Here’s how you do it and retain some of your dignity. Barry O’Farrell, April 2014:
“I’ve accepted that I’ve had a massive memory fail. I still can’t explain either the arrival of a gift that I have no recollection of or its absence, which I certainly still can’t fathom, but I accept the consequences in an orderly way.”
“As soon as I can organise a meeting of the parliamentary Liberal Party for next week, I will be resigning the position and enabling a new Liberal leader to be elected — someone who will then become the premier of NSW.”
O’Farrell forgot to declare a $3000 bottle of wine. David Feeney neglected to mention a $2.3 million house.
He railed against negative gearing, toeing the Labor Party line, but as it turns out the Northcote property is negatively geared. Now we learn he’s staying in a property owned by his wife in Canberra while collecting allowances — legal perhaps, but a distraction Labor leader Bill Shorten doesn’t need.
It might be last drinks, David.
Re use of a house in Canberra owned by his wife our forgetful Feeney is copying Hockey. Not even an original rort!!!
O’Farrell didn’t resign because he forgot to declare the grange, he resigned because he denied under oath – to ICAC- that he received it (a gift from a company involved in an investigation that is stil to be finalised).
This doesn’t excuse Feeney, but try and understand what the issue around O’Farrell was.
And it’s not as though the house was a gift.
Correct, whether it was unintentional or deliberate, O’Farrell got the chop for what he said and not what he did. Maybe Feeney’s mistake is worthy of a bullet but hundreds have done the some thing and hundreds more will; the value of the omission is not really the issue.
A different Labor candidate is in order. There is still time.
No discussion. No debate. He must go!
Feeney the Albatross.