James Ashby

While he was in Rockhampton, RG Capital, the owners of 4RO were issued with a new FM licence enabling the company to establish a Sea FM station for the area to provide listeners with an FM alternative to 4RO. Ashby was tasked with helping set up the station, and became the new station's first announcer in October 2000, co-hosting the breakfast show with Joanne Spargo. He remained with Sea FM in Rockhampton until October 2001 when he was dismissed by station management. Reasons for his departure remain unclear but local media reported at the time that Ashby was considering taking legal action against the station following his dismissal. Ashby has since admitted he left Sea FM on bad terms, and was told that he would never work in radio again.^[4]

After leaving Rockhampton, he worked at Triple M in Brisbane for six months before moving to Newcastle where he was a drive announcer on NXFM. In October 2002, Ashby resigned from NXFM after he was charged with verbally harassing another radio presenter at rival station, NEW FM. It was alleged that Ashby made four offensive phone calls. Ashby said he received a $2060 fine and a three-year good behaviour bond as punishment.^[5][6]

He moved to North Queensland in January 2004, he continued his radio work, beginning work for DMG Regional Radio, doing various on air shifts at Townsville radio stations 4TO FM and Hot FM.^[7]

Before becoming media advisor for Peter Slipper, Ashby was employed as marketing manager for Gowinta Farms on the Sunshine Coast. In May 2011, Ashby appeared in media coverage, after an attempted poisoning of the crops on the farm, after poison was discovered in a water tank.^[8][9]

Ashby rose to prominence when he made allegations that he was sexually harassed by federal MP Peter Slipper. In 2012, Ashby alleged that while working as Slipper's media advisor, he was the victim of sexual harassment which consisted of unwanted sexual advances, hundreds of suggestive text messages and a request to shower with the door open at a Canberra unit.^[10]

In December 2012, the Federal Court dismissed the allegations.^[11] However, in February 2014, Ashby won an appeal against the decision to dismiss the case.^[12][13] Then, in June 2014, Ashby decided to drop the lawsuit entirely less than two weeks before it was due to commence. At the time, Slipper said he viewed Ashby's decision to withdraw the opportunity to have the allegations tested in court as being vindication against any wrongdoing.^[14] Several months later, Ashby said in a television interview that he had been promised a job and legal funding by Slipper's former party colleague Christopher Pyne, after telling him of the sexual harassment.^[15][16]

In 2015, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) raided the home of Ashby, and the home of Ashby's parents, during an investigation into allegations that former federal MP Mal Brough illegally obtained copies of diaries belonging to Peter Slipper, ahead of Ashby's sexual harassment case. The search warrants also related to any material associating federal MPs Christopher Pyne and Wyatt Roy, who were both suspected of offering Ashby inducements to complain about Slipper. Following the raids, Ashby agreed to be formally interviewed by police about the allegations of copying diaries belonging to Slipper.^[17][18] After the scandal, Ashby moved to Yeppoon, where he worked as a signwriter and pilot.^[19]

When details of Ashby's sexual harassment allegations first became known in 2012, ABC Television's current affairs program 7.30 aired allegations that Ashby had been involved in a relationship with a fifteen-year-old boy in Townsville, Queensland. The program reported that the boy, prompted by media coverage of Ashby's allegations, sent an email to Peter Slipper detailing the relationship he had with Ashby. It also aired contents of a Facebook message that Ashby allegedly sent back to the boy previously, just prior to commencing his role as media advisor. The program also reported that Peter Slipper had encouraged the boy to go to the police, but a few weeks later, Slipper himself wrote to Queensland Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson about the allegations, and forwarded on the email and the Facebook message. In a statement, the Queensland Police Service said they were in the process of determining whether any person was wanting to make an official complaint and whether there was enough evidence for prosecution.^[20][21]

When his claims drew criticism from politicians, Ashby lodged a complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission. His lawyers complained in May 2012 that senator and foreign minister Bob Carr had tweeted that their client "seems more rehearsed than a kabuki actor", and that senator Barnaby Joyce told media he was "only slightly less dodgy than Slipper".^[22][23]

In July 2012, ABC's 7.30 reported that Queensland Police were investigating allegations that James Ashby had sexual relationships with two 15-year-old boys in Townsville in 2003.^[24] The report stated that the allegations arose after a Queensland man contacted Peter Slipper following Ashby's sexual harassment case against Slipper.^[24]

The man alleged that he had a sexual relationship with Ashby in Townsville when he was 15 and Ashby was in his mid-twenties.^[24] ABC reported that the man's email to Slipper also alleged that Ashby ended that relationship to begin a relationship with another 15-year-old.^[24] The article quoted the man as saying, "I was 15 at the time, however what we did, under Queensland law, cannot be consented to under the age of 18."^[24]

ABC's 7.30 also reported that it had seen Facebook messages which it said Ashby sent to the man, and which the program described as confirming their relationship.^[24] ABC's AM program separately reported that 7.30 had sighted Facebook messages between the man and Ashby "talking about their relationship".^[25]

After receiving the material, Slipper urged the man to take the matter to police and later wrote to Queensland Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson on 26 June 2012, forwarding emails and Facebook messages.^[24] In his letter, Slipper wrote: "Although the allegations that have come to light predate Mr Ashby's employment with my office, they raise issues of possible criminal conduct. In these circumstances, I cannot ignore the allegations."^[24]

Queensland Police told ABC's 7.30 that the service was determining whether any person authorised to do so wished to make a complaint and, if so, whether there was evidence to support a prosecution.^[24] ABC reported at the time that it was not clear whether Ashby would have a case to answer.^[24] A spokesman for Ashby told ABC's AM program that Ashby had no comment on the allegations at that stage.^[25]

In 2015, Ashby became involved in Pauline Hanson's One Nation political party as media advisor. As Ashby holds a pilot's licence, he also spends time flying Hanson to and from political events and commitments around the country.^[19]

In November 2016, the chief of staff for senator Rod Culleton said that Ashby threw a phone at her after an argument. Hanson said it was an underarm throw and that the incident had been blown out of proportion.^[26][27] (In a similar incident years before, Ashby was alleged to have thrown a newspaper reporter's phone.^[28]) Also in November, Ashby told journalists not to ask off-topic questions at a press conference held by senator Malcolm Roberts.^[29][30] Former One Nation treasurer, Ian Nelson, has accused Ashby of directing One Nation candidates to use Ashby's printing business for getting campaign materials printed, saying that candidates feared becoming disendorsed if they did not use Ashby's press and that Ashby's rates were "more than the going rate".^[31] Following Shan Ju Lin's disendorsement from One Nation, Lin accused Ashby of deciding on Hanson's behalf that Lin should be disendorsed.^[32] Hanson has requested that Ashby sit in for her at National Broadband Network (NBN) committee meetings in April and on other occasions if need be.^[33]

In May 2017, an audio recording of Ashby suggesting that One Nation over-inflate prices on campaign material sold to their candidates for financial profit in upcoming state elections was leaked. In response, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull sought advice from the justice minister, Michael Keenan, and the Australian Federal Police while the Labor Party called for a police probe into the matter. Ashby and Hanson denied that the idea had ever been implemented.^[34]

In November 2017, Ashby called then One Nation member Stephen Lane, who was an independent candidate for the seat of Thuringowa, and threatened to cancel Lane's membership if he did not take down a video on his Facebook page explaining to the public that he was a One Nation member but had decided to run for the seat of Thuringowa as an independent because of the lack of transparency in the party. Lane later received a letter cancelling his membership.^[35]

In February 2019, Ashby was involved in a physical altercation with senator Brian Burston, who had made a sexual harassment claim against Pauline Hanson.^[36] The President of the Senate, Scott Ryan, stripped Ashby of his parliamentary pass after the incident, which prohibited Ashby from entering the building until the ban was revoked.^[37]

Ashby is gay.^[48][49]