Friday, September 17, 2010



Another conviction, another cover-up

So in addition to one of the major drivers of our criminal justice policy having an assault conviction and a penchant for stealing the identity of dead babies, it turns out we have a Transport Minister with multiple convictions for careless driving. This isn't minor stuff, like speeding tickets; one of those convictions is for careless driving causing injury - meaning he seriously hurt someone while behind the wheel.

Joyce has voluntarily disclosed it now - but as with Garrett, he should have done it in 2008, before he ran for Parliament. If he'd done that, I doubt it would have mattered - it was 20 years ago, and a crime of negligence (though still a fairly serious one from the charge). But still, its the sort of thing the voters deserve to know. Covering it up just makes us feel we were lied to by self-interested politicians concerned primarily with image control than letting us make up our own minds about who should represent us.