Apparently so. Newstalk ZB has just announced that David Garrett is expected to announce his resignation at a media conference at 1pm.
We can but speculate that he has been hoist by his own Three Strikes petard.
There's more to come on this soon ...
UPDATE: Garrett has resigned from Act, and is taking two weeks of Carter Leave; but who can he, as a List MP, stay as an independant? Thoughts anyone?
3 comments:
Somewhat unsurprising. While the man has pushed some good legislation through and is unprecedentedly passionate about his law and order portfolio for ACT. However his latest antics have removed any integrity and credibility that he had.
As Stuff reports On Monday, Garrett admitted he had been convicted of assault in 2002 over an altercation in Tonga. He said he was appealing against the conviction, which had been founded on "perjured evidence".
It is understood that the 2005 court was not told of Garrett's 2002 conviction. It is also understood that the lawyers involved in the case did not know about it either.
TVNZ reported last night that it had seen a document in which Mr Garrett told the court he had committed no offences since becoming a lawyer in 1992.
"The worst I could be accused of is incurring some parking and speeding fines," Garrett was reported as saying.
Its one thing to keep your past in the closest from the public hoping it wont come out. Its another to keep it from your lawyers and lie to a judge after presumably taking the oath of truth.
Personally I don't think he would maintain any credibility and would only find advocating for his causes harder if he was to remain on as an independent.
In his personal interest, and the interest of the ACT party being able to rebuild after a horrendous month,the best thing he could do would be walk away completely.
I ask, would Mr Garrett have survived the scrutiny that was apparent in the FFP days when his past would be picked over by party members before he could have risen to the position of candidate for a winnable seat not only by his party but his opponents as well. I am an opponent of MMP and this debacle just illustrates the weakness of a party adopting as a candidate one such as Mr Garrett who undoubtedly added to the attraction of ACT with his passionate support of three strikes and other law and order issues.
This facet of MMP is particularly attractive to minor parties trying to garner support from special interest groups by adopting single issue list figures and we then finish up with an Indian, a queer, a male, a female, a Christian, a Muslim and whatever who are brutally exposed when the total is exposed to scrutiny when the media or an opponent seeks to find chinks in the armour.
Remove the coat-tail effect of defectors from the major parties and the fraudulent pitch from the watermelons to the true environmentalists we have been poorly served by the flotsam that MMP has delivered to our legislature.
How did we get ACT as part of the government anyway? Because of Rodney's hypocrisy is how. He and his party are a disgrace.
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