Rex Jackson

if he has truly come clean, if he is truly now focusing on what is good for his party and his state, I'm prepared to give him a bit of a break.

Now, I've surprised myself for saying that because as a young bloke, what motivated me to get into politics was at the time in the 1980s, there was a Labor minister called Rex Jackson and he was in the seat, adjoining the seat that I grew up in in Bankstown and he was a crook and he went to jail and I wanted purity in politics.

But at 56, I've got to look back and think to myself, well, if I demanded that, I would never have got there.

Well, I want to ask you a question about that, but this is what Mr Pickering said today about his drug use.

But it is, as I said to the media the other day after I gave evidence, Clinton, I mean, yeah, it's calm as a bitch and all that sort of stuff.

But I joined the Young Liberals on my 16th birthday because one of the local MPs was a guy named Rex Jackson.

And I thought, you know what? Members of Parliament, politicians, cabinet ministers shouldn't be corrupt.

And as an idealistic 16-year-old person, I joined the Young Liberals because I thought the Young Liberals was going to be a great way for me to fight corruption in politics.