Premier Jeremy Rockliff asks Attorney-General to resign

Mr Rockliff asked Ms Archer to hand in her resignation after he was made aware of remarks that were "unacceptable by any standard and unequivocally fall short of expectations for a minister of the crown".

"I cannot accept a culture of belittling and a culture whereby people are not valued and respected for the work that they do," Mr Rockliff said.

Mr Rockliff said Ms Archer will also resign from parliament.

"Deputy Premier Michael Ferguson will be acting Attorney General and I will take the remaining portfolio of responsibilities," he said.

"I thank Ms Archer for her service."

Mr Rockliff said he would announce a new cabinet make-up in a few days.

Ms Archer was first elected to parliament when the Liberals were in opposition in 2010.

Prior to that, she served on the City of Hobart council.

Ms Archer was the first female to be appointed as House of Assembly speaker in 2014.

She served as a cabinet minister from 2017.

Ms Archer is married to former Tasmanian Liberal Party president Dale Archer.

Labor earlier in the day called for Mr Rockliff to stand down Ms Archer while an investigation into bullying allegations and poor workplace culture in her office took place.

Labor's Dean Winter has said Mr Rockliff pledged to take a zero-tolerance approach to bullying in the midst of the release of Anti-Discrimination Commissioner Sarah Bolt's Motion for Respect report last year.

The Australian newspaper reported that as part of Ms Bolt's investigation into parliamentary work spaces and following the investigation, complaints about Ms Archer were raised with her

It has also been reported that Ms Archer is believed to have sent messages criticising Mr Rockliff and his predecessor Peter Gutwein.

WhatsApp messages show that Mr Rockliff was described as "too gutless to be leader" and that Mr Gutwein had a glass jaw and was prone to "knee jerk reactions like a child".

Mr Rockliff on Friday said he had been made aware of information outside the remarks that had already been reported.

"Those remarks are unacceptable by any standard and unequivocally fall short of expectations for a minister of the Crown," she said.

"As a consequence of this Ms Archer is no longer a member of my cabinet."

Mr Rockliff denied he had asked for Ms Archer's resignation due to the "gutless" text.

"I cannot accept culture of belittling and a culture whereby people are not valued and respected," he said.

In a Facebook post, Ms Archer took an outgoing swipe at Mr Rockliff.

"It is clear to me that the leadership of the Liberal Party continues to fail to support ambitious women," she said.

"It takes incredible strength and resilience to be a woman in a senior government role and to strive to be treated the same as male colleagues, despite many years of dedicated, hardworking service."

Mr Rockliff said he rejected that he did not support his female colleagues.

Ms Archer last year was questioned at the budget estimates table last year about the high staff turnover in her office.

Labor presented statistics which showed seven staff members joined her office and eight left in 2019-20, another four left in 2020-21 after five new staff members joined and eight new staff joined last year, but six others left.

When asked whether there was a workplace culture issue within her office, she said the work undertaken by her staff was difficult and complex and that she regularly took on people from the Justice Department on secondment.

"I would never, ever stand in the way of a staff member who frequently come from the department to go back to their substantive role or indeed, as is often the case, a higher position," she said.

"Also, they often come to get experience within a ministerial office."

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