Gay age of consent lowered in NSW - or - rock the cabinet

[reprise]

On the plus side, New South Wales finally brought our age of consent laws into line with those of the rest of the nation and lowered the age of consent for homosexual sex to 16.

This long overdue move is to be applauded.

Unfortunately, one of our esteemed parliamentary representatives used this momentous occasion to do some politcal grandstanding under the protection of parliamentary privilege by raising accusations of paedophilia against a senior member of the government.

Child sex claim rocks Cabinet (http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/05/28/1053801421099.html)

For those outside of New South Wales, I should point out that the original bill included a clause which would have retrospectively lowered the age of consent to 16. While I am not generally in favour of retrospective legislation, in this particular instance it would have made a great deal of sense.

What is driving me almost to the point of distraction right now is that the MLC who pulled this stunt totally failed to acknowledge that even had Clause 49 not been removed from the original bill, the retrospectivity clause would not have provided protection to anyone who had engaged in sex with a 15 year old.

Even more disturbingly, Charles Lynn has no lesser obligation than the rest of the community to inform the appropriate authorities of criminal acts of which he is aware and provide whatever evidence he has in his possession to those authorities.

It's about time that politicians who hurl accusations of paedophilia at other public figures under the protection of parliamentary privilege were made to suffer the full penalty of being found in contempt of the parliament.

Oh yeah, did I happen to mention how angry I am about this?

[reprise]

Bumping this because I'm sure that AUP will have a comment to make.

[reprise]

Bumping now that there's another Sydneysider online.

[athon]

Hey, this must be the only time in history a Queenslander can say 'Welcome to the 21st century!'.
About time NSW caught up.

Athon
(now we just need to change our archair state laws concerning pubs and the need for somewhere to tie your horse...)

[princhester]

Australian public life seems to involve a lot of this sort of nonsense. What's the name of that viscious NSW female polly who likes to throw around accusations of sexual impropriety under parliamentary privilege?

We have Justice Kirby being attacked for picking up rentboys in Commonwealth vehicles on falsified driver records, the G-G's suppression order circumvented to allow some child rape charges against him by a mad person aired (I have some inside info on that one, and was told by someone who had interviewed her in detail that she was utterly delusional).

It'd be nice to think that we lived in an age of sexual maturity and understanding, but it'd be silly to do so.

[reprise]

Australian public life seems to involve a lot of this sort of nonsense. What's the name of that viscious NSW female polly who likes to throw around accusations of sexual impropriety under parliamentary privilege?

Franca Arena.

What annoys me most about the Lynn allegations is that he didn't even have the guts to name the "senior cabinet minister", thus casting all senior cabinet ministers under a cloud of doubt.

His wording was also very sleight of hand. What police actually "corroborated" was that the complaint had been made to them (public domain information anyway, it was brought up years ago during the Wood Royal Commission) - they did not corroborate the allegations the youth made, but I'm not sure that the average voter would notice the subtle but significant difference.

Carr is going to wipe the floor with Lynn on this one - as well he should. Lynn's statement implies that not only was the alleged incident covered up at the time it occured, but also that no government or police commissioner since the time of the Wood royal commission has followed through on an incident which was reported to that royal commission : that's one hell of a coverup he's alleging.

Your own premier's use of parliamentary privilege to make public the findings of the Aspinall report is a fine example of how that privilege is intended to be used.

I have mixed feelings about Lindsay Tanner using the privilege to make public the civil proceedings against Hollingworth given the somewhat unusual circumstances of the case.

But I'm damned sure that the likes of Arena, Heffernan, and Lynn are not using parliamentary privilege in "the public interest" but rather to conduct smear campaigns without any legal consequence to themselves.

BTW, wasn't that whole attack on Beattie for having been "soft" on Bill Darcy unbelievable - damn I wish state parliament was televised live, it's a hell of a lot more interesting than federal parliament these days.

[ImpyTimpy]

Originally posted by princhester
<snipped>

We have Justice Kirby being attacked for picking up rentboys in Commonwealth vehicles on falsified driver records, the G-G's suppression order circumvented to allow some child rape charges against him by a mad person aired (I have some inside info on that one, and was told by someone who had interviewed her in detail that she was utterly delusional).
<snipped>

Careful, you're presenting someone's elses opinion as evidence. That's not a very good idea at all.

Otherwise I can tell you I spoke to a few people who told me they had psychic readings, therefore the people who did those readings must be psychic.

Same thing, see how it doesn't hold?

[princhester]

Other people's opinions are evidence. Whether they are good evidence depends on what their area of expertise is, how well you know them, how much you trust them, how important a decision you are making etc.

For example, I might tell you I spoke to a few people who told me they saw movie X and it was fast paced.

How one percieves the pace of a movie is clearly a matter of experience and opinion, but if I know the person concerned to be usually reliable and a regular movie goer etc, I don't think you would see it as unreasonable that I would conclude that movie X is probably fast paced.

I have no problem if you put little weight on my comments about Hollingworth's accuser. You don't know me, you have no background. But a blanket statement that presenting people's opinions as evidence is always bad is going too far.

[reprise]

Trust me on this one ImpyTimpy, when princhester says he has "inside information", it is likely to have come to him via a professional colleague who is highly qualified to make such an assessment.

Even the information which is in the public domain paints a tragic portrait of a very disturbed woman. As I suspect that there will at some time in the future be litigation over the appropriateness of the mental health care she received and to what extent it contributed to her mental state at the time of her death, now would probably be a good time for me to shut up.

[princhester]

Whoa there, reprise! Thanks for the support but don't get carried away. My inside info is sufficiently reliable that I feel able to rest my personal views on it. But it didn't come from someone with particular qualifications. I can't say more.