After eight years in this mad house, I’ve seen it all – including surprising friendships

In the dead of night, an MP turned up to NSW Parliament House in his underpants. He’d forgotten his house keys, apparently. The most popular premier in recent memory had a secret dodgy boyfriend who ruined her political career at the height of a global pandemic. Her replacement, it emerged, had worn a Nazi uniform to his 21st. He survived the scandal, despite the best efforts of his own party colleagues who were behind the salacious leak.

If I were to write a memoir of my eight years as state political editor of the Herald, I reckon a publisher would class it as a piece of fiction. There is simply no stranger, more dysfunctional workplace than NSW Parliament House. As I hang up my hat this week and move to a new role at the Herald, I have been reflecting on some of the greatest hits in my time in the mad house.

I swear all tales are true.

It was 2020 and NSW Labor had a year earlier been embroiled in a corruption scandal involving a Chinese developer and wads of cash in an Aldi shopping bag. Shaoquett Moselmane, the party’s little-known upper house MP, caused an almighty stir when his Parliament House office and Rockdale home were sensationally raided by ASIO and federal police. A spy for China in Macquarie Street? You can imagine the shock. Moselmane was swiftly booted from the ALP, although he was almost as swiftly returned to the fold when it emerged it was his staffer John Zhang – not Moselmane – who was of interest to security officials. Neither has been charged. Onwards and upwards.

Jodi McKay was Labor leader at the time. The one-time newsreader had replaced Michael Daley after his infamous racist gaffe weeks out from the 2019 election when he claimed young Sydneysiders were fleeing the city and being replaced by “Asians with PhDs”. He apologised profusely, but the damage was done. Labor lost that election.

Daley had been parachuted into the job because a drunk Luke Foley was forced to quit politics after putting his hand down the dress of then ABC journalist Ashleigh Raper. Eventually, Chris Minns took on the Labor leadership, although it took three attempts, including one ill-fated shot when a senior party figure quipped the now premier had so few supporters they “could fit into the front seat of a Suzuki Swift”.

The Liberals have churned through leaders, too. Gladys Berejiklian became a beloved figure after her handling of bushfires and COVID. But the state was shocked when it emerged she had been dating fellow MP Daryl Maguire. The announcement of an ICAC investigation into whether the premier breached the public trust by keeping the relationship a secret forced her resignation.

Heir apparent Dominic Perrottet replaced Berejiklian, although he had a scare just before the 2023 election when fellow Liberals turned on him and threatened to release a photo from his 21st birthday, at which he dressed in a Nazi uniform. Said photo never materialised. Perrottet lost the 2023 election and Mark Speakman took over. Speakman lasted two-and-a half years in the job before he was replaced by Kellie Sloane.

Leadership rumblings have always featured on Macquarie Street. In 2021, Liberal MLC Natasha Maclaren-Jones stormed the president’s chair in the upper house, staging a sit-in, after an unedifying five-week spat over the rightful successor to retiring Liberal president John Ajaka. Maclaren-Jones lasted 90 minutes as president, the shortest tenure in history, before she was booted from the chair amid unruly scenes. She was replaced by a Liberal bloke, Matthew Mason-Cox, who was promptly expelled from the party for having the audacity to run against premier Berejiklian’s pick, Maclaren-Jones.

There have been one-hit wonders, too. The first and only time anyone had heard of ex-Liberal MLC Lou Amato was when he tried to team with like-minded conservative MPs Tanya Davies and Mason-Cox to overthrow Berejiklian, who was popular but had not yet hit the highs of her COVID era. It was 2019 and Berejiklian was in Europe on a trade trip, with press gallery journalists in tow. Back in NSW, with the boss out of the country, the Coalition government was tearing itself apart over laws to decriminalise abortion. Amato, Davies and Mason-Cox declared Berejiklian’s support for the laws was so outrageous that they would move a spill motion against her. It failed before it started. Amato was forever after known as “Lou who?”

There have been spectacular own goals, too. Blue Mountains Labor MP Trish Doyle accused a Nationals MP of texting a sex worker during question time to offer her $1000 to come to Parliament House. Michael Johnsen named himself as the accused MP and resigned amid allegations, which he denied, that he had raped the same woman. Police investigated those claims but the Director of Public Prosecutions found insufficient evidence to proceed with charges. Johnsen’s departure forced a byelection in his seat of Upper Hunter. Labor expected to win. It didn’t. The Nationals held the seat – and it ended McKay’s leadership.

In 2024, Gareth Ward, the once-popular Liberal member for Kiama, arrived at Parliament House at 4am in his underpants, explaining that he was there to collect keys because he had locked himself out of his home. Ward is now serving time in jail for sexually abusing two young men. Former Pittwater MP Rory Amon, meanwhile, is awaiting news on whether he will face a retrial after a jury cleared him of eight of 10 charges relating to the alleged sexual abuse of a 13-year-old boy.

However, amid the crimes and corruption, the political machinations and dirty tricks, I have also seen the best in people. One of the longest serving MPs in this place was the moral crusader Fred Nile, who had been known for praying for the heavens to open on the night of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras – literally to rain on its parade. Nile’s nemesis was the gay independent member for Sydney, Alex Greenwich, who led the campaign for same-sex marriage. They agreed on nothing. Until 2022, when the pair formed the most unlikely alliance through a shared passion for Indigenous rights and reconciliation.

After the 2023 election, former federal Labor leader Mark Latham, now in the NSW upper house, tweeted a vile, homophobic remark about Greenwich. Nile jumped to the defence of his former foe and declared “Alex is loved”.

Despite its quirkiness and eclectic characters, NSW Parliament is too often seen as the poor, unsophisticated cousin to Canberra. The B-team, if you like. In reality, state parliament has a massive impact on our lives. Macquarie Street keeps the trains running, the schools open and the hospitals operating. We could not survive without it. It’s been a wild, wonderful ride.

Alexandra Smith is state political editor.

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