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

March 26, 2026 — 5:00am

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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........

© The Sydney Morning Herald