering to provide evidence about the 2024 election and caretaker period.
The next day, after being asked whether anything had been happening around the 2025 election, she wrote again to say her “TASCAT proceedings involving Jane Howlett” had coincided with that campaign.
The committee’s terms of reference concern the 2025 caretaker period and Liberal MP Marcus Vermey repeatedly objected on Friday that the evidence related to 2024.
Chair Tabatha Badger twice overruled him, saying the hearing members had already voted to hear it and that Vermey had been party to that vote.
Asked at a press conference on Sunday why an ex-staffer from several years ago had been called rather than staff with more current knowledge of the caretaker issue at hand, Haddad pointed to the substance of the evidence.
“It doesn’t pass the pub test that the government could be using their extraordinary resources to pay somebody under the false assumption that they’d be working as a parliamentary adviser to actually work full-time on a political campaign,” she said.
A state government spokesperson said on Friday that “an ex-employee” had made a “series of incorrect claims under parliamentary privilege”.
Haddad rejected that response.
“When they’re confronted with evidence given under oath like that from a private citizen who has nothing to gain but tell the truth, their job should be to test that evidence and not just attack the person who’s giving it,” she said.
Howlett quit cabinet in June amid criticism over the mounting legal fees and claims she misled parliament about a TasRacing text message sent during the 2025 election campaign in support of the Liberals’ TasInsure policy.
