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.

About the Author

In 2003, the Chartered Institute of Marketing named Drayton one of 50 living individuals who have shaped today’s marketing.

He has worked in 55 countries with many of the world’s greatest brands. These include American Express, Audi, Bentley, British Airways, Cisco, Columbia Business School, Deutsche Post, Ford, IBM, McKinsey, Mercedes, Microsoft, Nestle, Philips, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Unilever, Visa and Volkswagen.

Drayton has helped sell everything from Airbus planes to Peppa Pig. His book, Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing, out in 17 languages, has been the UK’s best seller on the subject every year since 1982. He has also run his own businesses in the U.K., Portugal and Malaysia.

He was a main board member of the Ogilvy Group, a founding member of the Superbrands Organisation, one of the first eight Honorary Fellows of the Institute of Direct Marketing and one of the first three people named to the Hall of Fame of the Direct Marketing Association of India. He has also been given Lifetime Achievement Awards by the Caples Organisation in New York and Early To Rise in Florida.

2 Comments

  1. DunCAN

    Our local (northern NSW) member of 13+ years was hauled before corruption watchdog for all sorts of things. Yep Aussie politics are fun to say the least

    1. Drayton

      As I was married for 7 years to a lady who was previously engaged to the former Attorney General of Australia, I think I can vouch for that.

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