There is no modern Australian politician whose name is as synonymous with a certain way of doing politics as that of Graham Richardson, who has died at 76 after a long battle with cancer.
Whatever it Takes was the apt title of Richardson’s 1994 memoir, a book that achieved a notoriety because of its author’s defence of lying.
That notoriety typified some of the hypocrisy that has marked commentary on Richardson’s career as the ultimate Labor powerbroker. Everyone knows that politicians lie. And, as an account of his controversial career, there were more holes in Richardson’s book than a slice of Swiss cheese. Nonetheless, it had a certain rough-and-tumble frankness that gained him attention and readers.
