Lowe blow to history

IF any Australian recognises the name Robert Lowe, it's probably because they are thinking of the Hollywood actor.

IF any Australian recognises the name Robert Lowe, it's probably because they are thinking of the Hollywood actor.

But Lowe, the namesake of a NSW federal electorate and the father of modern company law, was a giant of Australian public life. NSW Chief Justice Jim Spigelman would even go so far as to say that "no Australian figure has had a greater influence on world history than Robert Lowe". So Spigelman is hopping mad that the Australian Electoral Commission plans to change the name of the Lowe electorate to McMahon in recognition of Billy McMahon, prime minister in 1971-72. At a recent book launch, Spigelman could not hide his disdain for the former PM. "One does not have to know much about political history to realise that to prefer the name of this most insipid of characters over that of a fascinating individual such as Robert Lowe is a step backwards," Spigelman said. "Billy McMahon may have been prime minister but this idea is silly, to deploy the adjective so often attached to his first name." Spigelman was private secretary to Gough Whitlam during the early 1970s after Whitlam defeated McMahon at the polls.

Clinton's a Rudd fan

KEVIN Rudd will be in little danger of having his prime ministerial record besmirched years down the track, given the plaudits pouring in from America. Former US president Bill Clinton introduced our bookish PM during the opening session of a conference on global issues in New York yesterday as an antipodean Einstein. "In my opinion, he is one of the most well-informed, well read, intelligent leaders in the world today," Clinton said. Former prime minister Paul Keating took to the airwaves yesterday, keen to talk up his own standing in Clinton's eyes. "He's got an eye for quality, that Bill," Keating told ABC Radio. "He's always had an eye for quality. He used to think that about me at the time. I like him too."

PM paints town beige

STREWTH is pleased to report from New York City that our prime minister has been on his best behaviour. The last time Rudd was out on the tiles in the Big Apple it was with a man best avoided by prime ministers, the fun-loving but notoriously dangerous New York Post editor Col Allan. Rudd got so drunk in the gentleman's club Scores prior to the 2007 election that he lost his memory and remorsefully rang his wife Therese Rein to confess his misdemeanours. Though the offer was extended, this time the PM kept away from Col, Scores and over-imbibing. Keen to nip any suggestions of untoward activity in the bud, Rudd strategically leaked details of his birthday evening in NYC to Strewth, who can report that Kevin and Therese dined at an Italian restaurant close to the consul-general's residence where they stayed, and spent just "58 minutes" out on the town before the PM resumed his schedule of diplomatic meetings and UN engagements. Rudd seemed to have total recall when he appeared at the UN the morning after his abstemious birthday night out.

Sleepless in Melbourne

MUSIC and entertainment guru Molly Meldrum is so distracted in the lead-up to Saturday's AFL grand final between Geelong and St Kilda that he can't sleep. If Molly's adrenaline levels don't incapacitate him before the centre-bounce, the diehard St Kilda fan will be rushing from post-AFL grand final festivities to Docklands, where he'll be cheering on the Melbourne Storm. "It's either my dream or my total nightmare; I am not sure what it's going to be at the moment," he told SEN radio yesterday. "I can't sleep. I was doing an interview with Sting today and normally the Stings or the Eltons or the Shakiras nod off in my interviews, but I nodded off in this one."

Ellis's quick fix

AUTHOR and former speechwriter Bob Ellis has written a 300-page tome on the state of the global economy, The Capitalism Delusion. Penned in just six weeks, the book is being billed as "vintage Ellis: exasperated, impolite and inspiring". Tackling inequality, greed and the perils of economic rationalism, Ellis says the book may be his ticket to fame. "If I win the Nobel Prize for economics for this - and I will - I will then be able narrowly to afford a crumbling hovel in Randwick without a water view. This is how bad Sydney house prices have got, which is a large subject of the book." The book goes on sale on Monday.