Heffernan's apology not good enough.....

So, Senator Heffernan has made a half-arsed attempt to apologise to Ms Gillard for remarks made in the most recent issue of The Bulletin magazine.

Not good enough I say.

If you watch the footage of his apology you can see the man is reluctantly reading a speech which was probably hastily thrown together at the last minute by one of his advisors, or worse, pre-emptively written to mitigate the fallout from the Senators obvious boneheaded remarks.

Many would have bought into this so-called 'sincere apology' up until the point he said 'so there ya go'.

So there ya go?

What the fuck is that?

He might as well have said 'jeez I'm glad I got that out of the way' or perhaps 'there you go guys, I said I'm sorry, can you get off my case now?'.

The fact that he said it in the first place and then refused to apologise despite being well aware of just how wrong his statements were, indicates that he is used to dragging people's names through the mud and getting away with it. He should be forced to resign immediately.

Of course, let us not forget that this isn't the first time the Senator has deliberately attempted to damage someone's credibility in the media. I am reminded of the accusations made by former ALP leader Mark Latham during a speech to the Melbourne University in which he quoted John Hewson as saying:

'Howard has used Heffernan to distribute dirt and to run his agenda against individuals for almost as long as I have known him'

I am growing increasingly suspicious that this situation might be more accurate than any of us care to mention. Let's take a look at this wack-jobs previous offences:

Offence #1 - March 2002: The Senator comes under fire for abusing parliamentary privilege and making damaging remarks against Justice Michael Kirby. The Senator used fabricated documents to accuse the judge of using Commonwealth cars to trawl for male prostitutes. He withdrew his claims 7 days later and was censured from the senate. He was later forced to resign from his post as Parliamentary Secretary, but refused to resign from his Senate position. For some strange reason, he was re-elected to his post in 2004.

Offence #2 - February 2006: The Senator is forced to apologise to National Party Senator Fiona Nash, after a public argument at the Canberra airport in which he told Ms Nash to 'blow it our her ass'.

Offence #3 - July 2006: The Senator is accused of being involved in the downfall of John Brogden, a fellow Liberal Party member who resigned from party politics after a reported suicide attempt. Alex Taggert (Independent member for Pittwater and Mr Brogden's political rival at the time) claims that Mr Heffernan contacted his campaign team stating that he was the Prime Minister's right hand man, and did his 'dirty work'. Heffernan had apparently told Mr Taggert's campaign team that he had a 'dirt file' on Mr Brogden and reportedly encouraged Mr Taggert to use this file in order to damage Mr Brogden's credibility. Mr Heffernan of course denies these claims, but interestingly enough never attempted to sue Mr Taggert for defamation.

Offence #4 - March 2007: During the most recent New South Wales state election, Heffernan was accused of stealing Green's how-to-vote cards and mis-representing their policies to voters as they arrived. The Senator was reported to Police for yelling "If you want to decriminalise drugs for your children, vote Green" but never arrested.

Offence #5 - May 2007: And then of course we have the Bulletin article in which he accuses Julia Gillard of being out of touch with the community and therefore unfit for leadership because of her decision not to have children. The Senator also stated that he felt Priests should have the right to marry because "like the rest of us, they wake up with a horn at four in the morning".

I don't know about you, but something doesn't sit right with me about this picture. When you break it down like this it starts to make sense why John Howard was so reluctant to tell Mr Heffernan to apologise. Could it be the case that he ordered the hit in the first place?

And seriously, conspiracy theories aside, how many times does a person have to fuck up before people start saying 'enough is enough'? I'm quite sure one of the basic principals that underpins a western democracy is Ministerial Accountability - which quite simply implies 'if you fuck up, then you resign'. Although many would argue that it appears to have died a horrible death right around the time Alexander Downer got away with the scandal that was AWB.

It is my firm belief that Mr Heffernan should immediately resign from Politics altogether, and if the bastard refuses, then the Prime Minister should force him to. It's as simple as that. Anything less would be an insult to Democracy and an insult to the people of this country.

Thankfully, it appears I am not the only one calling for this knobheads resignation either.

Let's hope these calls don't fall on deaf ears yet again.