Good old piggy

NZ and australia are places where politicians do weird stuff, I believe one aussie minister got some world record in beer drinking(?) another went for a swim and never came back.

I don't think politicians ever make decisions while sober

>another went for a swim and never came back

Not the weirdest way to quit a job, to be honest.

[removed]

It was the Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke who held the record for drinking a yard glass of beer the fastest. He achieved this decades before being PM though.

>another went for a swim and never came back.

And then they named a swimming pool after him.

Doing a Holt, or pulling a Harry Holt is also rhyming slang for bolting and leaving unannounced.

Bob Hawke looked like a guy, who loved a drink. Ruddy skin, with a shade of braggadocio.

The schnapps election.

Someone get Rishi Sunak a drink!

[deleted]

Another shat himself in McDonald's

Someone get Joe Biden a drink!

Oi! Mr. Prime Minista! Andy!

> His party lost 10 seats.

But he couldn't remember what happened to them.

"I was very, very drunk," he was later quoted as saying.

>another went for a swim and never came back.

Understandable, also happened to a triple king of Germany, Italy and Burgundy during a crusade.

Then again there are always overachiever like that one English duke that was sentenced to death by drowning in wine.

clever girl.

[removed]

And didn't even deny it. Laughed about it, even.

That's not how the US system works.

USA doesn't have snap elections. The closest is if someone dies while in office, and even then it mostly applies to legislators.

A west australian state treasurer used to sniff the chairs of female parliamentarians after they stood up. In the early 2000s iirc.

[removed]

An American one?

Plus he was the Union leader during the country-wide strike on Frank Sinatra.

There was just a round of elections and the Republicans did far worse than people expected. I’m not sure you want that.

How could Australia have an American prime minister?

Even if you didn’t know, now you do know that Australians who hold dual citizenship are automatically disqualified from being elected into any federal seat in parliament.

I meant an Australian PM in an American McDonald's

That’s kind of worse, considering McDonalds is a franchise and has stores everywhere.

[deleted]

[deleted]

Why was their a countrywide strike on Frank Sinatra?

He was just being Frank Sinatra, baby. Mid-way through a show, he started calling Australian journalists whores and all kinds of stuff.

I've been an asshole in my life, but I've never been a whole-country-hates-me asshole. So that's some solace, at least.

Edit: I should submit that, actually. You better not beat me to the punch!

Harold Holt was the PM that went for a little swim and decided to disappear, ironically they named a swimming pool after him

Before becoming Prime Minister Bob Hawke was active in the Trade Union area and in that era drank a lot. While at university (in the UK) he had set a "world record" by skolling two-and-a-half pints of beer in 11 seconds. This was University College, Oxford and Hawke was a Rhodes Scholar. Pretty sure calling it a world record was a student joke.

Hawke gave up drinking when he went into politics in 1980 and did not drink while he was PM. He started drinking again after leaving politics in 1993.

That's called the Holy Roman Emperor my guy

Literally the most famous one, too, the definition of BDE Frederick Barbarossa himself, more or less the German King Arthur, once and future king, uniter of Germany type stuff.

That’s only a recent thing. Australian politics used to be dominated by British ex pats. And Chinese people

“Dazza pulled the old Harold Holt and bailed on the missus”

[deleted]

I love watching the press conference announcing the election. He looks like he could topple over at any moment.

Do I get to choose between drinking records vs armed insurrection in my world leaders?

[deleted]

He spoke at our school, while he was a Minister. I was probably 11 or 12 and knew nothing about politics but afterwards thought why would anyone vote for this guy. They did though.

Pick up your game buddy. Get on some watchlists

Not that recent. Only the huge fight over it was recent.

Also ex pats are allowed, you don't need to be born here you just can't be duel citizen.

Hard pass. Can't sing worth shit.

He can get me one, with him and his wife having a combined net worth of over 1 billion pounds, whilst his country starves, struggles and freezes to death. Fuck Rishi.

Exactly! What do you think would happen if he got drunk, I mean have you seen the guy?

Guess drinking on the job will get you fired.

He came up with the great line that a Kiwi moving to Australia raises the intelligence levels of both nations.

Here's the drunken announcement

Edit: Election night result - Muldoon announcing that they'd win the next one [in 1987] by a landslide. They didn't - in fact it was the first time Labour had back-to-back terms.

He still had it years later

Rishi is a good prime minister, you have no idea what you're talking about.

What?

Ah the more you know cheers

So the right can lose more seats?

Then we have Kevin Rudd, who went to a strip club in NYC with some mates, before he became PM in '07. Hes now our ambassador to the U.S.

being the worst minister of finance NZ has ever had probably helped..

Honestly, he had some good ideas and wasnt trying to make bad decisions. He just couldnt modernize like labour did with the rogernomics.

How can you be this wrong? If you’ve lived in Australia your whole life this comment should embarrass you. Know your nation.

> in fact it was the first time Labour had back-to-back terms.

They formed a government 4 elections in a row from 1935 - 1949

We also have Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt

It talks to submarines.

Shows me what I know - I'm sure I read a fact years ago stating that was the case, but obviously incorrect.

I’m sorry I was misinformed. Only been to Australia once. Not Australian I mis remembered the news when the big row took place as the time they changed it. Sorry dude

I don't quite think that was it.

Neo-liberalism was still only starting to get a foothold in the UK/USA with Thatcher and Reagan. It just wasn't really a thing when he was in power.

He had some massive ideas - but also worked the government to give himself as much control as possible; being both Prime Minister and Minister of Finance (usually two rather separate positions) - This was bad when he started putting in price freezes, and massive policies that basically bankrupted the country... But also largely hid it from the public. Lange the incoming prime minister later stated that it was kept from the public how close we came from just defaulting on all loans - the selling of assets came from a necessity to get investment into the country.

The other thing that cost him was infighting in his party - particularly the younger MPs with more liberal ideas (such as Nuclear free NZ) and his decision to not have a position on it. - Whereas the incoming stamped themselves as 'Nuclear Free' which was a fairly popular movement. He just didn't seem to believe in those more social policies where the public did, He had a similar reaction to the Springbok tour in 1981.

There is an fantastic series on the Neo-liberalism change in New Zealand called revolution - the first episode deals a lot with Muldoon and what New Zealand looked like under him "Fortress New Zealand" (and why there was a change afterwards)

I have watched that documentary a couple of times and I absolutely love it.

The think big projects are what I mean by good ideas. Especially the dams, steel and aluminuim facilities (that provided employment and cheaper goods for many years).

But the tinkering with the economy and fucking over the balance of payments wasnt helpful. Though I think he genuinely was trying to help the working people in the short term but couldnt handle the decisions that needed to be made for the long term solution.

Now New Zealand is seen as a champion of economic shift where we went from one of the richest in the 1950's
to almost bankrupt in the 80's because muldoon and co. were still thinking with ideas from the 50's
and now to one of the best performing economies in the world again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INyMYy-QjxM
This video is also a good watch

I think you mean former prime minister. The current one is much, much smarter.