Bligh resigns from leadership and South Brisbane seat

Reckons they've got the message loud and clear.

Now we hear them bickering about what the message was.

They'll never say that the message involves the lying liar lied and Newman Smear Campaign.

Bligh has no evidence to take to CMC re Newman smear

There you go. The Newman smear has no evidence, who knew?

An email sent to local LNP members.

I have become increasingly ticked off at the ALP smear campaign.

Given Anna Bligh's smear of Campbell Newman I thought you might be interested in some indisputable legal facts that are on the public record. An outraged friend crowdsourced the data, another friend validated most of it.

Below is a list of Australian MP, both State and Federal, who have been convicted of a crime in a court since 2000. You can find an out of date and incomplete list of convicted Aussie MP at wikipedia (yes, a terrible source, I know).

I repeat these are people who have been found guilty in a court of law.

Name	Party	Parliament	Nature of Offence(s)	Year convicted
Bill D'Arcy	ALP	QLD	Child sex offences	2000
Andrew Theophanous	ALP	Fed	Fraud	2002
Brenton Best	ALP	Tas	DUI	2002
Richard Face	ALP	NSW	Lying to ICAC	2004
Carolyn Hirsch	ALP	Vic	DUI	2005
Andrew Olexander	LNP	Vic	DUI	2005
Merri Rose	ALP	QLD	Extortion	2007
Karen Struthers	ALP	QLD	DUI	2007
Carolyn Hirsch	ALP	Vic	DUI Drive while disqualified	2007
Milton Orkopoulis	ALP	NSW	Child sex offences	2008
Adam Somyurek	ALP	Vic	Drive while disqualified	2009
Gordon Nuttall	ALP	QLD	Corruption	2010
Terry Martin	ALP / Indep	Tas	Child pornography	2012

There are 13 convictions and 12 individuals, noting that Carolyn Hirsch was convicted on two occasions.

Since 2000 11 of the 12 MP who were convicted of a criminal offence were in the ALP, including Martin who was an independent but started off as an ALP MP, being expelled in 2004 for crossing the floor.

The LNP has 1.

According to Wikipedia there are currently 782 Federal and State MPs in Australia. Of that 782, 330 or around 42% are currently ALP MP. Let’s assume that historically the ALP held around 45% of MP positions in Australia which is roughly 350 MP. Let’s further assume that the average MP stays in parliament for 6 years. With these assumptions we can estimate that around 700 people have been Federal or State ALP MP in Australia since 2012. Of that group 10 have been convicted of a crime. Therefore the incidence of criminal behaviour amongst ALP MP is around 1 in 70.

On the other side of the ledger there is 1 LNP MP from a similar pool, lets say again some 700 people. The LNP members have a criminal incidence rate of a tenth of the ALP. Remember we are talking about MPs in a parliamentary party caucus, not ordinary party members.

We can see that 2 ex ALP MP have been convicted for child sex offences giving us an incidence rate in amongst ALP MP of 2 in 700 or 1 in every 350 ALP MP.

The rate of convictions amongst ALP MPs would easily be one of the worst rates in the country. I think it would be a challenge to identify another demographic that is as likely to be convicted as an ALP MP. Their rates of child sex abuse would also be formidably high.

Unfortunately the ALP record is getting worse, whereas the LNP has improved dramatically since its low point in the Bjelke Petersen era.

Speaking of Bjelke Petersen four of his MP were convicted of offences: Austin, Harvey, Lane and Muntz. In equal place as the most convicted government in Australian history is the Beattie - Bligh Government with D'Arcy, Nuttal, Rose and Struthers being convicted.

Hypocrisy doesn’t come close to describing Anna Bligh smearing Newman. However this year should see the Bjelke Petersen and Beattie-Bligh Governments overtaken by the Carr-Iemma-Rees-Kenneally Government.

Currently the Carr-Iemma-Rees-Kenneally NSW ALP government has 2 convicted MP - Orkoupolis and Face. But there are a lot of cases that are coming before the courts that will likely make the Carr-Iemma-Rees-Kenneally government the most convicted Australian government ever. Consider that former MP Paluzzano has been charged and is likely to be defending her charges any week now in NSW. ICAC has recommended charges against former MP D'Amore who is currently in the courts trying to avoid being charged. Both Paluzzano and D'Amore were charged for similar corruption offences relating to timesheets. ICAC has recommended charges against former Deputy Premier Watkins and Minister Kelly over property fraud allegations. We also had the Ian MacDonald ICAC investigation which looks pretty bad for MacDonald. Given stories linked to on the Bolt blog site it isn't inconceivable that another brace of former Carr-Iemma-Rees-Kennearly MP will be charged. As it stands there are two more currently charged, 2 more recommended to be charged and one more who has been investigated. The Carr-Iemma-Rees-Kenneally Government is almost certain to become the most convicted government in Australian history. Way to go ALP – and what rottenness will be under the scabs of Bligh’s 20 year-old government?

All as the leader of this group - Bob Carr is elevated to the Federal Ministry. Whilst there are no allegations against Carr, what does this record say about his leadership? This criminal behaviour flourished under his leadership. Most people would consider someone who oversaw a team with this type of criminality as a poor leader, not a Federal level potential PM contender.

Waiting in the wings is former SA ALP MP Brendan Finnigan who was charged with child pornography related offences mid last year, and who can forget the delightful Craig Thomson?

Now the ALP has been throwing all sorts of allegations regarding the culture of the ADF and smearing Campbell Newman as corrupt.

So here are some questions I would like to see put to the ALP leadership:

For Anna Bligh as Federal ALP President:

1. What has she done about the ALP's criminal problem?
2. What has she done to put in place measures to identify MP who are child sex offenders?
3. Can she guarantee that no ALP whistle blower will be treated as shabbily as the staffer who tried to report Orkopoulis?
4. What is she doing to clean up the criminal culture of the ALP?
5. Will she commission an independent inquiry into the ALP to recommend changes to lower the ridiculously high incidence of convictions amongst ALP MP?
6. Shouldn't she fix the actual and well known criminal problems within the ALP before smearing others?
At the Federal level for Minister Smith

1. Would you subject the ALP to the same level of investigation and culture change that you have subjected the ADF to?
2. Hasn't the ALP got a much worse culture than the ADF?
3. Do you feel like a hypocrite given the ALP's culture and its problems with very high levels of criminal convictions amongst ALP MP?

Whilst I knew that the ALP had a problem with criminality I did not know its incidence rate was so high, nor as widespread as the data indicates. Nor was I prepared for the volume of child abusers / sex offenders amongst ALP MP.

It is well past time that someone forces the ALP to address these very serious issues – or at least held them accountable for them.