SteeleRedux is absolutely correct with their comments on this topic...and LOOK! They also provided the evidence to support their case.

You will note that Cash (a female) was going to name only females in her scurrilous threat.

From the record - Senator Cash: Again, Senator Cameron, you would normally not discuss staff matters, for very obvious reasons. I mean, if you want to start discussing staff matters, be very, very careful, because I'm happy to sit here and NAME EVERY YOUNG WOMAN in Mr Shorten's office over which rumours in this place abound. If you want to go down that path today, I will do it.

What? Cash doesn't know any rumours about men in parliament she would like to out or spread?

And to think she was once the Minister for Women...lol

We all know Turnbull is as weak as water, but this was a classic "Let me shoot myself in the foot moment" by Cash and once again it has made Turnbull look even "weaker than water" if that is possible...lol

And then she gets shielded from the media by security using screens... Unbelievably infantile behaviour.

https://www.perthnow.com.au/politics/federal-politics/under-fire-senator-michaelia-cash-screens-herself-from-the-media-using-whiteboard-ng-b88761124z

Like Joyce she has to go... But is Turnbull tough enough to do it immediately when he should have... NOPE!

This will drag out for a few more days or so and then hopefully he will develop the intestinal fortitude to practise what he preached the week before on work standards in Parliament house.

Maybe he could create a new department and make Cash the Minister of Rumour Spreading....But only about female staffers... lmao

What a pathetic example again showing all that is wrong with our parliament and our parliamentarians!

Dear Opinionated2,

It was so out of kilter with what had come before her comment.

From Hansard

Senator CAMERON: Have you employed a replacement?

Senator Cash: Have I employed a replacement what?

Senator CAMERON: A replacement for your chief of staff.

Senator Cash: Yes, I have, but the person has not yet commenced.

Senator CAMERON: Who is that?

Senator Cash: Well, it's none of your business, quite frankly, who it is. You don't normally name staff, Senator Cameron. We go down a very dangerous line when you start naming staff.

Senator CAMERON: Senator, you know—you've been around for such a long time and you're supposed to be a lawyer—that anything that deals with public expenditure is a legitimate area to ask a question on, and that's what I'm asking.

Senator PATERSON: A point of order.

Senator Cash: The particular person has not yet commenced in my office, so there is no public expenditure involved.

Senator CAMERON: Has it been—

Senator PATERSON: A point of order, Chair: it's certainly a well-accepted convention in Senate committees that staff are not unnecessarily or needlessly named where it's not relevant, and I can't see what the relevance is here of this person's identity being revealed.

Senator CAMERON: Did this person who you won't name come from the department or one of the regulatory agencies that you oversee?

Senator Cash: No.

Senator CAMERON: Your new chief of staff, will he or she come from some other Liberal political office?

Senator Cash: Senator Cameron, again, this person is well qualified and has been taken on board because of their skill set that they will bring to my office.

Senator CAMERON: It's a simple question. I'm simply asking. Did he come from another Liberal office—he or she?

End quote.

Then bang she was into it. There is absolutely no case to be made that she was "defending her own staff from insinuations of some improper morals or integrity of her new chief-of-staff" as the OP asserted. The very definition of a partisan hack.

You are absolutely correct again SR... Not even the crazy right wing loons on here have jumped on Banjo's side.

Top Effort Banjo... You could teach "How to isolate yourself in 1 easy lesson classes" and have Cash as your guest speaker. You could both try to remove each others feet from your own mouths..lmao

So what does your foot taste like Banjo?...lmao

From what I know of office rumours is that they are 90% of the time they are pretty accurate. That staffers work in a pressure cooker environment, and seldom get to see other people means that generally, they are shagging each other.

Of course, this is really no one's business unless of course you are labor and can make political capital of it.

That Senator Carr called a lib senator a Nazi which is far worse seems to have slipped under the radar.

whether it Bishop, Payne or Cash it shows you why quotas would be a diaster. And then we look at the Labour women and it gets worse.

runner, I'm not sure I follow your logic. It looks like you think their terrible performance is the result of them being women! Are you really that sexist?\
If not, what exactly do you mean?