By Kishor Napier-Raman and Stephen Brook
In 2007, a fresh-faced Liberal MP got up in NSW parliament and began his maiden speech by recalling a high school debate between his Shore teammates and some lads from St Aloysius down the road.
“It [my election] is the culmination of a political journey that had a somewhat inauspicious start when, as a 15-year-old student, my entire debating team was banned from debates,” said Pittwater MP Rob Stokes, who went on to become a minister in the Baird-Berejiklian-Perrottet Liberal governments.
Former Labor senator, the late Graham Richardson.
“It seems the father of a boy on the opposing team had taken strong exception to a particular argument, and called our principal demanding that we all be removed. The principal felt obliged to comply – that father was, after all, Senator Graham Richardson.”
Richo’s death this week was greeted by a deluge of misty-eyed, amnesiac tributes from both sides of the political aisle. It also unleashed the definitive tale by the Herald’s own Kate McClymont about unsavoury trysts with sex workers, Swiss bank accounts, dodgy business dealings, and a life lived in the fast lane, by which we mean fleeing from looming Independent Commission Against Corruption referrals.
Private-school debating in Sydney can be an intense world, filled with wannabe future prime ministers, overbearing cashed-up parents, and schools willing to (these days) pay 19-year-old coaches north of $100 an hour for glorified babysitting.
But the “senator for kneecaps’” intervention was news, even to us.
Like Stokes, the protagonists in the debate all went on to bigger and better things. His Shore teammates were Chris Taylor, later one of the ABC’s Chaser crew, and Richard Scruby, now a silk related by marriage to teal member for Pittwater Jacqui Scruby.
On the Aloys’ side, Richo’s son Matthew Richardson, SC, is also a top barrister who represented Bruce Lehrmann in his failed defamation case against Network Ten.
Stokes told parliament he was grateful to Richardson for setting him on his political path to the Liberal Party.
“I thank Senator Graham Richardson for helping us on our journeys and shaping my political consciousness. I will be sure to send Richo a copy of this speech,” he said at the time.
Lord knows how many others the late senator’s antics turned away from the Labor cause.
Spun out
The best political staffers are seen but not heard, barring the occasional self-congratulatory LinkedIn post as they skip out the door.
But former journalist Jeff Waters, who quit as senator Fatima Payman’s media and communications adviser this week, left with a statement that raised almost as many questions as his boss’ dramatic defection from Labor last year.
“This was not an easy decision. I took on the role with enthusiasm and was proud of immediately and drastically improving my parliamentarian’s relevance in the Senate as well as her media profile,” Waters wrote. “However, matters were identified during my work that render my continued employment untenable.
“Subsequently, I reached out to a very small number of parliamentarians for advice and I will be eternally grateful for the kind words and sound counsel I received from those who responded.
“The aforementioned matters are now being addressed. Out of respect for the people and institutions involved, I will not comment further at this stage.”
To us, these seemed like the words of a man desperate to say more. Alas, Waters didn’t return our calls. Payman told us she wished Waters all the best. The senator’s chief of staff, notorious “preference whisperer” Glenn Druery, also left her office this year. Druery is planning to release a tell-all book about his career as a hired gun for Australia’s minor parties. We hope Waters decides to do the same.
No apologies
Credit to home loans bro Mark Bouris, whose “Aussie Joe Rogan” schtick has encouraged plenty of the country’s most influential figures to open up to the podcast mic.
The latest was former ABC chair Ita Buttrose, who despite spruiking a new memoir – Unapologetically Ita – remained relatively diplomatic when discussing her time at Aunty.
Listeners hoping for some revelation about Buttrose’s role in the Antoinette Lattouf saga – where the public broadcaster was found to have unlawfully terminated the journalist after spending $2.5 million defending the case – would be disappointed. It didn’t come up.
Buttrose did concede that unlike her former boss Kerry Packer, she rarely made a habit of hitting the newsroom floor to check in on her staff.
Ita Buttrose leaving the Federal Court in Sydney.Credit: James Brickwood
“Not really my role, I don’t think. It’s a very big building at Ultimo, you could get lost in it,” she said.
“It was hard to see everybody, but I used to attend events and talk to people, of course you would.”
Did governments ring her up to complain about the ABC?
“No they leak things to the [other] media.”
As for who was the most charming of the media moguls she worked for?
“Kerry had a great charm, and he had a great curiosity and he had a wonderful sense of humour. I’m sure Rupert has all those things, but they were never as apparent as they were with Kerry.”
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