Political pressure is building in Canberra and Sydney for the scalps of Labor’s “golden pair” — John Della Bosca and Belinda Neal. Some senior ALP sources are suggesting that one or both of them will be forced to resign in the next few days to stem the damage from Iguanagate.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and NSW Premier Morris Iemma are furious that the June 6 incident is still making front page headlines.
Meanwhile as Crikey goes to press reports are trickling out about a confrontation between Neal and A Current Affair reporter Ben Fordham.
The SMH is reporting that police have been called to an “angry confrontation” between beleaguered Neal and a current affairs television crew.
Fordham, said he confronted the MP this morning in the car park outside her Gosford electoral office on the NSW Central Coast.
Della Bosca and Neal assured their respective parliaments last month that they would “fully cooperate” with the police investigation into the fracas with staff at the Iguana waterfront restaurant at Gosford. These brief statements were designed to bring a curtain down on the notorious incident but as one NSW backbencher said today: “Things have just got worser and worser.”
Neal is alleged to have assisted some of her staff in compiling their sworn statements which are now part of the police investigation — but she doesn’t appear to be willing to follow the same course herself. It smacks of double standards in which she is virtually saying: “You give statements to the police and be interviewed by them — but I won’t.”
Yesterday, Della Bosca said he would supply the police with a written statement and Iemma appeared ready to accept that amounted to “full cooperation”. But after a media outcry, the premier changed his mind and “ordered” his former education minister and old friend to be interviewed by the police.
The result? Della Bosca looks a reluctant, sad and sorry party to this affair, and Iemma appears a dreadful ditherer… again.
As Opposition Leader Barry O’Farrell told a press conference at 11.30am today: “Mr Della Bosca said full co-operation. Full co-operation means fronting up and fully answering all the police questions. He resisted that until ordered to.”
The police dossier on Iguanagate will be sent to the commonwealth and NSW directors of public prosecutions at the end of this week or early next week. A decision on whether any criminal charges should be laid will be taken within two to three weeks.
Della Bosca has been stood down from the Cabinet and he will face indefinite exclusion from the ministry if the DPP finds that he has breached the law.
His wife has been dropped as parliamentary secretary and she will face the loss of ALP membership and pre-selection for the seat of Robertson if charges are brought against her.
To bring the nightmare to an end, she or Della Bosca (or both) might fall on their swords “for the sake of the party”. Senior Rudd and Iemma advisers are working on that solution.
15 thoughts on “Iguanagate resignations tipped for this week”
David Sanderson
July 2, 2008 at 5:43 pmThe additional press secretary is merely an attempt to stop her making more foolish mistakes. It does not indicate that the party will stand by her. I think Labor would win Robertson in a by-election. Labor is still 10 points ahead and any likely candidate will be much more electable than Ms Neal ever was.
Cathy
July 2, 2008 at 9:23 pmI looked at that pair tonight on television and wondered who was more subversive to national governance. MPs like Neal and Della Bosca or David Hicks? When state and federal parliaments can be so easily accessed and compromised by aggressive, purposeful and destructive individuals like the Della Bella’s, Hicks looks like a harmless dreamer. A side-bar – Neal demonstrated tonight that she’s really unable to handle public life. If ‘just out of trainers’ Fordham can rattle a supposedly mature professional Neal’s better off at home and not in the House.
David Sanderson
July 2, 2008 at 4:32 pmThe sorry saga rolls on with today’s stupid (on both sides) confrontation with an ACA crew. Neal’s refusal to talk to the police, despite Rudd making it very clear that she will be kicked out if she doesn’t, can only mean that she is scared about what a police interview might force her to reveal. Time is up and for once Nelson is right – she must be kicked out now.
Connor Moran
July 3, 2008 at 1:27 amMiranda (defender-in-chief): it’s time they both resigned and they only have themselves to blame.
Miranda
July 2, 2008 at 11:33 pmMitchell should know more than anyone that if these 2 are forced to resign it demonstrates the power of a destructive media on Australian politcal life. This whole sorry episisode has been one giant lynching party with the biased reporting from day one that Neal & Della Bosca are guilty of something-anything.
The only pluses out of this is it also spells the end of Iemma and Brendan Nelson. But why hasn’t anyone in the media-including Alan Mitchell investigated the Liberal party’s involvement in the drawing of the wimpish waiter’s statutory declarations ?. We’ve had both Opposition leaders thundering on endlessly and accusing Iemma & Rudd’s offices of being involved on the other side-without a shred of proof, yet not a word is mentioned on Chris Hartcher’s and his staffer’s involvement.
What is the point of crikey if it’s contributors cannot produce anything except re-hashing what the daily gutter rags and tabloid TV shows produce ?. Has any journalist ever bothered to ask the voters in Neal’s electorate what they think of the episode ?. As the majority of them voted for Neal it would seem their views count for something-instead we are treated to the daily rubbish like Fordham’s childish “do you know who I am” antics. It’s a sad day in our political life-not because of any great love for Neal or Della Bosca but their treatment in the media over a pathetic and insignificant incidence has been diabolical and more so as the atrocious Daily Telegraph has allowed a continual sordid on-line rants about Neal’s physical features to be displayed daily.