By Michael Newhouse
PERSONAL references appear to be the new political kryptonite, as politicians across the West scramble to check all their past paperwork in the wake of the Opposition attack on Derrimut MP Telmo Languiller last week.
Mr Languilla was hounded over a character reference he provided for former family friend Walter Foletti, who is now serving a maximum of five-and-a-half years in jail for trafficking cocaine and ecstasy.
Victorian Premier Steve Bracks last week asked all state MPs to check their records to determine whether references given in the past were appropriate, after reports emerged last week that Mr Languiller had provided a character reference to a former family friend associated with underworld killer Carl Williams.
This month, federal MP Kelvin Thomson became the first political casualty in this latest round of reference-checking when he resigned as Labor’s shadow attorney-general after signing a reference for criminal Tony Mokbel back in 2000.
Western suburbs politicians last week agreed providing personal references could be hazardous, and urged a cautious and hands-on approach to whoever requested a reference.
“You have to know them, the family and the background, and I would have to know the individual or the family for quite some time,” Keilor MP George Seitz said last week.
“Personal references are many and varied,” said Mr Seitz, Labor’s longest-serving sitting MP. “It’s one of the functions of a public figure who knows a lot of people.”
Kororoit MP Andre Haermeyer’s electoral officer, Rob Gurry, said he hadn’t seen any personal requests for a reference from Mr Haermeyer over the past two years.
“As far as I’m aware, any request for personal references have had to be approved by Andre (Haermeyer), and in my time here, I don’t think he’s given any,” Mr Gurry said.
Dr Nick Economou, from Monash University’s School of Political and Social Inquiry, agreed that politicians would probably become more paranoid about people for whom they had supplied or would supply references, but he defended the right for politicians to assist with character references at bail hearings.
“Bail is an integral part of the legal process, it’s part of the presumption of innocence, and just because the MP went to vouch for this guy for his bail application, doesn’t mean that the member of Parliament is somehow interfering with or doing anything to pervert the course of justice,” Dr Economou said.
As for the man at the centre of last week’s controversy, Mr Languiller said he had also spent some time checking his past references.
“I have not found any references that are a concern to me,” he said.