Just over 10 months ago former Liberal opposition leader David Speirs walked out of the Adelaide Magistrates Court a convicted criminal, having pleaded guilty to two counts of supplying drugs.
In less than one week, he could be back as a member of South Australia’s parliament.
“I gave this a lot of consideration … and I felt I had a reasonable level of support in the community, I feel well in myself [and] I’ve got a lot of things I think I can still contribute,” Speirs told 7.30.
Speirs will contest the seat of Black as an independent – the electorate he represented for most of his time in parliament – until his resignation in 2024 after a video emerged of him snorting from a plate.
Speirs was subsequently charged by police, although those charges didn’t relate specifically to the video.
He had initially claimed the video was a deep fake before later admitting he took cocaine to escape the pressure of being the state opposition leader.
“I wanted to go to sleep and never wake up at some points,”
he said.
“There would be leaks to the media, not necessarily about me, but about things in the party, there was infighting, I just didn’t think I could ever get clear air.
“I don’t regret becoming opposition leader because someone needed to pick up the pieces after the [2022] election but it took a massive personal toll on me.
“I was out of the house by 6am most mornings. I often wasn’t back by 10pm.
“The endlessness and the negativity of being opposition leader wore me to just the worst place.”
Now, Speirs is hopeful that the community that voted him in three times can move past his criminality.
“It’s in the past now, but I made bad mistakes, I surrounded myself with people that I shouldn’t have,” Speirs told 7.30.
“I’m owning it, I’m saying sorry to the people that I failed … and I failed a lot of people, but I failed myself as much as anything.
“Second chances are not given lightly, they’re earned and … I feel I’ve gotten that second chance from this community, and that gets me out of bed every morning.”
‘Should be ashamed’
But as 7.30 joined Speirs while he campaigned at the local Hallett Cove shops, two constituents made it clear they were not ready to give the 41-year-old another chance.
“Don’t talk to us, you shoot through, we don’t want to know you, get going,” Geoffrey Boumard told Speirs as he approached him while he was sitting at a local coffee shop.
“I don’t want him in there. He should be ashamed of himself with what he’s done, with what he did in his position that he was in, is absolutely shocking … and he’s got the audacity to come back.
“I hope nobody votes for him because he doesn’t deserve to have a job and that’s the end of the story.”
But there was support too for Speirs, who was a local councillor in the area, before he ran for parliament.
Read more
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-16/david-speirs-election-bid-post-drugs-charges/106450640
