Shouts from the desert

Joe Hockey, Howard's Minister for whatever Howard doesn't think is too important at the time (right now, Minister for Human Services), has claimed that after denials from the people Windsor has impugned in allegations that he was offered a diplomatic post in return for not standing in the 2004 election, Windsor must resign.

For comparison, look at the case of Senator Bill Heffernan. In 2002, Senator Heffernan falsely accused High Court Justice Michael Kirby, a man of the highest possible repute, of using Commonwealth facilities to engage in sexual liaisons with male prostitutes. The evidence used for the allegations turned out to have been forged. Senator Heffernan has since acknowledged this error and apologised, and you would be hard pressed to find somebody who still believes that the Heffernan allegations had any basis in fact.

Yet nobody in the Coalition called on Senator Heffernan to resign from Parliament (although he was sacked from the position of Secretary to the Cabinet).

This week, Windsor has made allegations against three people. The allegations in question amount to a criminal offence. Surprisingly, all three people who would be implicated in the offence have denied it. Obviously everybody was expecting that if they were guilty they would just 'fess up, after all, guilty people always confirm their crimes publicly.

And there, of course, lies the problem. Whether they are guilty or innocent, the people implicated will act the same way - they will deny the allegation.

In the present case, Windsor claims to be reporting what he learned at a meeting with one of the accused. There has been no independent or objective evidence that Windsor's statements regarding that meeting are false (although there is some objective evidence that a prior meeting Windsor understood to have occurred between the alleged conspirators could not have happened).

In these circumstances, there are absolutely no grounds for calling on Windsor to resign from anything at all. If the allegation is true, Windsor had a duty to make it. The fallout from a true allegation, and the fallout from a false allegation, are identical. The denials are useless to us as evidence of what did or did not happen.

But let's look at another case of a false allegation - the Truth Overboard affair. It is well accepted by all involved now that the allegation in that instance, made by the Prime Minister and some of his other ministers, was false. If a false allegations require a person to resign, then why did Howard not resign?

Clearly it is the height of hypocrisy for any Minister in Howard's Government to call on somebody else to resign after making an allegation, whether true or false, proven or unproven.

But there is more. There is no principle of Westminster democracy or in the Constitution that requires a member of Parliament to resign from Parliament after making a false allegation. Heffernan, though he did a despicable thing, was perfectly entitled to remain in the Senate. On the other hand, there are principles of Westminster democracy requiring a Minister who has done something untoward to resign. Ministers are held to a higher standard than other members of Parliament. Accordingly, if Hockey wants to call on Windsor to resign, he needs to ask Howard to resign first.