By Kishor Napier-Raman and Stephen Brook
During his stint in Bob Hawke’s cabinet, John Brown became known as the “minister for good times”, a name that also formed the title of the 93-year-old’s rollicking recent memoir.
Technically, it was sport, recreation and tourism, and Brown certainly wishes he was better known for his policy accomplishments than for having sex with then-wife Jan Murray on his ministerial desk. Murray revealed the smutty story on 60 Minutes, and while Brown doesn’t dispute the whole incident, he says it’s not true that she left her knickers in the ashtray. The ’80s were a different time.
Bookmaker Robbie Waterhouse hands over the election bet cash to former Labor minister John Brown.
Anyway, the good times are still rolling for Brownie. CBD recently came into possession of a picture of the former minister at Royal Randwick receiving a bunch of $50 bills from Robbie Waterhouse, of the storied bookmaking family.
It turns out Brown had taken a punt on Labor increasing its parliamentary majority in this month’s federal election at $5.80 and won big. A good call, seeing as most betting markets (not to mention many pundits) were still leaning toward a Labor minority government as the campaign reached its final stretch.
Waterhouse told us that Brown, who he described as “a real man’s man”, had been betting with him for more than 40 years.
Brown was in the mood for a yarn when CBD came calling on Wednesday but wanted to instead discuss the Australian Turf Club’s decision to block the sale of Rosehill racecourse (unlike the Waterhouses, he supported the sell-off).
Turf war
On Tuesday, members of the Australian Turf Club became the latest unrepresentative swill to decide that young Sydneysiders can’t have nice things like home ownership, voting down the state government’s plans to buy Rosehill racecourse and build much-needed housing.
If the combined efforts of Premier Chris Minns and the other premier, Peter V’landys, the Racing NSW boss who lobbied hard for the sale, couldn’t get things over the line, nothing will.
Now, the Minns government must lick its wounds and figure out which selfish interest group it’ll have to fight next to build more homes.
Former NSW Labor leader Luke Foley has been a long-time Australian Turf Club member. Credit: Sam Mooy
Meanwhile, CBD’s spies spotted another former Labor figure of yore, ex-opposition leader Luke Foley – who quit the leadership after being accused of harassment by a journalist (which he’s always denied) – at the crunch ATC meeting at Royal Randwick on Tuesday.
It turns out Foley has been a long-term member of the ATC. He told us he was disappointed with the decision of his 10,000 or so fellow members, who voted by about 56-44 per cent to leave $5 billion on the table because of mean-spirited Boomer sentimentality or something.
Prime movers
Nothing is so competitive as a former prime minister grasping for relevance. And on that front, Julia Gillard continues to eclipse her rivals.
We have Scott “Space Race” Morrison, PM30, the chairman of the advisory board for Space Centre Australia, who gave a “major speech” at the 2025 Australian Space Summit in Darling Harbour on Tuesday about extending the AUKUS security agreement into the heavens.
Malcolm Turnbull is due on Thursday to attend the Redmond Barry Society three-course luncheon at the State Library of Victoria “in conversation with” former Labor MP Barry Jones.
In contrast, Tony Abbott, favourite of conservative true believers, gave a speech on the weekend on the new responsibilities of democracies in the era of the retreat of Pax Americana at the 2025 Asian Leadership Conference in Seoul, where he was joined by a bro-squad of former leaders including Britain’s Rishi Sunak, Malaysia’s Mahathir Mohamad, Indonesia’s Joko Widodo and CBD’s new favourite, the former prime minister of Kyrgyzstan, the fascinatingly named Djoomart Otorbaev.
Back to Gillard. Not only has PM27 had her very own play written about her – now she’s also getting her very own hologram.
Gillard will be the star turn on the Women UNLIMITED Leadership Summit in September, along with Hillary Clinton and Leigh Sales and “some of the nation’s most senior women in the Australian public service” as well as others “leading the pursuit of progress”.
But unlike Clinton, who will be appearing in the flesh on stage in Sydney and Canberra, Gillard’s session will see her beamed on stage via hologram in what sounds very much like a new frontier for our former heads of government.
Princess diaries
Bound for Sydney University… Princess Ingrid Alexandra of Norway.Credit: Getty Images
News that Princess Ingrid Alexandra of Norway would be doing an arts degree at the University of Sydney kicked off a frenzy of media coverage in Australia.
The princess’ Antipodean adventure is a welcome breath of good publicity for the Norwegian royal family, which has been racked by scandal over the past 12 months. Last year, Ingrid Alexandra’s half-brother, Marius Borg Hoiby, was arrested on suspicion of rape and faces additional criminal charges related to domestic violence.
Also last year, Ingrid Alexandra’s aunt, Princess Martha Louise, married American self-described “shaman” Durek Verrett, who believes that Lizard People control the world, that 5G is a tool to enslave the planet, and that he knew about 9/11 two years earlier but chose not to intervene. He is friends with Gwyneth Paltrow, who calls him her soul brother.
Needless to say, faith in the Norwegian monarchy has been eroded over the last year, leading to a surge in republicanism and talk of the royal family’s worst crisis in decades.
Whatever scandal might befall the Sydney University colleges (the princess will be living at St Andrews) is going to look rather tame.
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