Amazing Australian Politicians

Lots of interesting politicians occupy Parliament House in Canberra

In Australia it is against the law to ride a bicycle when you're drunk but it is perfectly acceptable to run a country when you've been drinking !
In most jobs in private industry you would be fired for drinking on the job but in politics this is widely accepted, and from time to time the Australian media treats us to reports on drunken politicians who at times even attack eachother in parliament. One time the opposition in the NSW parliament attempted to move a motion that politicians should not be allowed in the parliamentary chamber under the influence of alcohol but this motion was defeated !!!! Maybe the parliamentary chamber should start meeting at an alcohol rehabilitation center. It could save a lot of time.
While a few American customs tend to blow over the Pacific to be adopted in Australia one has not yet taken hold and that is actors going into politics. Although Americans are happy to vote for Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ronald Reagan, most Australians still find it hard to imagine people like Kylie Minogue or Crocodile Dundee to do a decent job as Prime Minister. Mark Latham had a go at changing this by recruiting rock singer Peter Garrett, but was unsuccesful in getting other well known Aussies on board.
Never mind, our current pollies are entertaining enough, and below you will find a selection of retired, fired, current, wanna be, and wanted to be politicians.......

Amanda Vanstone

Amanda Vanstone

Amanda Eloise Vanstone was born on 7 December 1952 in Adelaide and was a Liberal Senator for South Australia from 1984 to 2007, elected as the youngest member at age 32. In 1996 she was the only woman in John Howard's cabinet. She held several ministerial portfolios in the Howard Government, the most tumultuous as Minister for Immigration marked by many controversies within the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, one of them the Cornelia Rau case.
She abolished the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission calling it a corrupt bureaucracy and was never afraid to use strong language or offend interest groups. Over the years she has been described as "junker guts" in Mark Latham's book, and as "having the hairiest box ever seen on a woman" by Wayne Swan.
She resigned from politics on 26 April 2007 and in June 2007 she moved to Europe where she is now Australia's Ambassador to Italy where diplomatic relations between Australia and Pakistan were tested but survived when her dog Gus bit Pakistan's envoy Tasnim Aslam.

Andrew Bartlett

Photo from andrewbartlett.com

A Senator for Queensland since 1997, and currently Deputy Leader and Party Whip of the Australian Democrats, Senator Andrew Bartlett was born August 1964 in Brisbane Queensland where he has lived all his life. He is one of the few Aussie politicians to have had the foresight to register his name as a .com, John Howard and many others have missed out.
In December 2003 this Australian Democrats leader made the headlines after he had a few drinks and, inside the federal parliamentary chamber in Canberra, assaulted and abused Liberal senator Jeannie Ferris, calling her a f#*&#! bitch. The argument was over a few bottles of wine allegedly taken from a Christmas party. After this he decided to take eight weeks off work to dry out for which he was paid $27000,-
Andrew spent December 2003 not drinking but in December 2004 he also decided to stop eating and joined Iranian refugees that were about to be deported in a hunger strike. As a consistent and vocal campaigner for refugees and asylum seekers, he is the only Australian parliamentarian to have visited every refugee detention centre in Australia as well as those on Christmas Island and Nauru, where he went twice to meet with detainees. Click here for more info on his strong record on human rights and social justice issues, animal rights and the environment or visit his official website for more info.

Andrew Olexander

In 2002, MP Andrew Olexander, 39, told the Victorian Parliament that 80 people died on Victorian roads each year as a direct result of alcohol. "When you have those sorts of statistics you have to consider the effect this will have on the lives of the individuals involved, on the lives of innocent people and their families and friends," he said.
Two years later, at 5 am on July 2004 he crashed his taxpayer funded car into three cars parked in a Port Melbourne street, including an Alfa Romeo, a VW Golf and A Mitsubishi Galant, resulting in a damage bill of more than $70,000 . Police attending the scene could not get a proper breathalyzer reading out of the bit of air he puffed so he was taken to St Kilda police station where bloodtesting revealed a blood-alcohol reading above 0.15 - more than three times the legal limit! He was also admitted to The Alfred hospital but soon after he dashed from a back exit to a waiting car, he also resigned from portfolio responsibilities as spokesperson for the arts, consumer affairs and youth affairs ( though did not give up any pay entitlements). Together with Jim Forbes, his secretary and gay lover that shares his farm house and office, the pair kept raking in $190,000.- p.a..

Barnaby Joyce

Photo from aph.gov.au

Born on 17 April 1967 in Tamworth, NSW and worked as a farm worker, rural banker and accountant until he was elected to the Senate for Queensland in 2004 (his term began in July 2005) with the Nationals. He became a sudden celebrity occupying a good part of the daily TV news in September 2005 when John Howard wanted to sell off the remaining half of Telstra and political parties were 50/50 divided with Barnaby Joyce being in the middle as the crucial vote. He managed to keep the deal on hold for some time negotiating a better deal for people in "the bush", (as Australia outside the cities is known). But when even the National Farmers Federation approved the deal Barnaby could not hold it off any longer and gave his Yes vote. In April 2006 he also came up with the idea that Australia should start mining Antarctica before another country would. Visit his official website for more info.

Bill O'Chee

Bill O'Chee was the Nationals Senator for Queensland, he started his career in politics at a young age and managed to retire in his early thirties on well over a million dollars. Divided his time and energy between politics and training his bobsleigh techniques after hours on the ramps in the parking garage of Parliament House.

Bob Brown

Photo from bobbrown.org.au

Tasmanian life-long activist, Tasmanian senator and now Federal Senator Bob Brown is one of the few Australian politicians to have spent time in jail, not for corruption as you would expect from a politician, but for protecting the environment. As the director of the Australian Wilderness Society he was one of the leading forces to block the damming of the Franklin River in Tasmania in 1982 and 1983. 1500 people were arrested and 600 jailed, Bob was one of them and spent 16 days in Risdon Prison, and was elected to Tasmanian Parliament on the day of his release! The blockade was succesful and the Franklin river was protected in 1983. Bob has introduced many initiatives over the years, not all of them made it but he tried to lower parliamentary salaries (how to make yourself unpopular with the other politicians!), tried to ban semi-automatic weapons seven years before the Port Arthur massacre and overturned the law that made it a crime for gay men to have sex in Tasmania. He has also been shot at, had his car burned and been jailed twice for trying to stop the Tarkine wilderness from being logged. He has been a driving force in the establishment of the Australian Greens party and has written several books, the latest one being 'Memo for a saner world' . He still tirelessly campaigns as you can see on his website bobbrown.org.au .
Bob was also removed from the parliamentary chamber by security guards during a speech by U.S. president George W. Bush in October 2003, because he dared to open his mouth during the speech on free speech!

Bob Hawke

Photo from nma.gov.au

Managed to combine the positions of Prime Minister of Australia and a place in the Guinness Book of Records for beer drinking. In 1955 he drank 2.5 pints of beer in 11 seconds at University College, Oxford. He is also remembered for crying in public, dumping his missus of 40 years and declaring that by 1990 no Australian child will live in poverty. Now in 2003 the National Coalition Against Poverty claims more than two million Aussies are living below the poverty line, including 680,000 children. Also floated the dollar in 1983 which crashed from U$90c to U$57c. He became the only Labor Prime Minister to have been removed by his own party while still in office, when successfully challenged by Paul Keating in December 1991. Before his political career when he was a union boss, he managed to secure the release of Frank Sinatra from Sydney. Frank had made the mistake of referring to Aussie journalists as 'two dollar hookers' and union members laid siege to his room, refused to service his room and airlines refused to fly him out, lucky Bob Hawke was there to avoid a possible war between Australia and the U.S., anyone that has seen the movie 'Crocodile Dundee' knows that we would have won that anyway.
Recently Bob made the news with the brilliant idea to make Australia the nuclear dump of the world, he reckoned we could make heaps of money by storing nuclear waste, as Australia's ancient landmass is so geologically stable (tell that to people in Newcastle). He also commented after The Latham Diaries were published that he had tried very hard to stop the Labor Party from choosing Mark as a leader as he knew it was a disaster waiting to happen but he had been unsuccesful.

This monument to Bob Hawke
stands in the Espanol Hotel

Not long before he became Prime Minister of Australia, Bob Hawke told this joke to 700 people at a Melbourne dinner function;
The Indian PM Indira Gandhi was looking for a way to divert attention from the political and economical mess of her government and one of her staff suggested a national lottery. The idea was accepted, the lottery was organized and the whole of India bought tickets in the hope of winning one of the three mystery prizes.
The draw was done in a large stadium, watched by millions of people. First the third prize was drawn; a first class ticket around the world on Air India, the winner was pretty happy with this. Then the second prize was drawn; a fruit cake. The second prize winner was very unhappy, he loudly complained that the third prize was better, and normally one would expect the second prize to be larger than the third.
The compere explains; oh, but this is a very special fruit cake, it was baked by Mrs. Gandhi! To which the winner replies; F%#*! Mrs. Gandhi! The compere; oh no, that is first prize!
The Indian High Commissioner was not impressed.....

Don Chipp

Don Chipp

Passed away in August 2006 but used to be a popular politician who entered parliament in 1960, first as a Liberal but later founded a new political party; the Australian Democrats. He promised to" keep the bastards honest" , took control of the Senate and changed the way politics was done in Australia. In an interview on Andrew Denton's TV show Enough Rope in March 2004 he said he believed George Bush is one of the great liars of all time (what's new?) but also that he had told lies about Vietnam, had Liberal Party members visiting his office where his secretary would show them banned porn movies and he used to have sexual fantasies about the Queen!

Fiona Patten

Fiona Patten

Fiona Patten is the leader of the Australian Sex Party and will stand for the Senate at the next federal election.
This rather unusually named party was officially launched in November 2008 at the Melbourne Sexpo and in August 2009 it obtained approval from the Australian Electoral Commission to be registered as a political party.
The Australian Sex Party says they are a political response to the sexual needs of Australia in the 21st century and will attempt to restore the balance between sexual privacy and sexual publicity that has been severely distorted by morals campaigners and prudish politicians and they are fed up with wowserism in Australian parliaments.
The party is also opposed to the federal government's proposed Internet filter, wants a Royal Commission into child sex abuse in the nation’s religious institutions, a uniform rating for explicit adult material for all states, listing of Viagra on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, health care for sex workers, sexual rights and freedoms of the disabled and elderly in institutions and global approaches to tackling child pornography. More info on the Sex Party's official website.

Fiona Simpson

Queensland Nationals MP Fiona Simpson hung a string of red bras on the front gates of Queensland Parliament, assisted by some other women, to protest against amalgamation of councils.
Speaker Mike Reynolds was not impressed and ordered the Sergeant-at-Arms to do something about it.

Gough Whitlam

Photo from alp.org.au

Ruled Australia in the early 1970s for three years and is most remembered for getting the Labor Party in power for the first time in a very long time, ending conscription and bringing the boys home from Vietnam, erasing the last remains of the White Australia Policy, starting up national health insurance, spending $1.3 million of taxpayers money on a painting, replacing 'God Save The Queen' with a new National Anthem, stuffing up the economy and borrowing lots of money overseas and finally being dumped by Governor General John Kerr.
(Australia is still connected to the British empire and the Queen's representative the Governor General is officially the most powerful person in Australia, normally they stay in the background, drink champagne at public functions and just quietly absorb lots of tax payers dollars while Aussies don't even know they exist but occasionally they make the news by sacking a Prime Minister or getting involved in a child sex abuse scandal.)

Harold Holt

Photo from naa.gov.au

Harold Holt was in office for less than two years from January 1966 to December 1967, when he became the only Australian prime minister to completely disappear without a trace, while swimming at Cheviot beach in Portsea near Melbourne, Victoria on 17 December 1967. Theories to explain this mystery vary from shark attack to heart attack to being kidnapped or assassinated by CIA scuba divers launched from a U.S. submarine. While a variety of theories have been expounded about Holt's disappearance, the Commonwealth Government did not deem a formal inquiry necessary, accepting the conclusions of the Police report.
Bizarrely enough the Stonnington City Council in Victoria has named their swimming centre after him ( you would think a swimming centre would be named after swimming heroes like Ian Thorpe or Dawn Fraser, not after somebody who went for a swim and drowned.....)

Jason Wood

A politician having multiple orgasms during a speech on the floor of parliament?
Yes, anything is possible in Australia!

In June 2008 Victorian MP Jason Wood, Federal member for Latrobe, was supposed to be talking about genetically modified organisms in his maiden speech in Canberra but ended up mixing up his words a bit, much to the amusement of the crowd, and subsequently the whole country.
His embarrassing slip up was caught on camera and available for your entertainment in this movie;

Jodie Moore

Jodie Moore was born in Woodridge, Queensland on 11 April 1976. In 2002 she was awarded a Venus Award for Best Adult Actress in the U.S.A. She first ran for a seat in her local state legislator seat of Woodridge in March 2001 where she achieved 5% of the primary vote. She also ran for the federal seat of Ryan and the federal senate in 2004 and was interviewed by Sixty Minutes and other T.V. and Newspapers. Jodie Moore began her first large scale promotion with the launch of Australia's largest billboard advertisement, unveiled at 11 am Tuesday the 2nd of March, but it was almost immediately pulled down by Main Roads Department. Over 700 Queenslanders joined "Jodie Moore's Porn Star Party" in just 3 days, giving her way more than the required 500 members to register as a political party with the electoral commission. You could read her policies on jodiemoore.org , which is now no longer on-line, but it is still on her other website jodiemoore.com.
A very enterprising young lady, how many Aussie politicians run an online adult shop or have starred in porn movies like Anal Demolition, Blimey What A Hiney, or Muff To The Max?

Joh Bjelke Petersen

Joh Bjelke Petersen

Johannes Bjelke-Petersen was born in Dannevirke, New Zealand in 1911, as the son of a Danish-born Lutheran pastor. He was elected as the Country Party member for Nanango in 1947 and took another 21 years to become premier, and was a shrewd and often ruthless politician. He got voted back in a record seven times and ruled over Queensland from 1968 for a period of 19 years in a time when corruption was rife, but finally he was forced to step down amid a corruption scandal that led to police commissioner Terry Lewis and several cabinet ministers being put away in jail. Joh was charged with perjury but not convicted as the jury, headed by a Young National Joh supporter, failed to reach a unanimous decision.
He is remembered for many things, amongst them his controversial stand against World Heritage listings, electrification and modernisation of the Queensland rail network, turning Queensland into a strong economy, the building of the Wivenhoe and Burdekin Dams, abolishing death duties, opening Japanese markets for the Bowen coal when many people still had not forgiven Japan for their behaviour in World War 2, appointing the first woman, Yvonne Chapman, to Cabinet, the Gateway Bridge, disregard for civil liberties, staging of the 1982 Commonwealth Games and World Expo 88, and the demolition of the historic Bellevue Hotel in Brisbane. He was knighted in the early 80s and lost the premiership in 1987 after the Fitzgerald inquiry into widespread police and political corruption in Queensland after which his own National Party colleagues voted him out of office. Under his rule thousands of hectares of ancient rainforest in the Daintree was allowed to be subdivided into small lots without proper infrastructure, creating problems and controversy that still run today. He also made an unsuccesful bid to become Prime Minister.
In later years he lived on a farm where buses took people on super-exciting daytours to look around, eat Lady Flo's biscuits and buy pet-rocks made by his grand son. On days that the old Joh was feeling strong enough he came outside and you could even shake his hand! He also filed a compensation claim of no less than $353 million from the Queensland government for damages arising from the Fitzgerald corruption inquiry and his 1991 perjury trial.
July 2004: Joh has just been to hospital and not in the best of health, which led a protestor to stand outside Parliament to urge the government NOT to give Joh a state funeral when he carks it as this should be reserved for people who are of good character and have done lots of good things in life.
24 March 2005: At the grand old age of 94 Joh has passed away, survived by his 84 year old wife Lady Flo Bjelke Petersen.

John Brogden

John Brogden was born on 28 March 1969 and is married to Lucy, he has been State Member for Pittwater since 1996 and was the leader of the Liberal Party in New South Wales and could have become Premier of the state. Until in August 2005 he had a few beers at a party and called Ex-Premier Bob Carr's Malaysian-born wife a mail-order bride and allegedly pinched a female journalist's bottom, his career as party leader then came to an abrupt halt with his resignation a couple of days later and an unsuccesful suicide attempt soon after. He also made a good judge at bikini girl competitions in north Sydney. Has someone got some pics of that to post on this page?

John Howard

Prime Minister John Howard
Photo from Johnhowardlies.com

The greatest leader ever (according to Steve Irwin). Entered Parliament in 1974 and when he was re-elected in 2004 he overtook Bob Hawke and became the country's second longest serving prime minister, only Sir Robert Menzies served longer at 18 years.
To beat this John would have had to stay until 2014, but in the 2007 elections he had to move over for opposition leader Kevin Rudd. The defeat was of such proportions that John even lost in his own electorate!
In May 1995 he said; "There's no way that a GST will ever be part of our policy. Never ever. It's dead. It was killed by the voters in the last election. Any suggestion that I left the door open is absolute nonsense. I didn't. I never will. The last election killed the GST. It's not part of our policy and it won't be part of our policy at any time in the future. "
About three years later, under huge oppositon, he pushed the GST through! Despite his claims that it only replaced other now abolished sales taxes there were a lot of things that never had tax on them, like building materials so all new houses were now 10% more expensive which sent the building industry into a crisis which needed a multi-million dollar bail out and also tampons became more expensive which united women from all over the country in protests to no avail. The government spent $100 million in Australia's biggest advertising campaign ever to try and convince the nation of the benefits of GST and how it is going to work.
On 11 September 2001 he found himself two blocks away from the Pentagon when a plane hit it, leading to him becoming very emotional and immediately declaring Australia was behind the U.S. and later sending troops to Afghanistan and Iraq despite huge opposition from his constituents. A year later when 182 people, mainly Australians, died in the bombing of the Sari Club in Bali many Australians saw that as the price we paid for going to Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden still warns Australia from time to time that we're on his hitlist. Despite all this bending over backwards to American demands White House officials hardly seem to know his name as in October 2003 some White House documents listed him as John Mayor (an ex-U.K. prime minister). This didn't stop John from throwing a $25000.- barbeque for George W. Bush on a flying visit to Australia a few weeks later, earlier that day several senators, including Bob Brown, were removed by security staff for opening their mouths during George W.Bush's speech on free speech and freedom. Early 2004 his opponent Mark Latham came up with the brilliant idea to cancel the ridiculously generous super-annuation scheme for politicians, this would have got him lots of votes so John took the idea and abolished the super scheme himself, though only several weeks later news broke that salary rises were planned to compensate for this change so really nothing has changed, and they now get their money even earlier as they don't have to wait for retirement. Early 2004 John saw his troop commitment to Iraq rewarded by getting a step closer to a free trade agreement with the U.S.
US film maker Michael Moore on John Howard; what's confusing to me is how can someone like John Howard get in bed with George W. Bush, he at least appears to have half a brain....
John Howard has also inspired others to create websites like Johnhowardlies.com and Defeathoward.com and he inspired Queensland artist Tim Patch (alos known under the nickname Pricasso) to paint a portrait of him. Tim is not your average artist, he uses his penis as a paint brush...

A penis-portrait of John Howard
Image from Tim Patch's website Penileart.com

John has resisted calls for a long time to apologize for the treatment of Aborigines in the past, he agrees that the treatment was appalling but says he was not there and had no involvement in it so can not say sorry for this. In 2003 an unsuccesful assassination attempt was made by an Aboriginal woman who stood near him for some time staring at him and "pointing the bone" at him, in Aboriginal culture this means you will soon die, but years later he is still happily strutting around.
In 2005 it was revealed that in the previous financial year he had spent more than $500 a week on alcohol at his two official residences, The Lodge and Kirribilli House, a total of 27,196 taxpayers dollars for the year! He admitted to enjoying a drink but said most of it goes in to official functions.
This was still small change compared to the maintenance bill of these two houses, from 1996 till 2007 the total came to nearly $20 million, of which $1.2 million was spent just on gardening around the Kirribilli house! Must be some bloody nice gardens....
Other useless trivia; he stand 178 cm. tall, is a Christian, does not like pokies, one of his favourite movies is 'On the waterfront' and a house a couple of doors down from his official Kirribilly residence was suspected of being a nudist bed and breakfast.
According to the 2005 Durex Global Sex Survey some Australians find their politicians sexy, believe it or not but 22 % said they found Treasurer Peter Costello sexy but only 5 per cent said John Howard was sexy.
May 2006: John visited his mate George W.Bush again and George even put on an official state dinner for John, something that had only happened seven times during his presidency, and on Mothersday even popped in to the Aussie embassy where George and John did some gardening together and planted a couple of trees! The following night the US energy minister approached John about storing some nuclear waste in Australia but thank god he said no to this! Rupert Murdoch was also attending some of the partying, and he offered John a bit of advice; retire now! John didn't, not even in July when Treasurer Peter Costello wanted him to move on, claiming that back in 1994 they had struck a deal that John would vacate his position for him so Australia would have Peter Costello as a Prime Minister, but John stringently denied to media that such a deal had ever been discussed. It took a landslide election for John to lose his job to Kevin Rudd, to the extent that John even lost in his own electorate!

Julia Gillard

Kevin Rudd

Kevin Rudd

Born on 21 September 1957 in Nambour, Queensland, grew up on a dairy farm in nearby Eumundi, and became the 26th Prime Minister of Australia on 3 December 2007. The Labor Party had finally realized that they were never ever going to win any election with the likes of Kim Beazley or Mark Latham and had chosen Kevin Rudd as their leader, with spectacular success, Kevin beat his rival John Howard to the extent that John even lost in his own electorate!
Not bad considering Mark Lathams's assessment of him in the book The Latham Diaries; "treacherous, nasty piece of work, addicted to the media and leaking. A junior minister in government, at best."
Kevin joined the Australian Labor Party in 1972, at the age of 15, studied at the Australian National University in Canberra, and graduated with First Class Honours in Arts (Asian Studies). He majored in Chinese language and history, became proficient in Mandarin, and acquired a Chinese alias, Lù Kèwén.
In 1981 he married Thérèse Rein with whom he has three children, and in this year he also joined the Department of Foreign Affairs, where he served until 1988. He made his first speech to the Australian Parliament in November 1998 and was promoted to the Opposition front bench after the 2001 election and appointed Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs. In this role, he strongly criticised the Howard government over its support for the United States in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and subsequent operations there, while maintaining Labor's position of support for the Australian-American alliance.
In 2007 news popped up that while he was Shadow foreign affairs minister in 2003 he had been spotted in New York strip club 'Scores' in September while he was on a tax payer funded representing Australia at a UN convention, and some reports even claimed that he and Warren Snowdon had to be told by management to keep their hands off the dancers.
Kevin settled this issue with a brilliant Aussie excuse; I don't know, I was too drunk too remember...
Rudd announced he and wife Therese will live in The Lodge, the Prime Minister's official residence in Canberra, and only use Kirribilli House while on official business in Sydney, John Howard had always preferred to live in Sydney, reportedly clocking up a bill of $7 million in private jet rides to Canberrra over the length of his term in office.
On 3 December 2007, Rudd was sworn in as Prime Minister by the Governor-General, Major General Michael Jeffery.
Unlike his Labor predecessors, Rudd did not swear allegiance to the Queen of Australia, but promised instead to "well and truly serve the Commonwealth of Australia and her people."
Contrary to his pre-decessor he did say sorry to the Aboriginal population, although he has already warned that that does not mean huge compensation payouts. He promised tough action on the Japanese whaling in Australian waters but copped criticism when this promise was not followed up with all that much vigour, and he signed the Kyoto agreement on his first day in office. As a Christian he is also opposed to same-sex marriage, though has said he will not block the ACT Government plans to allow same-sex marriages.
In the 2010 Ralph magazine Wanker Of The Year Top 100 Kevin scored 7th place.

Kim Beazley

Photo from republic.org.au

While he was the leader of the opposition he made daily TV appearances criticizing John Howard and his government. No matter what John and his colleagues decided, it was wrong and Kim wanted to have it the opposite way. One day when he was doing his daily routine bagging Howard's policies a reporter said to him; and what are your policies, what do you stand for? Kim wavered for a moment, probably thinking to himself; Jesus, I never thought about that, and then came out with; eh, better roads, better schools....
Yes, wouldn't we all like to see that, but how do we pay for it?
Some time later he was replaced by Simon Crean who also didn't get very far, so he was replaced with Mark Latham again. But after Mark spectacularly lost the 2004 elections and after that also got pancreatitis the party needed to replace him and would you believe it, for lack of other candidates they re-recycled Kim Beazley again! Kim also got a mention in Mark Lathams's book the Latham Diaries; indecent, dirty dog, stands for nothing and does nothing.

Kirsty Marshall

Kirsty Marshall

Only recently elected to parliament, Kirsty Marshall was barred from breast feeding her 10-day-old baby in the chamber of Victoria state's parliament Wednesday after officals ruled the child was a "stranger in the house" because the child hadn't been elected to parliament and so was not an individually elected member. The sergeant-at-arms immediately told Marshall her behaviour was unacceptable and escorted both mother and child from the chamber.

Len Kiely

Len became minister for the environment in the Northern Territory in November 2007, despite protests from the politically correct crowd. He had just spent a year on the back bench for telling a 62 year old female security guard that he had a very long tongue and could make her a very happy woman, while he was pissed on taxpayer funded alcohol.
The local newspaper NT News had a field day recycling the old scandal, together with another new minister Matt Bonson who was infamous for punchups and urinating in public.

Malcolm Fraser

Marcus Ehrlich

In September 2005 Marcus Ehrlich was voted deputy Mayor of the NSW town of Woollahra at the age of only 22!!

Mark Latham

Photo from aph.gov.au

Mark Latham was the Federal Member for Werriwa from 1994 to 2005 but suddenly rose to national fame when the Labor Party, realizing they were never going to win an election with Simon Crean and could not possibly re-re-recycle Kim Beazley again, elected him as their leader. John Howard's party had a field day digging up old quotations of Mark Latham which included; " George W.Bush is the most dangerous and incompetent president in living memory" , "John Howard is an arselicker" and the event where he had punched a taxi driver. Before actually starting work he spent a few days going around places like the American Embassy to apologize and assure people we should look at the future and not the past. Seemed to do well right at the start and at one time had a 66% approval rating. He had also been a critic of the Northern Territory railway but when it opened he withdrew his criticism.

In June 2004 Mark Latham, thinking he'd win green votes AND youth votes at the same time, thought it would be a good idea if rockstar / environmentalist Peter Garrett would join his political party, but the rest of the country, including most of his own Labor party, thought it was a really bad idea, especially when it was discovered that Peter had not even voted for the last ten years and was not even a member of the Labor party. In July he acccused the Howard government of employing a 'dirt-unit' orchestrating a pre-election smear campaign when one accusation after the other hit the news headlines; his ex-wife told media how Mark cheated on her with another woman, a man who had come into his office to complain about potplants out the front was punched in the head etc. He copped lots of criticism for sticking to his 'bring the troops home from Iraq by Christmas' promise, also from the US. Managed to insert some more conditions into the Free Trade Agreement that John Howard was trying to negotiate with the US though this held it up and now, just after the 2004 elections, the Americans are trying to re-negotiate things again and the FTA has not passed yet. During an interview he admitted to having smoked dope and, contrary to Bill Clinton, said that he did inhale, though did not want to elaborate on whether he enjoyed it.

Despite all his best efforts to gain popularity he was defeated in a major way in the October 2004 federal elections as most of the nation thought he was way too inexperienced to be put in charge of a country. An advertising campaign by the Liberals who kept on highlighting how a council in Sydney had descended into financial chaos while Mark was mayor there may have had something to do with this. Not too much later he suffered from pancreatitis and quit his job as party leader. The Labor Party now needed a new leader and re-re-recycled Kim Beazley once more. Mark also has a habit of not showing up at court hearings relating to him allegedly attacking photographer Ross Schultz and destroying his $9000.- camera in January 2006. In Mark's defence we must note that the photographer was a nuisance jumping on him as he left a fast food restaurant and invading his privacy.

In 2006 Mark's book 'The Latham Diaries' hit the shops, in this book he manages to insult just about every senior Labor politician, from the current party leader Kim Beazley all the way back to Gough Whitlam.
John Howard's party thought this book was the best thing since sliced bread and they thoroughly enjoyed it. Mark Latham is the author of five other books on Australian public policy, including Civilising Global Capital (1998) and From the Suburbs (2003). Some highlights of the Latham Diaries include;
- Richard Butler; has not resigned as Governor of Tasmania but was sacked for getting pissed at the Royal wedding in Denmark.
- Kevin Rudd; treacherous, nasty piece of work, addicted to the media and leaking. A junior minister in government, at best.
- Kim Beazley; indecent, dirty dog, stands for nothing and does nothing.
- Amanda van Stone; junkfood guts.
- Bob McMullan; combover.
- Bob Carr; A grade asshole.
After the book had been published Bob Hawke commented that he had tried very hard to stop the Labor Party from choosing Mark as a leader as he knew it was a disaster waiting to happen.

Milton Orkopoulos

Ex-New South Wales MP, Aboriginal affairs minister, and Labor frontbencher Milton Orkopoulos was found guilty on 28 sex and drug counts in 2008, he used to offer teenage boys cannabis and then have sex with them when the drugs took effect.

Mike Berwick

Mike Berwick was one of the hippies that protested in the 1984 Bloomfield Track Blockade at Cape Tribulation, but when the battle was lost and the other greenies left the area he stayed on and became editor of local newspaper the Mossman Gazette, part time barramundi farmer, and mayor of the Douglas Shire in 1991, and thanks to the lack of competition remained so for an unbelievable 17 years.
Under his leadership the Douglas Shire Council kept the local newspaper well filled with one controversy and blunder after the other, ratepayers dollars were wasted on studies whose recommendations were rarely followed up, a stream of expensive courtcases, an illegal ferry tax that was ordered to be abolished by the Ombudsman, a ferry debacle, an illegally (half)built $375,000 toilet block that was never finished and a controversial townplan that stopped people from building a house on their own freehold land.
His entire council was on the brink of being sacked several times and being labelled as "dysfunctional" by the State Government Minister, after several Crime and Misconduct inquiries the council's CEO was sacked, and in August 2007 Local Government Minister Andrew Fraser solved the problem of the dysfunctional council by amalgamating the Douglas Shire with Cairns Shire so Mike and the other six councillors can go and look for a new job.

Although the state wide shire amalgamation had mainly been for the purpose of eliminating financially troubled shires this amalgamation was the perfect opportunity for the State Government to once and for all get rid of the dysfunctional council that had wasted so much of their time over the years with one inquiry after the other, even though the Douglas Shire was financially quite healthy, more than the Cairns Shire that swallowed it up.
One of the issues that frustrated residents north of the Daintree river over the years is that Mike Berwick was against providing mains electricity to their houses so they have to improvise with noisy expensive generators and solar panels that don't work well in a rainforest, while there is a cable across the Daintree river providing electricity to Mike Berwick and his neighbours!
Thanks to this no-electricity stance people north of the Daintree river are still living with noisy generators which pollute far more than grid power ever would, and bear the sky high costs of this. Subsidies for solar power have been available but were axed mid 2009, but solar power in the rainforest is a bit like hydro power in the desert, there is only a short time of the year where it actually works....
Many residents of the area had a good laugh when the local newspaper reported Mike electrocuted himself in September 2004 Later it was rumoured that he made up the story when the local hospital could not even find any burn marks on him, because he was too scared to show up for work that day with a big politician visiting that day to blast him over his performance.
Opinions on Mike are very divided, some think he is a hero for saving the Daintree with his radical townplan, others hate him intensely for having severely restricted people's rights to build on their own freehold land. And to add insult to injury, all the restrictions Mike brought in did not start north of the Daintree River, no, they started north of the Alexandra Range (north of Mike's house so he was never affected).

Mike runs a barramundi farm and had regular battles with rival barramundi farmer Geff McCloy who runs an award winning barramundi farm near Wonga beach. He claimed that Mike was using his position in local government to make life difficult for him, Mike responded with various statements that he later had to withdraw when he lost a defamation courtcase in 2008 and he was also ordered to place a big ad in the local newspaper apologising to McCloy and his family.

Natasha Stott Despoja

Photo from democrats.org.au/

In 1995 she became the youngest woman to ever enter federal parliament in Australia, and to lead a political party. And in 2003, after serving two four year terms with the Democrats, also became the youngest politician to qualify for a pension since Nationals senator Bill O'Chee. At the age of 34, she was now eligible for an indexed pension of $51,380 for life, but kept on going strong as Senator for South Australia.
In October 2006, while she was preggo and had to be operated on a complication, she evaluated her situation and decided to retire when the next elections are up, to spend more time at home with husband Ian Smith and son Conrad. This will make her one of Australia's youngest parliamentary pensioners at the age of 37, qualifying for an indexed pension for life of nearly $67,000 a year, boosted by additonal allowances for spending 14 months as leader of the Democrats. For more info see her official webpage....

Nigel Scullion

Nigel Scullion was appointed as Deputy Leader of the Nationals in 2007. Not long after that reports hit the media that once while he headed an Australian delegation to a national fisheries conference in St. Petersburg he ended up stripped to his underpants handcuffed to a pole in a sleezy Russian nightclub. When asked about this he made no silly excuses like Kevin Rudd who claimed to be too drunk to remember anything about the New York strip club, he happily admitted that this night had been one of the best nights of his life, and he highly recommended to anyone never to refuse an offer to go drinking with Icelandic whalers and Canadian crab fishermen.

Nick Adams

Forget about 22 year old Deputy Mayor Ehrlich above, we have been advised that Nick Adams was voted to be the Deputy Mayor of Ashfield on his 21st birthday!

Paul Keating

In the days that he was Prime Minister he managed to seriously piss off Malaysia's Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir by labelling him a "recalcitrant". Despite numerous calls refused to apologize for this resulting to cancellations of billions fo dollars of contracts and trade, even at his retirement in late 2003 Dr. Mahathir was still grumbling about it and according to the Bangkok Post he had been instrumental in many Asian trade conferences to block trade deals with Australia so it will never be possible to calculate how many billions of dollars that one word has cost Australia. This was not the only time he insulted somebody, you can see some of his other insults here... In 1986 he also managed to upset people at home by warning that if they didn't work harder Australia would become a banana-republic and created a recession that he said "we had to have". Before he became Prime Minister and was still a treasurer under Guiness Book of Records beer-drinking record holder Prime Minister Bob Hawke he floated the Aussie dollar that crashed from U$90c to U$57c but he reckons that this saved the country because otherwise "it would have knocked the country int a cocked hat". In 2004 his ex-wife told media how he she had been dumped by him at a dinner party, he thought that dinner at a friend's house was a suitable time and place to announce to his wife that he had decided to break up with her!

Although officially retired from politics he still keeps voicing his opinions through the media from time to time, in March 2010 calling Tony Abbott a nutter and intellectual nobody.

Pauline Hanson

Photo from paulinehanson.org.au

A fish and chips shop owner who rose to fame after being elected in 1996, founding the political party One Nation in 1997 and expressing her rather radical views on Asian immigration and Aboriginal welfare which caused huge embarrassment to Australia in neighbouring Asian countries ans saw her expelled from the Liberal Party, and her first parliamentary speech where she warned the country of being swamped by Asians send a few shock waves around the country and the world.
She later went on a downhill slide when investigations turned up irregularities in the party's dealings like electoral fraud. Pauline and her co-founder David Ettridge were convicted and put in jail where they remained for three months until released after on their third appeal in November 2003 the conviction for electoral fraud was overturned. Ironically enough she had actively campaigned for tougher sentencing before she got what she had asked for. Tony Abbott came under some criticism after her release as he had been the driving force behind the witch hunt raising the money for the legal representation to put her in jail.
She was also the inventor of the phrase "please explain" which found its way into the vocabulary of many Aussies, and she has a musical son named Adam who recorded the song 'Innocence' to raise funds for his mother's legal battles, you can buy it on Pauline's official website www.paulinehanson.org.au
In July 2004 the nation became aware of her sexy 20 year old daughter Lee when she modelled for Ralph men's magazine, dressed in a bikini which had been chosen by Pauline, after several other (smaller) ones had not been approved. Lee scored heaps better than her mother, in a 2004 survey by FHM magazine Pauline was voted the least attractive woman in Australia, followed by Senator Amanda Vanstone.
Although she had said once, when released from jail, that she would have to have "rocks in her head" to ever join politics again she still stood as an independent candidate again during the October 2004 elections. Although she did not get enough votes to re-start a political career she did get more votes by herself than the entire Labour Party.
Mid 2007: Pauline has announced a come-back with Pauline's United Australia Party, to be shown on the ballot papers as the abbreviation Pauline. At the age of 53 she is not giving up and plans to re-enter politics, but with a change of tactic, her main policy of the past of warning the country of the danger of Asian immigration has now shifted to calling for a ban on Muslim immigration.
January 2008: Kevin Rudd has promised a review of how political parties get paid for their election campaign costs. At the moment you get paid a $2.10 per vote and this has resulted in Pauline's United Australia Party receiving $213,095.- , way more than what she actually spent on her campaign.
February 2010: Pauline has had enough of Australia and is selling her house and packing her bags to move to the UK.
We seriously wonder how long she will last there, she used to be worried about Australia being swamped by migrants, wait till she sees the situation in England!

Peter Garrett

Peter Garrett was born in Sydney, is a committed Christian, married with three daughters, studied art and law, headed the Australian Conservation Foundation for years and was lead singer of Midnight Oil from 1973 onwards.
Their songs had strong political lyrics condemning uranium and all other sorts of mining and US militairy, and supporting environment and Aboriginal rights.
Peter first attempted to get into Australian politics in 1984 with his Nuclear Disarmament Party but did not manage to get enough votes. In June 2004, when Labor leader Mark Latham was trying to appeal to the younger voters, he was made Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Reconciliation and the Arts In June 2005.
In December 2006 Kevin Rudd, the newly-elected Labor Party leader, announced that he had given Peter the job of Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment & Heritage and Arts.
Greenies were delighted with Peter Garret, known for his strong views on nuclear and environmental issues, now being responsible for the environment. But much to their surprise and dismay Peter by now had softened and modified many of his previous views, the American base at Pine Gap was now OK with him, and he approved the Bell Bay Pulp Mill in the environmentally sensitive Tamar Valley in Tasmania, a controversial plan to dredge Melbourne's Port Phillip Bay, a major gas plant on a West Australian island surrounded by fragile eco systems, and a major expansion of South Australia's Beverley uranium mine, which was heavily criticized by the Australian Conservation Foundation (of which Peter once was president for ten years of his life). Opposition members called it the Greatest Backflip In Australian History and many Midnight Oil fans were also bitterly disappointed.
On the positive side, Peter has also received several awards ranging from the Australian Humanitarian Foundation Award to a Member of the Order of Australia, and although his band Midnight Oil had split up in 2002 he regrouped with them several times for fundraising concerts for the Asian Tsunami and the Victorian bushfire appeal.

But in February 2010 the shit hit the fan with the Home Insulation Fiasco, a massive WOFTAM in which $2.5 billion dollars was spent on dodgy home insulation batts, leading to a spate of house fires and four people killed installing it, Peter got the blame for it all and was demoted.

Here is a selection of Midnight Oil songs where you can hear Peter in action:

More Midnight Oil music.... 

Peter Slipper

Photo from aph.gov.au

Queensland Liberal Peter Slipper slipped out of the parliamentary chamber for a quick visit to the toilet on December 12, 2002 . However, after finishing his business in there he was unable to open the door to return to the chamber. He unsuccessfully pushed and pulled the door bit it would not move! Fortunately he had his mobile phone on him and he rang fellow Liberal MP Peter Lindsay to organize a rescue party to save him from his entrapment. Four security guards left Australia's government in the parliamentary chamber unprotected and vulnerable to terrorist attack and raced to the toilets to rescue the imprisoned politician. They did not take long to resolve the situation and calmly slid open the toilet door. He was in the toilet for the disabled which has a sliding door! Speaker Neil Andrew said MPs should sharpen their toilet know-how in time for the Christmas party period.
In 2008 his name appeared again in the media when he was alleged to have made a mobile phonecall from an Aussie navy ship in the Red Sea that gave away their position and the next mission had to be abandoned.

Robert Menzies

Photo from menziesfoundation.org.au

Australia's longest serving Prime Minister, managed to stay in his position for considerable time from 1949 till 1966. Most remembered for introducing conscription, sending lots of young Aussies to Vietnam ( quite a few went in hiding as well to avoid going), keeping Aborigines under the thumb and for keeping Australia white, prosperous and free of evils like communism and Asians. Later became a Sir and wrote several books and has the Menzies Foundation named after him.

Roy Smith

Roy Smith is MP for the NSW Shooters Party and he reckons that children should start firearms training from age 10 and shooting programs should become part of school curriculums.

Stuart Highway

Mr. Stuart Highway
(he's a bit hard to see under all that police)

Mr Highway was one of seven candidates running for mayor in the Darwin City Council elections on May 29 2004 and has the idea to make Darwin the Amsterdam of Australia by legalizing drugs. He says that once he gets the job of Lord Mayor he will accelerate the Network Against Prohibition campaign for the re-legalisation of all drugs that would attract thousands of tourists from all around the globe. Cannabis will be sold from local cafes and other drugs would be available from licensed sellers.
Stuart Highway was sentenced early October to 8 months jail for his involvement in a Community Smoke-In held at Darwin in October 2002. The Smoke-in had been organised by the drug law-reform group the Network Against Prohibition (NAP), of which Mr Highway is a founding member. NAP formed to oppose the Martin Government’s ‘drug house’ legislation , this allows police to glue a 1.2 metre high fluro green poster on your front door declaring your home a drughouse.
For more info on the 'Free Stuart Highway' campaign and on how you can visit him in Berrimah Prison click here...

Tom Koutsantonis

Tom Koutsantonis is the South Australian Road Safety Minister but despite this impressive title he has built up a list of more than 30 traffic offences which include speeding, running red lights, using mobile phone while driving etc. He had also lost his licence for three months a few years ago.

You know of (or are) an amazing Australian politician? Then contact us!

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