McGinty - the Parody of a competent Attorney General

Read my Lips! McGinty's superficiality and disingenuousness exposed

The prospect of Julian Grill being gaoled by the Legislative Council has not been attacked by Jim McGinty. Only strange eerie silence from the opportunistic Attorney General.

The Desert Rat remembers that in 1994 it was a different story, when the Legislative Council gaoled Brian Easton for a week. Jim McGinty the Opposition Leader was very quick to exploit the situation with a vitriolic attack on the “undemocratic” Upper House and its outdated powers.

McGinty appeared to be mortified by the actions of the Legislative Council and expressed great indignation at the gaoling of Easton. His wounded rhetoric flowed freely and he lambasted the Legislative Council. It went along the lines, that the gaoling of citizens for contempt without a fair trial constituted a fundamental denial of human rights.

McGinty’s comments were reported in The West Australian on 21 December 1994 where he stated that:

• a Labor government would overturn the law which allowed Parliament to jail people for contempt;

• he found the jailing of a WA citizen by the Legislative Council “without any right to be heard…to be quite horrific”;

• "the Labor Party is opposed to such a fundamental denial of human rights as imprisonment without trial";

• he thought “every decent WA citizen would be appalled with the Parliament exercising this power”;

• he didn’t agree “with any system of putting people in jail without allowing them to have a fair trial”.

Fourteen years later he hasn’t lifted a finger to fix the gaping problems, particularly the lack of suitable penalties under the Parliamentary Privileges Act.

In 2002 it was left to former Independent Philip Pendal MLA to move a Private Members Bill to fix the urgent problem created by the link between the State Parliamentary Privileges Act 1891 and the House of Commons Act where a superior Court judgment in the United Kingdom automatically changed the interpretation of our State Act - because the link still existed between the House of Common Act and our Act.

The ramifications of this issue were serious.

Our esteemed Attorney General Jim McGinty was so miffed by Philip Pendal’s initiative, (McGinty's own inaction exposed), that he didn’t even bother to get off his shiny backside and speak in the debate.

So much for his interest in parliamentary privilege which the Desert Rat thinks McGinty must have feigned in 1994.

Obviously McGinty doesn’t really care about the Western Australian Parliament having the power to imprison its citizens, where natural justice is not guaranteed by the Huouse procedures.

Despite the passing of fourteen years, seven years of which he has been Attorney General, during which he has seen fit to introduce all sorts of rubbish legislation, McGinty could not be bothered fixing this “horrific” situation – as he described it.

The Desert Rat thinks that McGinty must be salivating at the thought of Julian Grill going to gaol without being afforded any opportunity of the right of natural justice.

No comment, no concern and no attempt to lift a finger to fix this "horrific" problem.