ARRIVEDERCI RIVA

You wonder if politicians ever learn. When it comes to covering up scandals or possible scandals you wonder if they have ever heard of Richard Nixon let alone Watergate.

Liberal MP Richard Dalla-Riva should have read up on it last year and last week. Because often – as in Watergate – the cover-up with its lies and obfuscations and doublespeak is as bad if not worse than the original incident.

To put it bluntly Dalla-Riva did not come clean with events surrounding an incident with a teenage Liberal Party worker when he drove her home from a Liberal Party party in the early hours of the morning last year.

Something happened that was enough for the troubled girl to complain to her father who went on the warpath, understandably, with party officials.

As I said the other day: ‘Apparently the matter was first brought to the attention of the then Liberal leader Robert Doyle but it seems the matter was kept under wraps because nobody wanted to frighten the horses in the lead-up to the State election in November.

Asked by the Herald Sun if he had acted improperly last year the 43-year-old Dalla Riva said ‘ No. I did not’. But then he agreed to have a mediator (hired by the Liberal Party) settle the dispute.

And he signed a confidentiality agreement with the teenager promising not to do again what he said he didn’t do in the first place. Typically for a politician he says  ‘I welcome the opportunity to clear the air’. Which he could  have done months ago and didn’t. And which he still hasn’t. Presumably he has explained the ‘misunderstanding’

to his wife. Whatever the misunderstanding was or wasn’t. And whatever he did  or didn’t do.

Later, in a fumbled attempt to excuse what he did or didn’t say or do, Dalla-Riva said he had to realise that things were different in politics than in his past life as a  police officer.

I guess that means it is OK for a 43-year-old married father of three to talk dirty to a teenage passenger if he’s a cop.

Then it got murkier. Dalla-Riva was accused of sending text messages to the teenager after that drive home. Last week he told the Herald Sun that he couldn’t have sent text messages because he didn’t have the girl’s number. Then today Richard Dalla-Riva resigned from  Shadow Cabinet begging for privacy.

Back to Watergate for a minute. Senator Howard Baker used to say ‘What did the president know and when did he know it?’ We can fairly ask ‘What did Liberal leader Ted Baillieu know and when did he know it?’

Last week he denied knowledge of the scandal until the Herald Sun was about to break the story. Today he said ‘it’s a disappointing matter and I’m disappointed’.

Yes, but when did you know Mr  Leader?

Monday, February 5, 2007

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2007