Geoff Shaw’s high noon: the Victorian MP’s mercurial ride may be up
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Version 0 of 1. Geoff Shaw began courting controversy just seconds into his parliamentary career. The newly elected member for Frankston, a working-class suburb at the mouth of Victoria’s Mornington peninsula, opened his maiden speech with an affirmation of his Christianity, wrapped in a mockery of the tribute to traditional owners. “In taking my place in the Legislative Assembly, it is appropriate for me to acknowledge the original owner of the land on which we stand,” Shaw said. “God, the Creator, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of the Bible.” The groans it drew have barely let up since. Discontent with the Labor government coursed its way up the Frankston train line at the 2010 election, flipping five seats along the route, Shaw’s included, into Liberal hands. By the narrowest margin, a single seat, the Coalition was back in power in Victoria. Shaw had clawed a 5% swing to win Frankston, where he had attended school, belonged to a church, and still ran a local hardware business. In his maiden speech he praised the electorate’s “entrepreneurial spirit”, recalled his memories as a ball boy when the area hosted the city’s first indoor tennis championships, lamented its “less than desirable image and reputation for crime”. He pledged to “put Frankston people first”. The limits of that promise were exposed early. In April 2011, one of Shaw’s constituents, teenager Jakob Quilligan, wrote to the MP objecting to a religious exemption in the government’s anti-discrimination laws. “I'm able to vote. I want to work, live and love freely during the course of my life, and I want to do that without thinking that I can't,” Quilligan, who is gay, said. Shaw replied the same day: ''What if I loved driving 150kms per hour in residential areas? What if there was a convicted sex offender who stated that, or a child molester? Can they still do what they want? Under your statement the answer is yes.” Then-premier Ted Baillieu hosed down the remarks, saying Shaw had been misinterpreted. A month later, Baillieu was again called on to defend the MP when it emerged that while working as a nightclub bouncer in the early ’90s, Shaw had gotten into a scuffle and was charged with serious assault. Melbourne’s Herald Sun tracked down the victim’s ex-wife, who recalled her then-husband “being thrown down two flights of stairs”. “[The bouncers] were beating the living daylights out of him,” she said. “Geoff Shaw picked me up and threw me in the gutter.” Still Shaw survived. "Mr Shaw has provided assurances that no conviction was recorded in relation to the 1992 incident," a spokesman for Baillieu said. Another altercation followed in August 2011, when Shaw, who boasts he is a third-dan black belt in karate, intervened when a 21-year-old, pulled over by police, lashed out at the officer. "The male driver also abused, punched and attempted to bite Mr Shaw,” the police report read. Cameras were on hand to witness more Shaw trouble in October last year, when the Frankston MP clashed with taxi drivers protesting on the steps of state parliament. Apparently a fighter, Shaw has proved himself to be a lover too. In 2012 he repeatedly posted a handwritten sign on a busy road in Frankston asking his estranged wife, Sally, to “Please Forgive Me.” The sign had a reference to Psalm 42.1: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you.” Allegations emerged in May 2012 that Shaw had been using his parliamentary car and fuel cards to help run his Frankston hardware store. An ombudsman’s report in October that year said the MP had clocked up nearly 8,000km using the car to collect stock for his business, sometimes letting his employees take the car for interstate trips. Police charged the MP with 24 offences, but sensationally dropped the case last December. Shaw maintained his innocence throughout the affair, but smarted from a perceived lack of support from the government. On 6 March 2013, he dramatically quit the parliamentary Liberal party, threatening the Coalition’s hold on parliament. By day’s end, the premier, Ted Baillieu, had resigned. Shaw found himself an independent holding the balance of power. He promised to back the new premier, Denis Napthine, with confidence and supply, but on everything else would consult his conscience. Abortion became Shaw’s signature issue. He promised in parliament in April this year to “take up the cry for the unborn”, travelling to the US in May to learn from anti-abortion activists, and pledging to introduce a bill to reform the state’s laws before the election scheduled for November. If he gets that far. On Tuesday, Shaw could become the first MP in 113 years to be expelled from the Victorian parliament. Last month, the Coalition-dominated privileges committee investigating the Frankston MP over alleged car and fuel-card rorting found that Shaw had misused his entitlements and ordered him to pay back $6,838. But it stopped short of declaring Shaw in contempt of parliament, sparing him expulsion or suspension from the chamber – and the government’s thin majority. But when parliament resumes on Tuesday, Labor will push to challenge the committee’s report, and seek a vote to have Shaw found in contempt and banished from parliament. They might have the numbers to do so: Liberal MP Ken Smith last week sensationally declared he might cross the floor and vote with the opposition against Shaw. Smith lost his position as parliamentary speaker in February this year after falling out with Shaw, the Frankston MP using his hold on power to demand Smith’s resignation. Last Tuesday, Shaw raised the stakes, declaring on ABC radio that he had lost trust in the Napthine government, and would join any move by the opposition leader, Daniel Andrews, to pass a no-confidence vote. But Andrews was apparently unmoved by Shaw’s offer. “On Tuesday next week, I will move that the parliament of Victoria find Geoff Shaw in contempt and expel Geoff Shaw from the parliament of Victoria. That is the right thing to do. That is the principled thing to do,” he said. Meanwhile, a defiant Napthine told reporters he would “not be held to ransom by some rogue MP from Frankston”, and has refused to rule out now joining Labor in holding Shaw in contempt. The mercurial ride of the member for Frankston might finally be up. |