Bill Heffernan

William Daniel Heffernan (born 3 March 1943), Australian politician, has been a Liberal Party member of the Senate, representing the state of New South Wales, since September 1996.

Early life

Heffernan was born in Junee, New South Wales and attended St. Joseph's College, Hunters Hill. He has qualifications in wool classing and welding from Wagga Technical College and has been a farmer in the Junee area for 30 years. Heffernan lives with his wife Margaret.

Career

Heffernan was a member of the Junee Shire Council 1981-1996 and was President of the Council 1989-1990 and 1991-1993. He was active in the Liberal Party for many years and was the party's NSW State President 1993-1996.

Heffernan was appointed to the Senate in September 1996 to replace the long-serving Liberal Senator Michael Baume. He had been a long-time friend and supporter of Prime Minister John Howard in the NSW Liberal Party, and in October 1998 he was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Cabinet, a position giving him easy access to the Prime Minister.

2002

On March 12 2002, speaking in the Senate under parliamentary privilege, Heffernan made accusations against a judge. He alleged that this judge – initially unnamed – had regularly 'trawled for rough trade' in a Sydney locality well known for male prostitution, illegally using a government car and driver to pick up a 'young male', and suggested that this judge's alleged leniency towards a convicted pedophile might be viewed as 'subliminal self-defence'.

Only at the end of this speech did Heffernan make it clear that the judge he was referring to was Justice Michael Kirby of the High Court of Australia. Senators John Faulkner and Robert Ray (Labor) and Aden Ridgeway (Australian Democrats) each alleged that Heffernan had deliberately structured his speech this way in order to conceal the fact that he was violating parliamentary standing orders. (Standing Order 193 prohibits senators from making 'imputations of improper motives or personal reflections' on currently-serving judicial officers.)

The primary evidence to back up Heffernan's claim was a purported record of trips made by the Comcar driver on the day of one of the alleged incidents. This record also detailed other unrelated trips made by several senior Australian politicians, such as Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer. When this evidence was made public, the media quickly contacted those people. Many of them (including Fischer) had records of their own that showed that they could not have taken a Comcar on that day, as they were not in the same city. A secondary piece of Heffernan's evidence was revealed to be the testimony of a person previously ruled to be an unreliable witness.

Heffernan came under prolonged political pressure as a result and was eventually asked by Prime Minister John Howard to resign his post as Parliamentary Secretary, which he did. On 19 March he made a statement to the Senate in which he withdrew the claims. Heffernan was censured by the Senate, the censure motion passed 31-30 with the Liberals and Nationals voting against. He did not resign his Senate seat, and was re-elected in 2004.

2005

• In a public lecture given on 27 September 2005, political opponent Mark Latham accused Heffernan of engaging in the "politics of personal destruction", and quoted John Hewson (a former Liberal Party leader) as saying that John Howard has used Heffernan to distribute dirt and to run his agenda against individuals "for almost as long as I have known him".

2006

• On February 7 2006, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Heffernan had been forced to apologise to National Party senator Fiona Nash after a public altercation at Canberra Airport the previous day, during which he had told her to "blow it out her backside". Senator Heffernan said the airport altercation with his fellow Coalition Senator was just "a bit of colour and movement". But National Party MP De-Anne Kelly described the incident as "workplace harassment", saying "workplace harassment is not acceptable anywhere".
• On July 7 2006, the ABC programme Stateline in NSW aired claims that Heffernan was involved in the downfall of former NSW opposition leader John Brogden. Alex McTaggart, independent member for Pittwater, his wife Denise, and Peter Jones, a member of McTaggart's campaign team, claimed on the programme that Heffernan contacted them and said that he was the Prime Minister's [Howard's] right hand man, and did his 'dirty work'. The McTaggarts claimed that Heffernan told them he had a dirt file on Brogden, said that Brogden needed to be 'paid back', and tried to lure them into publicising material damaging to Brogden's character. Heffernan denied these claims, and was quoted on the programme saying that they were 'bullshit'.

• In October 2006, Heffernan called for "someone's arse to get kicked" because of delays to the construction of the final major link in the dual carriageway between Sydney and Melbourne. According to Heffernan, a "colony of whatever they are that live in the edge of the bank of the creek" (platypus) was causing the delay and it was a problem that could be fixed "in ten minutes". He called for consultants to be axed who were "wasting taxpayers' money".

2007

• During the New South Wales 2007 State Election, Heffernan was accused of stealing Greens how-to-vote cards and misrepresenting Greens policies to voters. He was reported as shouting "If you want to decriminalise drugs for your children, vote Green." Police were called but he was not arrested.

• In an interview with The Bulletin magazine in May 2007, Senator Heffernan repeated previously-stated views that priests should be able to marry because "...priests, like the rest of us, wake up with a horn at four in the morning."

• In the same Bulletin interview, Heffernan caused widespread outrage by suggesting the Deputy Leader of the Opposition Julia Gillard was unfit for leadership because she was "deliberately barren". He continued: "I mean anyone who chooses to remain deliberately barren ... they’ve got no idea what life’s about." Heffernan was later forced to apologise for the remarks.

• According to The Age newspaper, Bill Heffernan posed as an ASIO agent in a telephone call to John Grabbe, a farm manager in New South Wales. Under the Crimes Act it is an offence to impersonate a Commonwealth officer.

• The Bulletin published an interview which quoted Bill Heffernan as stating that Australia had to "settle the north" because millions of people in Asia may find it a "very attractive proposition" if climate change leaves them water-poor. Heffernan later denied he had made such claims, but The Bulletin stood by the accuracy of its report, citing an audio recording of the Heffernan interview.

• Heffernan is also reported to have impersonated Senator Barnaby Joyce during a telephone conversation with one of his constituents.

External links

• Bill Heffernan, Senate biography