It’s been a fun-filled year for Australian politics. Barnaby Joyce made a baby with his staffer but cried foul on the media “invading his personal life”, seemingly without irony, then lost his damn mind and said the paternity of the bub was a grey area. We feel for his long-suffering media advisor.
As disturbing as that was, and boy was it disturbing, Barnaby’s bonking doesn’t even touch the sides when it comes to political scandals of times gone by.
Don’t believe us? Read on…
Matt Brown’s spectacular underwear escapades
Just three days after being hired as NSW police minister, Matt Brown stripped to his underwear at the post-budget booze-up and apparently gyrated on an unnamed female MP.
Witnesses also claimed he turned to her adult daughter who was in the film and said: “Look at this, I’m t-tty f—ing your mother!” Charming.
“I subsequently put it to former minister Brown late last night that there too many reports of you in your underwear for me to ignore,” then-Premier Nathan Rees said on the radio, which I’d bet is a sentence he never thought he’d have to say. After finally admitting to his behaviour, Brown was sacked immediately.
Former Liberal leader died having sex with his son’s ex-girlfriend
Sir Billy Snedden was the party’s leader in the mid-70s and in 1987, he was found dead in Rushcutter’s Bay wearing a condom.
Although it was initially treated as a suspicious death, police discovered Sir Billy had actually had a heart attack while spending the night with a secretary who used to date his son, Drew.
Much later, Drew spoke to the Herald Sun about his dad’s passing and he seemed pretty at peace with the whole affair.
“On the night he died he’d just been welcomed back into the Liberal fold and he was at his political best,” he explained.
“It was an adrenalin-filled evening.
“I’m sure the old man went out happy – anyone would be proud to die on the job.”
And he wasn’t even the only leader to go out in such a dramatic fashion; former Prime Minister Ben Chifley reportedly died from a heart attack in 1951 “in the company” of his secretary.
Bob Hawke hosted nude meetings
Paul Keating, and admittedly Bob’s public nemesis, revealed the former PM was fond of hosting meetings with his ministers poolside at the lodge completely starkers.
“Gareth [Evans] and I went out there in suits one day, sweating, and there’s Bob in the nude,” Keating said at a book launch in 2014.
“I said, don’t worry, midgets …” while using his fingers and thumb to mimic a penis.
His love for a birthday suit was corroborated by a former hotel manager who said he was forced to ask Bob to stop answering the door without clothes on for the sake of the poor, unsuspecting staff.
This is obviously speculation but could it be the naked truth?
Peter Dutton accidentally texted the journalist he was b-tching about
After prominent journalist Samantha Maiden wrote a column criticising dumped minister Jamie Briggs for leaking a photo of the female public servant he was accused of harassing, Dutton accidentally sent her a text calling her a “mad f—ing witch”.
“Sam and I have exchanged some robust language over the years so we had a laugh after this and I apologised to her straight away, which she took in good faith,” confessed Dutton.
Despite the sexist overtures, Maiden brushed it off and changed her Twitter pic to Samantha from Bewitched.
Craig Thomson spent a lot of union funds at brothels
The disgraced MP was fined $25,000 after being found guilty of using Health Services Union money on “self-indulgent” activities, like prostitutes and fine dining.
The court ruled he’d misused more than $300,000 during his time as the union’s boss, between $4000 and $5000 of which was spent on sex services.
It was also found he spent considerable sums on meals and wine for his then-wife while they planned their move to the Central Coast where Thomson won a seat.
The sentencing judge said: “It’s none of my business that he used a sex worker but it’s my business that he used other people’s money.”
Eek.
While some of these are a little more lighthearted than the alleged corruption scandals which swallowed ministers like Eddie Obeid and Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen,how can we ignore the fact we’ve lost two former ministers to sleepovers with secretaries?!
Wild.
