Coalition colleagues On 7 February 2006, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Heffernan had been forced to apologise to National Party senator Fiona Nash after a public altercation at Canberra Airport the previous day, during which he had told her to "blow it out her backside". Senator Heffernan said the airport altercation with his fellow Coalition Senator was just "a bit of colour and movement". But National Party MP De-Anne Kelly described the incident as "workplace harassment", saying "workplace harassment is not acceptable anywhere". On 7 July 2006, the ABC program Stateline in NSW aired claims that Heffernan was involved in the downfall of former NSW opposition leader John Brogden. Alex McTaggart, independent member for Pittwater, his wife Denise, and Peter Jones, a member of McTaggart's campaign team, claimed on the program that Heffernan contacted them and said that he was the Prime Minister's [Howard's] right-hand man, and did his 'dirty work'. The McTaggarts claimed that Heffernan told them he had a dirt file on Brogden, said that Brogden needed to be 'paid back', and tried to lure them into publicising material damaging to Brogden's character. Heffernan denied these claims, and was quoted on the program saying that they were 'bullshit'. On 20 May 2012 allegations were reported in the media that Heffernan struck a fellow Liberal party member and suspended electoral officer, Ray Carter, so hard that he was toppled onto a chair, before allegedly whispering to him "I didn't know you were a poofter." during a branch meeting on 3 May. The president of the NSW Liberal Party, fellow New South Wales Senator Arthur Sinodinos, dismissed the allegations. Wood Royal Commission In 2015, Heffernan used parliamentary privilege to allege that he had a document, allegedly produced to the Wood Royal Commission, that listed the names of 28 people, including prominent lawyers, suspected of visiting a "boy brothel" in Kings Cross. He stated in parliament that a former Prime Minister was among the names. Other use of controversial language In a public lecture given on 27 September 2005, political opponent Mark Latham accused Heffernan of engaging in the "politics of personal destruction", and quoted John Hewson (a former Liberal Party leader) as saying that John Howard had used Heffernan to distribute dirt and to run his agenda against individuals "for almost as long as I have known him". In October 2006, Heffernan called for "someone's arse to get kicked"