47 Times Tim Smith Called For A Rival To Resign Over Shit Way Less Serious Than Blowing .131

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Cam Tyeson

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Tim Smith, embattled Liberal Victorian member for Kew, is remarkably resisting calls to resign from Parliament immediately, following this past weekend’s incident in which he (allegedly) got behind the wheel of his brand-new Jaguar after consuming a shedload of booze, and summarily crashed it into a family home in Hawthorn.

Those calls for Smith’s resignation from Parliament have come not from opposition, but from close ally. Matthew Guy, the state Opposition Leader and noted Friend of Tim, has asserted in no uncertain terms that Smith should not contest the next election, effectively demanding he bow out of state politics.

However Smith, who reportedly blew a fairly eye-watering 0.131 at the time of the incident, has apparently been resolute in his aim to remain in Parliament. Smith has thus far resisted all calls to resign, and opined “Should one horrendously poor judgement render someone’s career over immediately?” in a fairly staggering interview on 3AW Wednesday morning, during which he also claimed that his 0.131 breath test reading was merely the result of “a few glasses of wine.”

So the question begs: Is it fair to call for a politician’s immediate resignation over an incident of poor judgment?

Perhaps the better question is: If it had happened to a rival MP, would Tim himself be calling for their resignation?

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With a hat tip to Twitter user @DrCrazyThoughts for compiling the data, let’s check the archives.

November 21, 2016: Smith calls for Safe Schools founder Roz Ward (not an MP) to resign after trying to remove the MAGA hat of a Trump-supporting agitator at an otherwise peaceful anti-Trump protest at Monash Universty.

June 21, 2017: Calls for former Labor speaker Telmo Languiller to resign over a $50,000+ overseas travel bill which was footed by taxpayers. Languiller quietly retired from politics the following year.

March 1, 2018: Smith called for then-Education Minister James Merlino to pack it in over an alleged foiled “murder plot” involving students at a school in Melbourne’s north.

May 3, 2018: Smith demands the resignation of Treasurer Tim Pallas over porkbarreling concerns following the release of an Ombudsman report into Labor Party activity surrounding the 2014 election campaign.

September 5, 2018: Smith makes the first of many calls for Dan Andrews to resign, following the release of a stack of documents concerning opposition leader Matthew Guy‘s botched attempt to rezone farmland on Phillip Island, which cost taxpayers $3.5 million in a resultant legal settlement.

September 6, 2018: Smith sends out a midnight tweet again calling for Andrews to resign over the incident, which again primarily concerned Matthew Guy.

September 6, 2018 again: After waking up in the morning, Smith calls for Andrews to resign over the same incident once again.

September 6, 2018 again: Make that an even four. This time somehow the Hemsworth brothers are tangentially involved.

March 21, 2019: Smith’s attentions turn back to Treasurer Tim Pallas, calling for him to resign over his dealings with Transurban.

September 30, 2019: Smith calls for Will Fowles to resign after being spotted at the MCC Member’s Bar for the 2019 AFL Grand Final despite being on leave for addiction issues after a drunken incident in a Canberra hotel in which he kicked in a door.

October 10, 2019: Smith calls for Fowles to resign again, stating he “clearly isn’t up to being a member of Parliament.”

October 10, 2019 again: Smith posts the exact same tweet as the one two minutes prior, only with a different link this time.

October 11, 2019: Smith again goes in on Fowles over the incident involving alcohol.

October 11, 2019 again: Again, Smith targets Fowles and reiterates that he “clearly isn’t up to being a member of parliament,” and that “the people of Burwood deserve much better.”

February 15, 2020: Smith calls for Casey Counciller Sam Aziz to resign, after he voluntarily quits the Liberal Party following extensive evidence of corruption and embezzlement at an IBAC hearing.

May 5, 2020: Smith calls for Deputy CHO Dr Annalise van Diemen to resign after posting a tweet comparing the arrival of COVID-19 in Australia to that of Captain Cook. Van Diemen is subsequently cleared of any code of conduct breach.

July 2, 2020: Smith issues a blanket push for any one of Martin Pakula, Lisa Neville, Jenny Mikakos, or Dan Andrews to resign after hotel quarantine issues in Victoria begin to bubble to the surface.

July 2, 2020 again: 11 minutes later, Smith issues another blanket demand for Pakula, Neville, Mikakos, and Andrews to resign, this time based on the behests of [checks notes] Dave Hughes.

July 7, 2020: Smith issues blanket call number three for all four senior Labor Government officials to scram.

July 29, 2020: Smith makes a vague gesture for Dan Andrews’ “friends” to resign, but declines to mention anyone specifically.

August 4, 2020: Smith calls for then-Health Minister Jenny Mikakos to resign, citing – of all things – the June 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in Melbourne.

September 22, 2020: Smith calls for DHHS Secretary Kim Peake – and, by extension, the entire Victorian public service – to resign.

October 7, 2020: Smith calls for Police Minister Lisa Neville to resign over the hotel quarantine fiasco. The tweet features a bizarre graphic mockup the echoes the US Military’s infamous Iraq’s Most Wanted playing card deck.

October 7, 2020 again: 13 minutes later he’s back at it again. This time without the deeply stupid playing card.

October 23, 2020: Smith calls for Dan Andrews to resign for no real reason at all.

October 25, 2020: Smith calls for Dan Andrews to resign again based on some impatient grumbling from former Premier Jeff Kennett.

October 26, 2020: Smith again calls for Andrews to resign after appearing on Sydney radio to claim he is a “habitual liar” who is costing “1,200 jobs a day.”

December 14, 2020: Here’s Smith going at Andrews again in December 2020…

December 21, 2020: …and once again a week later, using the 801 lives lost during Victoria’s second COVID wave as a political football.

December 21, 2020 again: Later that night, more of the same.

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January 2, 2021: Smith uses a speculative Andrews resignation as a New Year’s Resolution.

February 12, 2021: Smith again calls for Andrews to resign, apparently aggrieved over the Premier’s choice of whiskey from four months prior.

February 12, 2021 again: Eight minutes later, Smith calls for Andrews’ resignation again, this time over circuit breaker lockdown action taken which lasts a total of five days.

February 12, 2021 for a third time: Smith, Andrews, resign. There’s a graphic this time. It looks like shit.

February 14, 2021: Smith calls for Andrews to resign, but only after he contacts Gladys Berejiklian and asks her to “send NSW officials” to Victoria to “teach ours how to do it.” Four months later NSW would suffer a COVID outbreak that necessitates a 107-day lockdown. Berejiklian subsequently resigns as Premier in September amid ICAC enquiries into alleged corrupt behaviour.

February 22, 2021: Smith again uses the 801 deaths from the Victorian second wave as a reason to call for Andrews’ resignation. 655 – or 82% total – of those deaths come from aged care facilities, which are a Federal responsibility.

March 17, 2021: Smith calls for Minister for Veterans Affairs Shaun Leane to resign, after Leane suggests that some MPs use ANZAC Day as a political exercise to “get a selfie and look sad.” Which is probably not entirely untrue.

March 18, 2021: Smith posts his own address in Parliament in which he echoes his calls for Leane to resign.

May 26, 2021: Smith stops short of calling for Melbourne Lord Mayor Sally Capp to resign directly, but gives the vague allusion that “many business leaders are hoping” she will.

June 2, 2021: Back on Andrews, Smith not only calls for Andrews to resign but makes an obtuse reference to Andrews suffering another catastrophic back injury.

August 19, 2021: Smith calls on Victorian COVID Commander Jeroen Weimar to resign after he says rudimentary statistics of COVID-19 cases amongst Melbourne’s Orthodox Jewish community out loud.

So there you have it. 47 calls for resignation, citing concerns of varying significance, some of which come close, but arguably do not exceed, the severity of “blowing 0.131 after crashing a car into a family house.”

Would Tim Smith be calling for resignation had this happened to someone else?

Based on the evidence, probs.

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