The premier’s office was told a taxpayer-funded staffer was campaigning for a Liberal candidate and said it was not okay, but never followed it up, a parliamentary committee has heard.
Shari Minnikin-Smith told the Select Committee on Caretaker Conventions today she raised the arrangement during a meeting at the executive building.
“I explained that I’d been instructed by Jane [Howlett] to be somewhere else for Mr [Kerry] Vincent,” Minnikin-Smith said.
“And then I was asked the question, what are you doing that for? And I said, oh, I’ve just been, I’m doing what Ms Howlett asked me to do.”
“And then she said, oh, that’s not okay.”
She said the manager of the premier’s office later called back to say she would raise the matter with the premier’s chief of staff, but she never heard anything further.
Minnikin-Smith told the committee she spent about four weeks working exclusively on Kerry Vincent’s campaign for the Legislative Council seat of Prosser.
She said she was paid by Ministerial and Parliamentary Services throughout that period, calling into businesses and clubs across the electorate.
Minnikin-Smith said the instructions came from Jane Howlett, who had vacated the Prosser seat to contest the March 2024 House of Assembly election.
She said Howlett asked her to locate the Prosser database and provide it to Vincent, who was then a candidate.
Minnikin-Smith said she did not hold Vincent responsible for the arrangement.
“I don’t take Mr Vincent accountable for any of this. He never instructed me to do anything. It was all from Ms Howlett,” she said.
She said she did not believe Vincent knew she was being paid by Ministerial and Parliamentary Services.
Minnikin-Smith told the committee she was formally appointed as an adviser in Leonie Hiscutt’s office from November 2023 until April 2024.
She said she worked there for about two weeks before taking direction from Howlett, without a written variation explaining the arrangement.
Minnikin-Smith said the manager of the premier’s office told her in late 2023 to take direction from Howlett and nothing changed when Howlett resigned from parliament.
“The only thing that changed was I would have to pull up while I was driving to upload a Facebook post,” Minnikin-Smith said.
“I didn’t have an office to work from, so I worked from my car.”
She said she broke her arm in three places on 1 May 2024 while travelling to Agfest with Vincent.
Minnikin-Smith said she initially listed the Liberal Party’s state director on her workers’ compensation paperwork at his suggestion.
She said she then received a call from the manager of the premier’s office while she was in a hospital cubicle undergoing scans.
Minnikin-Smith said she was told to change the form to list the Department of Premier and Cabinet instead.
“I was being paid by Parliamentary Services and I was campaigning for the Liberal Party,” she said.
The manager referred to rejects a number of the assertions made by Minnikin-Smith.
Howlett rejected claims made by Minnikin-Smith when she appeared before the committee in August.
She said Minnikin-Smith worked for Ministerial and Parliamentary Services and volunteered across Lyons as a Liberal Party member.
She said she was sure she would have asked Minnikin-Smith to send campaign material to Tasman Peninsula residents but denied asking her to use her parliamentary email.
Howlett had described the email as an error the staffer apologised for.
“I don’t know if she used public resources or not,” Howlett said.
She pointed to an investigation the premier has asked the head of the state service to conduct.
Asked today whether she had been volunteering, Minnikin-Smith said she was not.
“Well, I actually find it quite offensive that she would think that,” she said.
A government spokesperson said the matters were being considered by a parliamentary committee.
“We won’t be providing a running commentary on those proceedings,” the spokesperson said.
