The editor: Secrecy and obfuscation around David Speirs are simply inexcusable

The David Speirs saga has bounced from claims of a deepfake to blaming a deep state villain. The reality is, it’s simply a deep disgrace.

• David Speirs arrested and charged

David Speirs was the alternative premier when he is alleged to have been supplying drugs and was videoed snorting white powder from his kitchen bench.

His explanation when The Advertiser revealed the video will go down in political history for its absurdity and because it was more creative than the usual lines trotted out by disgraced MPs that they need to spend more time with family.

Now that Speirs’s home has been raided and he has been arrested and charged, he has switched to blaming a “sinister” person and “state government power against someone who is a political opponent”.

Police Commissioner Grant Stevens, through a spokesman, says Speirs should take that claim to the Independent Commission Against Corruption if he is concerned.

To quote Premier Peter Malinauskas when Speirs refused to go to police with his deepfake theory, if he fails to report his claim to ICAC, that probably tells you all you need to know about that.

As he prepares to face court, Speirs is entitled to the presumption of innocence.

However, he is not entitled to treat South Australians like mugs.

It speaks to his character that he has resorted to deluded excuses as he tried to explain how he came to be snorting powder in his kitchen and allegedly supplying drugs.

Equally, his assertion he simply fell into the wrong crowd as his mental health declined from the stresses and strains of being Liberal leader would be something you might accept from a remorseful wayward teenager, not a grown man.

And all these excuses without any admission he has done anything wrong at all. That is now for a court to decide.

David Speirs in his resignation announcement video he released on Saturday. Picture: Facebook/Supplied

The white powder vision, which Speirs has maintained is a deep-fake, that set off the chain of events.

Drugs are addictive, can cause terrible harm to users, right up to death, and supply is an extremely serious offence.

Should the prosecution proceed, Speirs will face a judge in the District Court, and if found guilty, faces up to 10 years in jail and/or a $50,000 fine.

Quitting parliament was the least he could do, and even in that he had to be convinced by party sources he could not remain as the member for Black.

On Saturday, Speirs looked pained in his garden video.

“I have not been the best version of myself. I’ve not been the best version of David Speirs,” he said, speaking bizarrely in third person.

At every step, the Sunday Mail and The Advertiser have been thwarted in their efforts to reveal the other version of Speirs, who stays up late surrounded by wine bottles snorting white powder.

The Advertiser was threatened with criminal defamation proceedings if it revealed the footage.

In the face of a ludicrous deep-fake claim, The Advertiser commissioned a world-renowned expert to forensically examine the two seconds of footage. He found no evidence of tampering.

Even then, the Speirs camp threw everything at trying to prevent publication of the video.

It took the Sunday Mail again to break the story on Saturday about the raid on Speirs’s homefor that development to be confirmed by police, more than a week after they had scoured the property.

In his garden video, Speirs concludes: “I hope it is comprehensive enough to answer your questions.”

Hardly. A man in denial, he left out the small fact he had been charged with serious offences, instead vaguely referring to clearing his name.

Police stepped in to confirm he had been charged, shockingly, with supply on several dates in August.

How much longer did police, MPs in the know and Speirs himself plan to keep the arrest and charges secret?

It was a concerned source who came forward after reading in The Advertiser that Speirs planned to return to parliament on October 15 and again seek preselection for Black.

The secrecy and obfuscation are simply inexcusable. The Liberals might want credit for cutting Speirs loose to face an almost certain by-election loss.

Brave would have been not electing him leader in the first place.