Adelaide, Nov. 21 (ANI): The Premier of South Australia, Mike Rann, has been dragged into a sex scandal after a former parliament barmaid revealed that her clandestine affair with Rann had involved sex in his Parliament House office on several occasions when parliament was sitting.

In a paid interview with the Seven Network, Michelle Chantelois detailed how a near-decade-long friendship with Rann became an intimate relationship, News.com.au reports.

Rann faces a state election in March 2010.

And his spokesman flatly rejected the claims of a sexual relationship and said Rann was very concerned for his family.

“We’ll watch the program and issue a statement afterwards. We’ll see how badly they beat this up,” he said.

Justifying why she had decided to go public about her relationship with Rann, Chantelois said: “It’s not something that I like to discuss on a public level but in my case I’m at the point where I feel like I have to come clean. I’m tired of the lies and I’m not holding it in any more.”

“I’m taking responsibility for my own bad behaviour and Mike Rann should take responsibility for his own behaviour,” she added.

Rann’s links with Chantelois have been the subject of intense speculation since her estranged husband Richard Wayne Phillips was charged with assaulting the Premier with a rolled-up magazine in September.

Following that alleged assault, Rann described Chantelois as a “terrific person, great mother, and she became a friend. When she left Parliament House we stayed friends. My wife was very aware of her.”

Rann first met the US-born Chantelois when she worked at a high school in his electorate of Ramsay in Adelaide’s north. The friendship blossomed when she got as job as a waitress in the state parliament bar and dining room. (ANI)