Hamilton-Smith exposed as liar not dupe

Things have gone from bad to worse for SA tory leader Martin Hamilton-Smith. A few months ago, he was caught out for using a forged document to argue that Mike Rann and others in the ALP had tried to secure illegal campaign donations from Scientologists, claiming that his supporting documents came from within the ALP.

When challenged by the ALP to out the source of the forged documents, he then ran two lines of argument simultaneously, firstly, that he didn't know where they came from, secondly that they came from within the ALP headquarters. He then of course had to offer a humiliating apology, which is hosted on his own site here.

In a letter from MHS's lawyers to Mike Rann, it is now revealed the MHS simply lied, and never knew the source of the documents at all, with the story about the ALP headquarters apparently just another poorly thought through political tactic.

The letter also claims that MHS got the forged documents from the member for Unley, David Pisoni gave them to him, but conveniently he seems not to know the source either. It then claims that MHS made the "reasonable" conclusion that they had come from ALP headquarters.

Rann has decided not to pursue a defamation action, however as there is talk of the damages from such an action sending the campaign broke thankfully Nick Bolkus and ALP secretary Michael Brown are proceeding with their actions. The tories have pinned their hopes on the profile of former federal tory MP Alexander Downer to rake in some more cash, a man with sufficient experience in the area of dealing with large cash gifts and arising out of dodgyness.

It appears MHS may have finally sent the party financially as well as morally bankrupt.

Full debacle is available only here on the web so far.