Hard road for Roozendaals after wife fined driving car caught up in corruption inquiry
Date February 15, 2013 202 reading now
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Leesha McKenny
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THE DIARY
Eric Roozendaal … his wife was fined for using a mobile while driving. Photo: Kate Geraghty
The best value car in Sydney just got a little bit more expensive.
Amanda Roozendaal, wife of the Labor MP Eric, was on Thursday stopped and fined driving her black Honda CR-V, the marvellous economy of which was highlighted in a corruption inquiry last year.
On Mrs Roozendaal’s account, she was driving along Old South Head Road when police pulled her into a bus lane after spotting her taking a call on loudspeaker.
”I was booked for being on the mobile and it was on my lap, that’s all,” she said.
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Ms Roozendaal doesn’t plan to contest this latest wrongdoing connected with the car – as her husband was at pains to do when hauled before ICAC last year.
He then told the inquiry that a $10,800 ”saving” on the Honda was not in exchange for favours for Labor powerbroker Eddie Obeid.
But Old South Head Road has also proven a painful path for the Roozendaals.
The MP was forced to apologise in 2006, when as newly-minted Roads Minister he was photographed as a passenger in his ministerial car, travelling in a bus lane.
”People should be aware to stay out of bus lanes,” he told the media. ”I was unaware at the time it was happening.”
Mr Roozendaal told last year’s inquiry he also ”wasn’t au fait” with how to register the Honda in 2007, which was in the name of a relative of the Obeids’ business partner, when Mrs Roozendaal had a minor scrape with another car.
Seeds for its latest brush with the law were sown in November, back when Mr Roozendaal was suspended from the Labor Party for filing false registration papers.
New laws about holding phones in cars – and the $298 fine and three-demerit-point penalty – came into force on November 1.
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