JUSTICE Burns has judged that former Speaker of the House of Representative Peter Slipper is not guilty of rorting cabcharge vouchers to visit Canberra Region wineries.
I accept that the evidence before the Magistrate was capable of raising, as a rational inference, the proposition that the appellant undertook each of the three journeys for purposes unrelated to parliamentary business. She may have been entitled to conclude that it was the most probable inference. The crucid question is, was it the only rational inference available on the evidence? In my estimation, it clearly was not. The breadth of activity that may be encompassed by the term “parliamentary business” in the Determination means that the prosecution had to disprove the rational possibility that the appellant travelled to the various wineries, for example, for purposes of informing himself about those businesses as part of his function as a parliamentarian, based upon his judgment of the need for such travel for that purpose. The prosecution further had to exclude the possibility that the travel was for the purpose of meeting a third party, in circumstances where there was no evidence of who the appellant may have communicated with prior to, or during, the journeys. The prosecution also had to exclude the possibility that the appellant had determined to conduct meetings about parliamentary business with his staff member at a location other than Parliament House for reasons which he considered adequate. Other potential scenarios may no doubt be posited. The fact is that the prosecution could not exclude these rational inferences, and as such the guilt of the appellant was not the only rational inference available on the evidence. It follows that it was not open to the Magistrate, viewing the evidence as a whole, to convict.
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