Media Crawl Lower than a Snake’s Belly

Another day, another legacy media hit-piece on One Nation. This time, they’re really scraping the bottom of the cess-pit: unearthing decades-long, spurious allegations from the bitter ex-partner of new Victorian leader Warren Pickering. And what are the allegations? That, as a very young man caught up in a relationship with a widowed older woman, he got into drugs and rooting around, before kicking the habit and helping her kick her own.

One Nation has called in lawyers to defend the party’s Victorian leader, Warren Pickering, against contested historical allegations by his former lover and partner of 18 years that he led a secret life of illicit drug taking and “sexual deviance” while they were together.

That’s it. Well, stop the presses.

Even more tellingly, the allegations are being solely run by coalition cheer-leader the Australian. Just coincidentally, no doubt, in the weeks leading up to the critical Victorian state election. The coalition holds a small and fragile lead in the polls, with One Nation fast snapping at their heels. Funny that.

Both the strongly left-leaning major outlets in Victoria, the ABC and the Age have so far refused to touch the story with a 10-foot pole. Funny that.

The context of the story is that Scott, in her late 20s at the time, was the wife of the then 17-year-old Pickering’s boss. When her husband died, she took up with the young apprentice.

Mr Pickering, then 17, became her best friend and occasional lover, she said. They moved in together following the birth of their daughter in 2004.

Mr Pickering laid bricks by day and she worked at night as a chef and hotel shift manager while the family cycled through homes in outer suburban Melbourne and regional Victoria, some in the seat he is now contesting […]

The couple would often drive to the party house in Garfield, 130km west of Heyfield, owned by a close relative of Mr Pickering. The drugs would appear after the relative’s children went to bed in the evening, she said.

The relationship eventually collapsed, acrimoniously. Scott accuses Pickering of sleeping around. The record shows that she was heavily using drugs and experiencing mental health issues, including several suicide attempts. Ultimately, Pickering was given custody of the children and she was barred from contacting them. It wasn’t an entirely destructive relationship, even on her own account: she kicked her drug habit and credits him for helping her get and stay clean.

The ugly smear job accuses Pickering of ‘concealing’ his past. A more generous interpretation might be that he sought to protect his clearly troubled ex, and their children, from the media.

Curiously, while hammering the ‘drug use’ accusations, the Australian buries some inconvenient facts deep, deep in the piece: Warren Pickering has never been charged with a crime. No court has ever made a finding against him. He joined the army at age 29 and spent 10 years serving as a combat engineer under mandatory defence drug testing, and not one failed test has ever been reported, by the Australian or anyone else. He also holds an active Australian government security clearance.

Joanna Howe, Rhodes Scholar and Professor of Law at Adelaide University, calls the story “a disgusting hit job by the Australian” which “relies on the salacious, completely unverified allegations of his former partner, whom the Family Court has consistently dismissed in its hearings since 2010”.

Others have pointed out the sleazy double-standard at play.

A senior Labor minister and close ally to PM Anthony Albanese is also married to someone with not just a rumoured, but a well-documented, troubled past. Tanya Plibersek, Albanese’s Minister for Social Services, is married to senior public servant, Michael Coutts-Trotter. When he was 21, Coutts-Trotter was a drug-addicted heroin dealer who was jailed for nine years for the importation and distribution of heroin. Paroled after less than three years, Coutts-Trotter undeniably turned his life around, pursuing a university degree and a long and respected career in the public service. He is now Labor’s acting secretary of the NSW premier’s department.

No one denies that Coutts-Trotter repaid his debt to society, and well and truly earned his second chance.

Meanwhile, Warren Pickering, a combat veteran who has never been convicted of a single crime in his entire life, is being hung out to dry by the dying coalition’s media attack dogs.

Right on the eve of a state election that could spell the final humiliation of the coalition in Victoria.

Funny that.