"Verdicts of not guilty will be substituted with respect to each charge." In July, a Canberra magistrate found the former parliamentary speaker had acted dishonestly and knowingly caused a risk of loss to the Commonwealth when he claimed travel entitlements after three winery visits in 2010. Chief Magistrate Lorraine Walker, found Mr Slipper had intentionally filled in the dockets with false information, including using general terms such as "suburbs" to describe his pick-up and drop-off locations, to conceal the fact he was not on parliamentary business. Ms Walker said the vouchers Mr Slipper filled out did not "realistically reflect" the journeys he took on any of the trips, and his use of the term "suburbs" to refer to the regional wineries was "implausible". The magistrate sentenced the former member for Fisher to 300 hours community service and ordered him to repay $954.

But Mr Slipper's legal team appealed on 13 grounds, arguing the verdicts had been unsafe as the magistrate had drawn inferences of dishonesty not available on evidence, and the magistrate had erred in finding evidence established beyond reasonable doubt that Slipper had travelled for "private purposes". Justice Burns said, despite the array of grounds, the outcome of the appeal turned on one question: was the magistrate entitled to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr Slipper undertook each of the three journeys for purely personal reasons? "I am satisfied that she was not so entitled, and I am satisfied that the convictions recorded by the magistrate were unsafe and unsatisfactory," Justice Burns wrote. Justice Burns said the breath of activity that could be encompassed by the term "parliamentary business" meant the prosecution had to disprove the possibility that Mr Slipper visited the wineries for work. For example, the judge said, Mr Slipper could have made the visits to inform himself about the businesses as part of his function as a parliamentarian, to meet a third party, or to meet staff members.

"The fact is that the prosecution could not exclude these rational inferences, and as such the guilt of the appellant was not the only rational inference available on the evidence," Justice Burns said. "It follows that it was not open to the magistrate, viewing the evidence as a whole, to convict." Justice Burns ordered the appeal be upheld and the convictions and penalties imposed by the magistrate be set aside. "Verdicts of not guilty will be substituted with respect to each charge."