Advertisement

“Resign, Bernie!” Jay lays down the law

Premier Jay Weatherill has called on disgraced former colleague Bernard Finnigan to resign immediately from parliament, saying a guilty verdict on a child pornography offence was “utterly inconsistent” with his continued tenure as an MP.

Nov 11, 2015, updated Nov 11, 2015
Bernard Finnigan arriving for a previous court appearance.

Bernard Finnigan arriving for a previous court appearance.

Finnigan was yesterday found guilty by Judge Steven Millsteed of one count of obtaining child pornography. He was found not guilty on a second count of attempting to obtain child pornography.

However, his legal team successfully moved to delay a conviction being recorded until sentencing submissions later this month, allowing him to retain his taxpayer-funded commission.

Weatherill had previously called on Finnigan, who quit the Labor frontbench after his 2011 arrest, to vacate his seat while he faced the charges.

Today he insisted the one-time factional powerbroker’s continued presence in parliament was untenable.

“I call upon him to resign,” he told reporters.

“Now, with the finding of guilt, it is utterly beyond doubt [that he should quit]…it’s impossible for him to continue to serve as a Member of Parliament.”

Finnigan has released a statement through his lawyer, saying he would “take time over coming days to give careful consideration to his Honour’s judgement”.

“It is my intention to absent myself from further sittings of the Legislative Council pending sentencing and a decision as to whether to appeal,” he said.

But Weatherill said if Finnigan did not resign his seat, “I have instructed the Solicitor-General to prepare advice and motions to permit the Legislative Council to deal with this matter [when it resumes] on Tuesday as the first order of business”.

He said that advice would be made available to all Opposition and crossbench MLCs, but said he was “not going to speculate” about the nature of the legal argument.

“He should have resigned months ago; we now call on him to resign today,” he said.

“The Legislative Council, I’m advised, has the power to act, and we intend to ask it to move to do so.

“It is utterly inconsistent with the role of a member of parliament to have a finding of guilt about a most serious crimnal offence.”

Finnigan will return to the District Court on November 30 for sentencing submissions, with Director of Public Prosecutions Adam Kimber saying the prosecution will submit that a conviction should be recorded.

“It is a decision for the judge and not for this office,” Kimber said.

“Yesterday Mr Finnigan’s solicitor requested that a decision whether a conviction should be recorded be delayed until his counsel made submissions on sentence…that was not opposed by the prosecutor. His position was appropriate.”

with AAP

Local News Matters
Advertisement
Copyright © 2024 InDaily.
All rights reserved.