Don Harwin: Controversial MP blamed others for COVID rule breach fine
NSW Liberal MP Don Harwin claimed that the application of the COVID lockdown rules earlier this year were too inconsistent, in an attempt to avoid a fine.
NSW
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Don Harwin tried to wriggle out of his fine for breaching COVID rules earlier this year by presenting legal advice that “erroneous and inconsistent” interpretations of the rules were made in public statements by people at “the most senior levels of the NSW government” and the NSW Police.
The state MP also made a thinly veiled threat to saddle police with costs for pursuing his fine if they did not withdraw by a deadline.
The detail is included in a cache of sensitive documents which have remained secret until this week, after Bret Walker, SC, upheld a case led by One Nation leader Mark Latham to make them public.
The documents reveal that in a 21-page legal submission, emailed to police and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions on June 3, Mr Harwin’s lawyers argued the public health order made no reference to principal place of residence, only “place of residence”.
This goes against numerous public statements made at the time urging residents to not go to their holiday homes.
The documents also show the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, who took over the case from the police, contacted the officer who issued the fine on June 18 asking for further evidence Mr Harwin was at Pearl Beach on the Central Coast when the public health order came into effect.
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“I’m keen to have a decision on this ASAP so would be grateful if these could be attended to as a matter of priority,” solicitor Kate Owens wrote.
The June 3 email noted there were merits in Mr Harwin making an application for costs against NSW Police, but stated “should proceedings be discontinued before 30 June 2020, no such order will be sought”.
In the same email, his legal counsel claimed “continued prosecution of this case would ... have the potential to bring the law into disrepute, particularly in light of public statements made by persons occupying positions at the most senior levels of government and the NSW Police about the nature and effect of the direction, which statements have proceeded from both erroneous and inconsistent interpretations of the COVID order”.
The documents show Mr Harwin, in his first police interview, said Elizabeth Bay was his primary place of residence, but that he had spent 21 days in December at his Pearl Beach holiday home; 11 in January and February.
He told Detective Inspector Stuart Bell: “I chose to keep (Elizabeth Bay) as my electoral roll address as I am here most of the year. I have always had two residences.”
Later, in seeking to have the fine dropped, Mr Harwin’s lawyers argued his “place of residence” was Pearl Beach and the question of “principal place of residence” was not relevant.
The DPP elected to withdraw the fine but Police Commissioner Mick Fuller has always stood by the decision to issue it.
Upper House member Mr Latham said yesterday: “I think Mick Fuller is right.
“I don’t think (the fine) should have been overturned, I don’t think he should be returned the frontbench and we will want to examine this matter further when the parliament returns.”
Originally published as Don Harwin: Controversial MP blamed others for COVID rule breach fine