Underpants and Aussie politics - a fond reminiscence

Your're not going to believe this, but life really is stranger than fiction.

My second wife, Anna, was actually born Aroha Te Paora, and was a descendant of chief Honi Heke, the last man to start a shooting war with the Brits in New Zealand.

I can't recall if I have mentioned her before, but she was startlingly beautiful, and, she left New Zealand and went to Australia to seek her fortune. There, after a series of improbable adventures, she became involved with Lionel Murphy, a lawyer and politician.

Lionel, with whom I once had a drunken lunch in the Bistro in Sydney, became Attorney General in the Whitlam government. He and Whitlam, in the great Labour tradition, hated each other and eventually Lionel got thrown out of his job becoming, if memory serves me right, Chief Justice on New South Wales.

New South Wales has a great tradition of corrupt politics, and Lionel was accused of doing something dodgy and about to be hauled up for it when he died. Having seen him on the sauce, I'm surprised he lasted that long.

All this sprang to mind when I read about Matt Brown the minister of police in the current New South Wales Labour government who has had to resign because, as the party leader said, there had been "too many reports of you in your underpants for me to ignore". It seems the sprightly fellow had mounted the chest of fellow MP Noreen Hay and simulated the sexual act.

After wondering fleetingly if Noreen has big tits, I thought how much more fun politics are over there. I haven't been since February. Must hurry back before I miss anything else.

Over here all we get is a lot of chat about which mug will inherit the Brown "legacy" aka a mountain of debt from the king of financial prudence.