In fact, rehabilitation is supposedly one of the basic principles on which a civilised society operates. We tell people to take responsibility for their mistakes, change their behaviour, build something better and prove through their actions that their past does not have to dictate their future.
Then someone actually does that, enters politics, and suddenly we drag the worst years of their life back onto the front page. Over the past few days, One Nation's Victorian leader has faced a barrage of stories concerning allegations made by his former partner about their relationship and his historical drug use.
Pickering subsequently fronted the media and admitted that, during his younger years, he used marijuana, ecstasy and speed or amphetamines. He has also admitted to previous drink-driving offences and losing his licence.
Those aren't things to celebrate. Pickering himself isn't celebrating them. He has acknowledged making mistakes, hurting people and behaving in ways he is not proud of. At the same time, he continues to deny the significantly more serious allegation that he was a chronic ice user or smoked ice around children.
Politicians should face scrutiny. If anything, anyone asking Australians for their vote should expect more scrutiny than the average person. But scrutiny and permanent condemnation are not the same thing and if historical misconduct is going to become a test of a politician's fitness for public office, then there is another question Australians are entitled to ask:
Is that test being applied consistently?
Because Warren Pickering is hardly the first Australian politician to enter public life with a past.
SO WHEN DOES REHABILITATION START TO COUNT?
According to Pickering, his illicit drug use stopped before he joined the Australian Defence Force. He says he disclosed his history during the ADF application process before going on to serve in the Army.
That does not magically erase what happened beforehand. Nor should military service be treated as some kind of automatic absolution from everything a person has ever done. But surely what someone does after their mistakes belongs in the story too.
If a person leaves drugs behind, submits themselves to the discipline and scrutiny involved in military service, spends years serving their country and builds an entirely different life, at what point are we prepared to consider the trajectory as well as the starting point?
When does turning your life around count?
When does subsequent conduct count?
When does rehabilitation become real enough that we stop defining somebody exclusively by the worst version of themselves?
EDDIE HUGHES: “HE WAS YOUNG AND STUPID AND MADE A MISTAKE”
In 2014, South Australian Labor candidate Eddie Hughes' past became an election issue.
Hughes had been convicted in 1983 of assaulting a police officer, resisting arrest and loitering. He received a seven-day suspended sentence and a good-behaviour bond.
Labor knew exactly how it wanted Australians to view that history. Then-Labor campaign spokesman Tom Koutsantonis told the ABC:
“He was young and stupid and made a mistake.”
Labor argued that Hughes had served his penalty, subsequently spent decades contributing to his community and should not be disqualified from public life because of something he had done when he was young.
The South Australian Labor Party's own statement pointed to his years of community service and said:
“No one has ever before suggested that his offence should be a bar to public life.”.
People can commit offences, accept the consequences, change and become productive members of society.
Hughes went on to win Giles in 2014. He was re-elected and re-elected again and in March 2026, more than four decades after that conviction, South Australian voters elected him again as their Labor MP for Giles.
This article isn't arguing Eddie Hughes should be thrown out of parliament because of something he did in 1983.
Quite the opposite.
The question is why the principle that protected Hughes from being permanently defined by his younger self should suddenly become controversial when applied to Warren Pickering.
If “he was young, made a mistake, served his penalty and then served his community” was sufficient context for one politician, surely rehabilitation must at least be part of the conversation for another.
AND THEN THERE'S VICTORIA'S OWN CABINET
The Pickering story has now prompted journalists to begin asking politicians from other parties about their own historical illicit drug use, and almost immediately, something interesting happened. Victoria's Treasurer Colin Brooks acknowledged that he may have smoked marijuana in his early twenties.
Health and Mental Health Minister Ingrid Stitt likewise acknowledged she had “dabbled” in marijuana in her early twenties, describing it as conduct from “decades and decades ago”.
Should either of them resign?
Of course not.
Should Colin Brooks be described for the remainder of his political career primarily as a former illicit drug user?
No.
Should Victorians assume Ingrid Stitt is incapable of serving as Health Minister because she smoked marijuana decades ago?
That would be ridiculous.
Brooks and Stitt should be judged principally on the people they are today and the jobs they are doing today. So should Pickering. Those principles don't stop applying because the politician under examination belongs to a party a newsroom might particularly dislike.
MANUEL BROWN SHOWS EXACTLY WHY CONTEXT MATTERS
Then there is Territory Labor MLA Manuel Brown. Before entering parliament, Brown was convicted of driving without due care following a 2009 multi-vehicle crash in Katherine in which a woman later died.
There needs to be an important distinction here.
Brown was initially charged with more serious offences relating to the crash, but those charges were dismissed. He was ultimately dealt with on the charge of driving without due care and received a 12-month good-behaviour bond.
It would therefore be inaccurate and unfair to describe Brown as having been convicted of causing the woman's death.
When the conviction became public during the 2023 Arafura by-election campaign, Brown spoke about living with what had happened and said he could not allow his “demons” from that day to dictate his future or what he was capable of achieving for his community.
Again: isn't that rehabilitation?
Labor preselected him. Voters elected him. He was re-elected.
More recently, Brown has faced substantial scrutiny for his driving record. He accumulated multiple speeding infringements after entering politics, had his licence suspended and was eventually removed as Territory Labor's opposition whip in July 2026. He nevertheless remains an elected MLA.
There are legitimate questions surrounding Brown's more recent conduct because it happened while he was an elected representative. That is precisely why separating historical conduct from present conduct matters.
Brown's case shows that a person can have a serious incident in their past, rebuild their life and enter parliament without that original incident permanently disqualifying them.
Where there is new conduct, scrutinise the new conduct. Where there is evidence someone's behaviour has continued, report that too. But that is very different from arguing that someone should forever be the person they were decades earlier.
THEN THERE IS LUKE GOSLING
There is another comparison that needs to be handled particularly carefully.
Federal Labor MP Luke Gosling is presently facing criminal charges.
In July, Gosling was charged with two counts of assault over alleged incidents involving Northern Territory Administrator David Connolly. Gosling has strenuously denied the allegations and has indicated the charges will be contested.
In August, police also charged Gosling with allegedly breaching his bail conditions. He subsequently temporarily stood aside from his role as special envoy for defence, veterans' affairs and Northern Australia.
He nevertheless remains the elected Labor Member for Solomon, and he is entitled to remain presumed innocent. The courts, not journalists and certainly not us, will determine the criminal allegations against him.
But think about the standard being applied.
Australians are quite rightly told that serious criminal allegations against a sitting federal politician must go through the courts before conclusions are reached about guilt.
Correct.
Yet at the same time, enormous attention is being directed toward another political figure because of conduct he has already admitted occurred roughly two decades earlier, before entering the military and long before seeking political office.
WHAT EXACTLY IS RELEVANT TO PUBLIC OFFICE?
Some of the coverage surrounding Pickering has also wandered well beyond illegal drug use. The Australian's original reporting prominently framed the story around a supposed “secret life”, drugs and “deviance”. Other coverage has emphasised Pickering's sexuality and details of a consensually open relationship from many years ago.
Which raises another question.
What exactly does consensual adult sexuality nearly two decades ago have to do with someone's capacity to represent an electorate today?
If there was criminal behaviour, report it. If there was dishonesty relevant to public office, investigate it. If Pickering has lied about something material to voters, establish it. If there is evidence of continuing behaviour that calls into question his suitability for office, publish it.
But if we're discussing consensual sexual activity between adults simply because it makes a headline more salacious, then we need to be very clear about what public interest is actually being served.
Surely we haven't reached the point where someone's sexuality in their twenties is evidence of their competence to make decisions about housing, energy, crime, health or infrastructure in their forties.
WE TELL PEOPLE TO TURN THEIR LIVES AROUND, UNTIL THEY ACTUALLY DO
There is a broader contradiction here that deserves far more discussion. Society routinely tells people battling addiction, young Australians heading down destructive paths and people who have made criminal mistakes that their lives are not over.
Get clean.
Take responsibility.
Find discipline.
Get a job.
Repair relationships.
Become a better parent.
Contribute to your community.
Serve others.
Build something.
Become someone your younger self wouldn't recognise.
What happens if someone actually does it?
Do we hold them up as proof that rehabilitation works, or do we keep the receipts from the worst years of their life in a drawer until the moment they become successful enough, prominent enough or politically inconvenient enough to make those mistakes useful again?
If the answer is that nothing someone does afterwards can ever outweigh the worst period of their life, then we should stop pretending we believe in rehabilitation.
