Billy Gordon must stop making excuses for bad behaviour
Billy Gordon's upbringing does not excuse any of his criminal behaviour or his decision not to disclose it.
Give me a break. The co-pilot of the fatal Germanwings crash may have been struggling to cope after breaking up with his partner. Or he might have been suffering a "personal crisis". Or been depressed.
But this fact remains: Andreas Lubitz deliberately crashed the plane into the French Alps, killing 150 innocent travellers including children, parents, and grandparents.
And no matter what excuse is used, he will, and should be, written into history as a mass murderer.
You need not cross the world though, to find examples of how colourful excuses can be conjured up as the raison d'être for bad behaviour, or criminal activity.
Indeed, this week, wayward Labor MP Billy Gordon gave us a stellar lesson in the art of arguing how crimes should be pardoned by circumstance.
"I remember wishing as (a) young person that I had grown up with a normal nuclear family," he told his Facebook followers.
"Growing up I remember spending a lot of time wanting what other kids had, like shoes, bikes, footballs."
Guess what Billy. You should have spent less time wanting what others had, and less time breaking the law too.
Billy Gordon is not the first person - nor will he be the last - to grow up outside a nuclear family, or without shoes, or a shiny new bike for his birthday.
And none of his upbringing excuses any of his criminal behaviour or his decision not to disclose it; a decision which has now brought his political party to the brink.
Wishing he grew up with "a perfect father figure" doesn't excuse the conviction for break and entering and stealing in Innisfail in 1987.
It doesn't excuse the charge and conviction for breaking and entering with intent, attempted breaking and entering and stealing in Atherton in 1990.
Nor does it pardon his breach of probation in Atherton in 1992. Nor his public nuisance conviction in Normanton in 1996. Nor the breach of bail conditions in 1999. Nor him twice having his driver's licence suspended for unlicensed driving in 2004 and 2008.
And nothing in his background excuses his decision not to declare what he calls his "serious contact with the criminal justice system".
There are children this morning, in electorates across Queensland, with no food for their school lunch box. There are others who are sole carers for terminally-ill parents. Or who see their mother assaulted weekly by their father (or vice-versa), and they are too afraid to tell anyone.
Does that give them the right to become felons as teenagers? To go rob a service station as an adult? Attack someone in the street? Of course it doesn't, and most of those will grow up into law-abiding adults. Some will even give back to the community, understanding the hardship of others, through their own experience.
Excuses are now the reason for bad behaviour across the community. An act of road rage because someone cut someone off at the pass. A scratch along the side of a car because someone took somebody else's car park. One punch outside a night club because someone thought someone else's drink had been spiked.
And Billy Gordon shouldn't attempt any further excuses.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/com...xcuses-for-bad-behaviour-20150401-1mcw9i.html
