Fed: Colston believed to be spending Christmas in hospital

AAP General News (Australia)
12-24-2000
Fed: Colston believed to be spending Christmas in hospital

Former Queensland senator MAL COLSTON is reportedly spending Christmas in hospital
battling terminal cancer.

Channel Nine News tonight reported the 62-year-old former senator was admitted to Brisbane's
Wesley Hospital emergency department at midnight last night.

The Wesley Hospital's media spokeswoman was tonight unable to confirm the report.

Doctors predicted last March the Labor-turned-independent senator would be dead within
three months from inoperable bowel cancer.

The dismal prognosis led the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to drop 28 fraud
charges against him.

The charges related to alleged travel rorts in 1997.

In November, Dr Colston was admitted to the Wesley Hospital in Brisbane's west as the
DPP announced it would review its decision to drop the charges against him.

At the time, Dr Colston's wife, Dawn, refused to comment on her husband's medical condition
or prognosis.

But in a prepared statement read to AAP, she said: "The lack of privacy being experienced
by my family is the direct result of a hateful campaign of political harassment on the
part of the Australian Labor Party".

Dr Colston defected from federal Labor in 1996, promising to support Prime Minister
John Howard's controversial proposal to sell off one third of Telstra.

In exchange for his vote, the federal coalition gave him the position of deputy Senate president.

AAP RTV bja/mjm

KEYWORD: COLSTON (BRISBANE)

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