Bob Day: High Court of Australia to rule on whether Family First gets to keep former SA senator’s seat
THE Family First party will this morning find out if it gets to keep its only Senate seat when the High Court rules on whether former SA senator Bob Day breached a conflict-of-interest provision in the Constitution.
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THE Family First party will this morning find out if it gets to keep its only Senate seat when the High Court rules on whether former SA senator Bob Day breached a conflict-of-interest provision in the Constitution.
Would-be Family First, Labor, Liberal and One Nation politicians all hope to capture the Senate seat, which has been vacant since Mr Day quit the Senate in November after his building empire collapsed.
If the court rules in Mr Day’s favour, Family First will nominate a replacement senator to be rubber-stamped by the South Australian Parliament next week and sworn in to the Federal Parliament in May. The party is expected to nominate Mr Day’s former chief-of-staff, Rikki Lambert, or state upper house MP, Robert Brokenshire.
If the court rules against Mr Day, it could order a recount of ballot papers to choose the replacement and Family First No. 2 candidate Lucy Gichuhi would be expected to win. But the court could decide to exclude Family First “above-the-line” votes from the count, making former Labor senator Anne McEwen the favourite to win.
The court was asked to rule on whether Mr Day’s links to the company which owned his taxpayer-funded electorate office in Kent Town breached the Constitution.
The office had been held by B & B Day Pty Ltd, for the Day Family Trust.
B & B Day sold the property to Fullarton Investments Pty Ltd, with B & B Day lending the $2.1 million purchase price to the new owner.
Fullarton Investments was to have used rental payments from the Government to repay B & B Day, although no rent was actually ever paid.
The court heard Mr Day expected B & B Day to use the rent to service a National Australia Bank loan facility.
Section 44(v) of the Constitution prohibits candidates for Parliament from having “any direct or pecuniary interest in any agreement with the Public Service of the Commonwealth”, unless they are members of an incorporated company with more than 25 members.
Mr Day’s Home Australia group of building companies went into liquidation last year with an estimated $37.8 million worth of debts.
