Know your Senate candidates – Barry O’Sullivan
Barry O’Sullivan is the Queensland Senator who was appointed to fill the Senate vacancy left by Barnaby Joyce’s move to the lower house in 2013.
He first came to attention in 2011 when an expletive-laden tape emerged of him bullying and threatening a candidate for pre-selection.
O’Sullivan, Chair of the Candidate Review Committee, tells the candidate “you wouldn’t be the first f—ing dead body on the floor of this party where the problem has got too big, so you need to work with us and stop frightening the children.”
He goes on to say, “you think this party is going to go out and defend you on your word alone you’re f—ing even more naive than you’re presenting”.
The candidate was then made to hold his hands above his head and repeat the statements “guys we need to work together to neutralise it” and “my innocence doesn’t make the problem go away”.
Mr O’Sullivan stressed the importance of the Cairns electorate in the tape.
“You don’t think I want to work for a whole year only to sit down on f—ing election night with a bottle of rum between my knees, f—ing bawling my eyes out because [we] lost it by one seat which was Cairns,” he said.
These were not the only tapes to get Mr O’Sullivan into hot water.
Also in 2011, the Courier-Mail revealed covert recordings undertaken by Moggill MP Bruce Flegg in which he was offered an inducement by party officials to retire so he could be replaced by Campbell Newman. The tapes included conversations about him taking a lucrative trade commissioner’s position.
The CMC became involved, naming O’Sullivan as a “relevant” party to the investigation.
In mid-2012, O’Sullivan, a former police officer-turned developer, was then appointed by Flegg who was Queensland public works minister, to conduct an audit of two state government agencies, GoPrint and GoPlant, despite him having no direct knowledge of the industries involved.
The state opposition called the appointment “totally inappropriate”, saying that an accounting firm should have conducted the audit rather than an LNP party official. Premier Campbell Newman conceded that O’Sullivan’s appointment was inappropriate, and that he was not aware of the appointment until it was reported in the media.
Meanwhile the CMC investigation continued with Dr Flegg’s former lover telling the watchdog that she was aware of the offer made to Flegg.
Despite all this, O’Sullivan was chosen to replace Joyce but his appointment was postponed until February 2014 pending the results of the CMC investigation (who eventually found no evidence for the allegations), leaving Queensland one Senator short for five months.
Senator O’Sullivan has the claim to fame of being the politician with the largest property portfolio, with 40 to 50 investment properties. He is also the person who asked Larissa Waters if she was married during Senate Question Time.
Mr O’Sullivan has not faced an election before. It is now up to the people of Queensland to decide if they endorse the man who was gifted the job.
Like what we do at The AIMN?
You’ll like it even more knowing that your donation will help us to keep up the good fight.
Chuck in a few bucks and see just how far it goes!
Your contribution to help with the running costs of this site will be gratefully accepted.
You can donate through PayPal or credit card via the button below, or donate via bank transfer: BSB: 062500; A/c no: 10495969
18 comments
Login here Register here-
Peter Ball -
diannaart -
philgorman2014 -
babblegail -
Terry2 -
bobrafto -
David -
John Lord -
Jack Russell -
gerald -
David -
Peter Harden (@hardenuppete) -
2353 -
Garth -
steve -
Andreas -
Christina -
townsvilleblog
Return to home pageanother LNP Buffoon
Indeed, Peter Ball
We do need to keep up with the bozo’s in parliament… there might be a Guinness Book of records in it…
😛
Talk about scum rising! They say we get the politicians we deserve but at least in this instance we have a politician who’s been foisted on us.
Lets welcome another version of Sir Les Patterson… what a joke 😉
If you want another LNP Bozo you don’t need to look much beyond Senator Ian MacDonald, again a Queensland Senator I’m sad to say.
This Double Dissolution is an opportunity to flush these buffoons and look to independents and Greens in the Senate..
He is the biggest crim one can lay eyes on.
When the CMC or any other investigative body wants to whitewash an issue, it comes up with the stock standard response of insufficient evidence.
And no one can do anything about it.
It sucks big time.
Owns 20 properties and counting…..on a separate note….evil bastard!!!
I remember hearing that tape years ago. Nefarious mouth.
I’ll be wanting to know the ins and outs of a duck’s bum about the candidates in my electorate (Flinders, Vic) before July 2, but where does one go to get any info that hasn’t been sanitised?
Does anyone have some good links they’d care to post here?
He owns at least 42 properties, mentioned many times in the media. I still remember watching him and McDonald in the Senate tearing strips off poor Gillian Triggs, disgusting behavior!
Well said Gerald, really confirmed what low life evil sods those two are, it was disgusting. Yet they both continually attempt to take the moral high ground on every topic they intrude into or are assigned. Evil personified
This is the man who bullied Simone Marsh the QLD whistleblower at the Senate Inquiry into QLD Gov’t administration as she was trying to present her testimony into corruption in QLD.
O’Sullivan and his son both appear in the offshore leaks database and I am told there is a lot more to come very shortly with several investigative journo’s looking very closely at all his interests and connections.
https://offshoreleaks.icij.org/nodes/119815
Demonstrates you don’t have to have knowledge or compassion to be a Senator – just how to play the numbers.
@Peter Harden…. Thank you.
I think I need to set aside a few hours (maybe more than a few) and take a stroll through that database. For no other reason than if more people did then perhaps we’d weed out a few of our political and business scoundrels (well, there is another reason, it’s just bloody interesting!).
Seriously if there was ever a fat pig greedily feeding at the taxpayers trough……….
One Mal Colston springs to mind…
Another LNP neanderthal. It seems they never run out of candidates
The LNP are famous for producing them, I bet this bastard has never been stood up to in his life, I’d happily do the job for free.