Уильям Хеффернан: политическая карьера австралийского сенатора.

Australian politician

William Daniel Heffernan (born 3 March 1943), is an Australian former politician who was a Liberal Party member of the Senate representing the state of New South Wales from September 1996 to May 2016.

Heffernan was born in Junee, New South Wales, and attended St. Joseph's College, Hunters Hill. He has qualifications in wool classing and welding from Wagga Wagga Technical College Heffernan lives with his wife, Margaret. Heffernan was a member of the Junee Shire Council 1981–96 and was President of the Council 1989–90 and 1991–93. He was active in the Liberal Party for many years and was the party's NSW State President 1993–1996. He was reelected twice, in 2004 and 2010, and was the Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Agricultural and Related Industries, Rural & Regional Affairs Policy Committee, and Member of the Joint House Committee. On 17 March 2008, Senator Heffernan announced the establishment of a Senate Inquiry looking at the implications for Australian farmers of world chemical and fertiliser supply and pricing arrangements, monopolistic and cartel behaviour and related matters. In the same month Heffernan announced the establishment of a Senate Inquiry into Meat Marketing. The Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport looked at the need for effective supervision of national standards and controls and the national harmonisation of regulations applying to the branding and marketing of meat. On 12 November 2008, Senator Heffernan announced that a Senate Inquiry would be launched to examine gene patents, saying: "Patents should be for inventions, not for naturally occurring genes." The Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs was to inquire into the granting of patent monopolies in Australia over human and microbial genes and non coding sequences, proteins and their derivatives. Heffernan said "the granting of gene patents has the potential to have a detrimental impact on healthcare costs, medical research, provision of training and accreditation for healthcare professionals as well as the health and wellbeing of all Australians." Following the launch of the Senate Inquiry into Gene Patents by Heffernan, Mervyn Jacobsen, the founder and 40 per cent shareholder of the Melbourne company Genetic Technologies, which holds the patents for BRCA1 and BRCA2, backed down from threatened legal action. On 19 February 2016, Heffernan announced he would not be a candidate at the 2016 federal election, and would retire at the end of his current term. His term ended at the double dissolution of 9 May 2016.

On 12 March 2002, speaking in the Senate under parliamentary privilege, Heffernan made accusations against a serving judge. Only at the end of this speech did Heffernan make it clear that the judge he was referring to was Justice Michael Kirby of the High Court of Australia. Senators John Faulkner and Robert Ray (Labor) and Aden Ridgeway (Australian Democrats) each alleged that Heffernan had deliberately structured his speech this way in order to conceal the fact that he was violating parliamentary standing orders. and to support these claims he produced what appeared to be a driver's log book recording the alleged trip. The documents were found to be a forgery. On 19 March, he made a statement to the Senate in which he withdrew the claims. Immediately following this statement, Heffernan was censured by the Senate "on the voices". During the hearing, he also made comments about having a beer in a three minute break and there being no whisky in the water. But National Party MP De Anne Kelly described the incident as "workplace harassment", saying "workplace harassment is not acceptable anywhere". On 20 May 2012 allegations were reported in the media that Heffernan struck a fellow Liberal party member and suspended electoral officer, Ray Carter, so hard that he was toppled onto a chair, before allegedly whispering to him "I didn't know you were a poofter." during a branch meeting on 3 May. The president of the NSW Liberal Party, fellow New South Wales Senator Arthur Sinodinos, dismissed the allegations.

In 2015, Heffernan used parliamentary privilege to allege that he had a document, allegedly produced to the Wood Royal Commission, that listed the names of 28 people, including prominent lawyers, suspected of visiting a "boy brothel" in Kings Cross. He stated in parliament that a former Prime Minister was among the names.

In a public lecture given on 27 September 2005, political opponent Mark Latham accused Heffernan of engaging in the "politics of personal destruction", and quoted John Hewson (a former Liberal Party leader) as saying that John Howard had used Heffernan to distribute dirt and to run his agenda against individuals "for almost as long as I have known him". In October 2006, Heffernan called for "someone's arse to get kicked" because of delays to the construction of the final major link in the dual carriageway between Sydney and Melbourne. According to Heffernan, a "colony of whatever they are that live in the edge of the bank of the creek" (platypus) was causing the delay and it was a problem that could be fixed "in ten minutes". He called for consultants to be axed if they were "wasting taxpayers' money". In an interview with The Bulletin magazine in May 2007, Senator Heffernan repeated previously stated views that priests should be able to marry because " priests, like the rest of us, wake up with a horn at four in the morning." In the same Bulletin interview, Heffernan caused widespread outrage by suggesting the unmarried and childless Deputy Leader of the Opposition Julia Gillard was unfit for leadership because she was "deliberately barren". Heffernan later apologised for the remarks. The Bulletin published an interview which quoted Heffernan as stating that Australia had to "settle the north" because millions of people in Asia may find it a "very attractive proposition" if climate change leaves them water poor. Heffernan later denied he had made such claims but The Bulletin stood by the accuracy of its report, citing an audio recording of the Heffernan interview. On 2 December 2014, during the parliament's last sitting week of the year, Heffernan rang the office of Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm in order to get Leyonhjelm to drop his threat to block government legislation if the Coalition party room failed to allow a conscience vote on his (Leyonhjelm's) bill to legalise same sex marriage. When Leyonhjelm later appeared in the Senate chamber, Heffernan called him a "terrorist", to which Leyonhjelm responded by telling Heffernan to "fuck off", three times.

During the New South Wales 2007 state election, Heffernan was accused of stealing Greens how to vote cards and misrepresenting Greens policies to voters. He was reported as shouting "If you want to decriminalise drugs for your children, vote Green". Police were called but he was not arrested. According to The Age newspaper, in 2007 Heffernan posed as an ASIO agent in a telephone call to John Grabbe, a farm manager in New South Wales. Under the Crimes Act it is an offence to impersonate a Commonwealth officer. On 30 August 2010, Heffernan admitted being the caller who rang NSW independent MP Rob Oakeshott, and introduced himself as "the devil". The phone call was answered by Oakeshott's wife, who assumed it was a prank call and hung up, before Heffernan gave his name. Oakeshott accused the Liberal National Coalition of dirty tactics and described the introduction as "Rambo style". Heffernan said he had been introducing himself as such for a while. Heffernan is also reported to have impersonated Senator Barnaby Joyce during a telephone conversation with one of his constituents. In response, the Australian Federal Police Commissioner Tony Negus admitted passholders bringing in unauthorised objects "is a risk", but that the AFP regularly consults with parliamentary officials about appropriate security measures.