Elise Archer's resignation from Tasmania's Liberal Party — what it means for the government and an e

#elise #archer #parliament #tas
You could have been forgiven for not paying attention to the news last Friday afternoon; The weekend was approaching and perhaps you were caught up in AFL or NRL grand final dreams. If this is you, you may not have noticed that shocking changes have taken place in the Tasmanian parliament, with the Liberal minority government losing a finger or two in its loose grip on power. The bullying investigation and subsequent leak of Attorney-General Elise Archer's damaging text messages led to the prime minister asking her to resign from the cabinet. Instead she resigned from the Liberal Party, throwing the minority government into disarray. Here's what this is all about and whether it means we'll have to call early elections. First of all, who is Elise Archer? Elise Archer is a lawyer and former Hobart City Council councilor who was first elected to parliament as a Liberal MP at the 2010 state election. After Liberals formed government in 2014, Archer became the first female speaker in House. Over years, member for Clark rose through cabinet until he reached position of attorney general, highest-ranking legal official in state. Here's some important context you need to know to help you understand what happened this weekend Ms Archer is one of the MPs who apologized in parliament to Liberal MPs for the groans heard during Question Time in response to a question from an abuse victim-survivor. She later denied that she had moaned and said that then-Prime Minister Peter Gutwein had asked her to apologize. Ms. Archer has a family member who is a victim-survivor of abuse. More on why both are important briefly. Ms Archer denies the bullying allegations against her. On Thursday last week newspapers reported that at least two of Ms Archer's current or former employees had made bullying allegations against Ms Archer with the Anti-Discrimination Commissioner. Prime Minister Jeremy Rockliff later confirmed an investigation had been launched into the allegations. But on Friday the Australian newspaper published a leaked set of damaging WhatsApp messages sent by Ms Archer. Later in the day, Mr. Rockliff said he learned that another text message from Ms. Archer, which had not yet been published, was “unacceptable by any standard” and asked her to resign as attorney general and take a seat on the bench. Mr Rockliff said one of the text messages was "unacceptable by any standard". Ms Archer instead resigned from the Liberal Party and stated that she would also resign from parliament, which would lead to a recount of Clark's seat. But lawmaker never sent his resignation letter to the governor and said over weekend that he was reevaluating his options. On Monday morning, she said she was still "taking time to consider whether I would remain [in parliament] as an independent." "I need some time," she told ABC. He resigned from the Liberal Party ✅ Resigned from parliament ❌ What were the leaked messages that led to this? But Mr Roc