Night on drink and Will Fowles falls foul of addiction

Police called out to the Abode Hotel in the inner Canberra suburb of Kingston at 7.50 yesterday morning.

Will Fowles is taken by police from the Abode Hotel, Kingston. Picture: Sean Davey

Andrews government MP Will Fowles has revealed he is combatting drug and alcohol addiction after police escorted him from a hotel in Canberra for allegedly smashing a door in a rage-filled outburst.

The state Victorian MP said he would take leave from politics to deal with his addiction and mental health issues, after police were called out to the Abode Hotel in the inner suburb of Kingston at 7.50 yesterday morning.

Police escorted him from the premises but released him without charge, and he arrived by plane back to Melbourne by midday.

Mr Fowles, 40, spent the previous night on the drink with federal Labor MPs after sitting in the parliament for the maiden speeches of new MPs from his home state, Peta Murphy, Kate Thwaites and Raff Ciccone.

Victorian Premier Daniel ­Andrews said the Burwood MP — who entered parliament in Labor’s landslide win in November — had his “full support” while he received treatment for his ­issues.

Facebook photo of Will Fowles and Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews.

“He’s apologised for that, and I believe he’s sincere,” Mr ­Andrews said in a statement.

“He’s also indicated he has ­addiction issues. He has my full support as he gets the treatment and care that he needs.”

Mr Fowles, who was educated at Scotch College, is a member of Mr Andrews’s Socialist Left faction and has been questioned in parliament by the Coalition for ­allegations he failed to pay workers’ entitlements when his pub went into receivership in central Queensland.

The former member of the ­exclusive Melbourne Cricket Club committee also worked for a ­lobbyist who represented the developers responsible for demolishing the historic Corkman Irish Pub without planning approvals.

State opposition planning spokesman Tim Smith said Mr Fowles should be booted out of the Labor caucus. “It is totally appalling and unacceptable behaviour,” he told Sky News last night. “Were the good electors of Burwood aware he had these addiction problems when they went to the polls at the end of November 2018? I don’t think they were.

“The Premier trying to excuse this behaviour because of ad­diction problems is completely ­unacceptable.”

On Wednesday evening, Mr Fowles was spotted drinking in a party at Senator Ciccone’s office, which was attended by about two-dozen Labor figures including Senate leader Penny Wong.

Witness Kellie Sloane’s Twitter photo of the smashed door.

He then went with some Labor MPs to the Kingston Hotel to toast Ms Murphy, who declared in her maiden speech she was fighting cancer.

Labor sources said he stayed at the pub until last drinks at 11pm and went across the road to a bar under the East Hotel.

The next morning, he burst into anger when he could not get his luggage out of the hotel’s storage.

Eye-witness Kellie Sloane said she was stopped from going into the hotel by security yesterday morning because of the “yelling” MP. “The security guard said to me there is a big dude there who has gone nuts because he can’t get to his luggage,” she said.

“At that stage, we didn’t realise he was a member of parliament. We thought it was a random guest who had gone nuts.

“He was complaining to a sec­urity guard that the reason he bashed the door in was that his luggage was in that room and there was no staff … to let him in.”

After arriving in Melbourne, Mr Fowles released a statement declaring he had been dealing with addiction and mental health issues “for a long time” and had recently commenced a course in drug and alcohol counselling.

Mr Fowles said he would pay for the damage to the hotel and had paid for the trip to Canberra himself. He had medication in the luggage that was locked in the hotel storage. “What happened is unacceptable. I am deeply ashamed of my actions,” he said.