Former Liberal leader David Speirs breaks silence on political comeback and new email database investigation
The disgraced former Liberal leader weighs in on his future as it is revealed he is under investigation for a possible privacy breach. Listen to this story.
David Speirs has broken his silence on his future in politics saying he is not ready for a comeback.
The disgraced former Liberal leader – who in April was convicted of two counts of supplying cocaine and fined $9000 – said he was not ready to re-enter state politics at the election speaking on FIVEAA Wednesday morning.
But, again, he refused to rule out a comeback.
It comes after The Advertiser revealed Speirs was considering standing in his old seat of Black as an independent and he declared to media on Tuesday night he missed public life.
“I do miss it. I would like to return to public life in some way in the future but I’m not ready to make that decision at the moment,” he told 9NEWS.
He went into further detail on Wednesday morning, saying he believed there were other ways he could serve his community.
“I’m just not ready for (a return to politics) at the moment, and it’s not my speculation, I don’t know why it has blown up so significantly in the last 28-48 hours,” he said.
“I find it quite troubling, I find it unsettling, which to me, would send a pretty clear message to me – to David – that I’m not ready to do it at the moment.”
However, Speirs said he wanted to keep the door open in case he changed his mind.
“If I did change my mind in months or years from now, people would say, ‘well, you’ve ruled it out before, why are you breaching faith with people?’” he said.
When asked by FIVEAA’s David Penberthy if a desire to resume community service could lead him to run for a different tier of government, he said it was possible.
“Potentially, I started off my career in local government on Marion Council, again, representing that same area down in the south … but I’ve got absolutely no plans to run in the local government election either,” Speirs said.
Speirs’ media appearances come after the revelation he is being investigated for a possible breach of the Privacy Act after he emailed his former constituents asking them for money to go towards a charity walk he is participating in.
It’s understood an official complaint was lodged to the government after Speirs emailed a large group of residents in his former seat of Black asking for donations to walk the Kokoda Track.
Speirs stepped away from politics last year after The Advertiser published a video of him snorting a white substance.
But that did not stop him from allegedly accessing an email database of former Black constituents, with the complaint lodged reading: “the unauthorised and ongoing use of such data … not only breaches privacy expectations but undermines public confidence”.
Transport Minister Tom Koutsantonis confirmed the complaint would be referred on to be investigated.
“He’s using this personal information from people that trusted him as their local MP and trusted him as the leader of the Liberal Party and now he’s using it for his own personal reason,” Mr Koutsantonis told 7NEWS.
But Mr Speirs fired back, saying anyone who did not want to receive his emails could simply unsubscribe.
“I looked into this in a fair bit of detail before I used my community contact list, I actually started to build that up when I was a local councillor … people had signed up via my website for community updates,” he told FIVEAA on Wednesday.
“I’m pretty confident I’ve done the right thing there.”
