McKay 'outraged' at bashing over 'letter of support'

NSW Labor Leader Jodi McKay says she is absolutely “outraged” at accusations circulating today she provided a “letter of support” to stop the deportation of a convicted paedophile. Legal documents submitted to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal show Ms McKay signed a letter in 2018 after a Sri Lankan man who completed an 18-month sentence for molesting a young girl launched a legal case to be granted a bridging visa. She denied she wrote letters of support and character references, rather choosing to describe the document as a “cover letter”. “It is categorically not a letter of support,” she told Sky News. “I think MPs make a judgement call based on what they believe is best, my judgement call is not to write letters of support, I did not write a letter of support and I’ve been quite rightly outraged today about that being directed at me. She also stressed she did not see that signing her name to the document could in any way be construed as her lending her support to the man. “Anyone that reads that letter can see that there is no support given in that letter," she said. “If I had of known in any way about this individual and what he’d been convicted of, of course I wouldn’t have forwarded those documents". Ms McKay pushed back against suggestions she may have previously written letters for other criminals, saying had the necessary background information been available on the individual in question she would have looked at it. “I make sure that I do the right thing and I’m the first person, if I’ve done something wrong, to put up my hand and say ‘I’ve done something wrong and I’ll accept the consequences’. “But I haven’t done anything wrong here.”

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