The former Deputy Leader of the Victorian Greens has been accused of attempting to kiss a university student working in his office as an intern. The ABC can reveal Sam Hibbins, who announced on Saturday he's quitting politics, agreed to be excluded from working with parliamentary interns after the incident.
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00:00It was half way through Sam Hibbons first term in parliament.
00:06In 2016, Harriet was a La Trobe University student doing a parliamentary internship
00:11working with Mr Hibbons.
00:13I spent the whole semester in pretty regular contact with Sam and I met with him a bunch
00:21of times.
00:22In November 2016, after attending one of Mr Hibbons' community meetings, Harriet says
00:27he invited her for a drink.
00:29At the end of the drink, I thought he was coming in to embrace me, but he tried to kiss
00:36me on the lips.
00:38Harriet says she turned her head away.
00:41He pulled me in close and whispered in my ear, I shouldn't, and I said no, and then
00:50he kind of released, like walked away.
00:55Harriet reported the incident to her university in 2016.
00:59Emars from La Trobe Uni to Harriet say the parliament's internship team said he would
01:03not be assigned any interns in the future, however he says he was two years later.
01:08I was 23, I was an unpaid student intern and he was a member of parliament.
01:15Harriet lodged a formal complaint with the parliament in 2018, during which she was represented
01:20by a La Trobe University staff member.
01:23I wasn't physically at the meeting, it happened without me.
01:27Emars show the parliament met with Mr Hibbons on the 1st of June 2018.
01:32An emars from that day states Mr Hibbons recalled and acknowledged the events contained in Harriet's
01:37allegations.
01:38It said he agreed to stop taking part in the parliament's internship program.
01:43In a statement, Mr Hibbons told the ABC he absolutely disputed the sequence and detail
01:48of the events, and said the version of events the ABC put to him was not raised in 2018.
01:54Early this month, Mr Hibbons left the Greens after having an affair with a staffer.
01:59I felt angry and frustrated because he said that it was a human mistake and that it was
02:05a lapse of judgement, but I just don't accept that that is what it is.
02:11Mr Hibbons' resignation, the day after the ABC put questions to him, paves the way for
02:16a by-election in Paran.
02:18The Liberals and the Greens have confirmed they'll contest the seat, but Labor's yet
02:22to decide whether it will field a candidate.