Artful dodger, kingmaker, spiv, front bar wit, grey eminence, raconteur, Graham Richardson shaped the Australian Labor Party in his own image, and when it was no longer of use to him, he blithely lay down with its enemies, the Packers and the Murdochs, and spent his last years opining fearlessly for his new masters.
A former NSW ALP general secretary and NSW senator, as leader of the NSW Right, Richardson was instrumental in installing Bob Hawke as federal leader and then dumping him in favour of his “mate” Paul Keating.
Then senator Graham Richardson (left) and prime minister Bob Hawke in 1990.Credit: Peter Morris
Richardson once said that loyalty was the only virtue. He put the true value of forgiveness in politics as nil, and his winner-takes-all persona was so successful that it turned Labor’s default position from reform to pragmatism.
Yet, he was a prodigiously able administrator, a spectacularly successful political fundraiser and a surprisingly wily and competent minister until his penchant for wheeling and dealing tripped him up.
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