Chris O'Keefe's message to the MP behind 'gin-gate' 06:07

Well, this Karen Webb scandal, if you can call it that, it is high farce. And I want to take issue with Rod Roberts. Now, Rod Roberts is a former police officer and a real estate agent who joined One Nation and is now an independent in the upper house of the New South Wales Parliament. And Rod Roberts is sort of the main pursuer of Gin Gate.

That is, under parliamentary privilege, he said yesterday that the police commissioner, Karen Webb, ordered 100 bottles of gin on the taxpayer dime and she, as well as some of her staff, drank some of that gin.

Now, the Commissioner came on this program yesterday afternoon, almost immediately after Rod Roberts made those comments, and she laughed at it. She said it was straight up wrong, and she claimed that she bought 50 bottles of gin, she never tasted the

the gin and she can account for where all of the bottles have gone and the register of that will be made public well rod roberts he was on with ben fordham this morning stretches the imagination that you would give a gift to visiting dignitaries and and and so forth of something that you've never tasted yourself wouldn't you want to make sure it was quality product before you handed it out with your name all over it rod gee you're stretching things here rod

Look, I haven't bought somebody a bottle of something as a gift and tasted it before I handed it over. I don't know what you do. Look, if you do that, sure. I'm just telling you it's weird, right? It's weird. And Rod, it's also okay to be wrong. It's also okay to put your hand up and say, you know what? I'm sorry I got it wrong. It wasn't 100 bottles of gin, like I said, under parliamentary privilege. It was 50.

And you also said under parliamentary privilege that the police commissioner and her staff drank it. Now, they claim they didn't, they didn't, and they have the records to prove that they didn't because all the bottles are accounted for. Now, as a former police officer, Rod Roberts, more than anyone, should know that evidence is king here because, as Christopher Hitchens said, what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

So Mr Roberts, he then went on with Ben Fordham and he said that he used parliamentary privilege, not because he wasn't trying to be sued, because that under parliamentary privilege you can't be sued for defamation. That wasn't the reason. The reason was a noble one. Of course, Rod Roberts, it was a noble one, was it? He wanted to get the bottom of it all.

I did hear a say that's quoted in an article, it might have been with Chris O'Keefe, oh, you know, this was said under parliamentary privilege. Well, it was, but Ben, if it wasn't for parliamentary privilege, I wouldn't have been able to raise these matters, you wouldn't have been able to speak about them, and we would never have heard from the LEC in relation to this at all. Hang on a second. Is that what we're doing now? You hear a rumour, and just so that rumour can be ventilated publicly with zero evidence, you raise it under parliamentary privilege anyway.

Now, that's not honourable. That is not how a parliamentarian should behave. It is reckless and it is deeply unfair. What's next here? Well, sorry, Mr Speaker. Sorry, Mr President. I've heard a rumour that Mr and Mrs Blar had an illicit encounter with a goat. Is that what's going to happen now?

Say that under parliamentary privilege, and the consequence of that is Mr Barr and Mrs Blar are then forced to go public and say, well, we didn't have that encounter with the goat. And then it's in the newspapers. It is just so absurd. Now, the truth is this. Commissioner Webb did what former Commissioner Mick Fuller did and bought bottles of booze to hand out to dignitaries. I'm told Andrew Scipioni probably did the same thing.

Now, to be honest, it might be a tradition, but it's a dumb tradition. Surely a little police coin or something like that would be more than enough. And Karen Webb today, she's axed it. She says, we're not doing that anymore. Well, it's a bit late for that now. But all of that is by the by. There are lots of dumb things that happen in government. Commissioner Webb used the same supplier as Mick Fuller. The supplier was a mate of hers.

The Law Enforcement Conduct Commission looked at all of this and said, "The evidence does not support a finding of serious misconduct. The Commission is satisfied that the purchase was in accordance with policy and procedures and Commissioner Webb should have raised the fact she knew the supplier when she found out." Big deal. Now, I'd say to Rod Roberts, you do some very, very good work in our Parliament. It's good you're there. But you need to stop playing the man instead of the ball. It's coming across as a bit nasty, to be honest.

Now, if you've got some stand-up scandal involving the police commissioner, go for it. But Gin Gate is not even close to that. Rod Roberts, you've done a magnificent job sticking up for our police when it comes to staffing, their numbers, their wages, their mental health, staffing arrangements, you know, the pressing issues facing our force.

And I would say to you, Rod Roberts, take a walk down Auburn Street in Goulburn, I know that's where you're from, and ask them what they would prefer you to be prosecuting in the Parliament. Because I reckon the answer from them, given you're a real estate agent there for 10 years, you'd know this better than anyone. I don't reckon the gin is in their top 1,000 things they're worrying about.

131873. They're worried about police numbers. They're worried about their mental health. And when they answer the phone, triple zero, a police officer shows up when they need them. Now, they are the key topics that need to be ventilated and need to be interrogated. This gin thing is just farcical. 21 past three.