Matt Brown's plea of innocence rejected

By Michele Tydd
Updated November 5 2012 - 11:51pm, first published January 15 2010 - 9:56am
How Mercury cartoonist Vince O'Farrell portrayed Matt Brown after the affair.
How Mercury cartoonist Vince O'Farrell portrayed Matt Brown after the affair.

Kiama MP Matt Brown's belated plea of innocence over the "Captain Underpants" affair was a pathetic attempt to reinvent himself to get back on the front bench, Acting Opposition Leader Andrew Stoner said yesterday."It's all aimed at Kristina Keneally but it won't work ... nobody believes him," said Mr Stoner, who entered Parliament in 1999, the same year as Matt Brown."Unlike Tony Stewart (also sacked for alleged inappropriate behaviour) Matt publicly admitted inappropriate behaviour and went quietly," he added.

  • EDITORIAL: Power struggles tear up state's pollies "His own colleagues - not one but many - who were there at the time were singing like birds after the event so he can't make out now it was a vexatious campaign."Mr Stoner's comments follow an Illawarra Mercury article yesterday in which Mr Brown claimed the allegations that he stripped down to his underpants at a post-budget party in June 2008 were lies.They were made three months after the election night when he was approached by a journalist three days into his new appointment as police minister.He was asked to comment on claims he danced in his underpants and that he described a dance with fellow MP Noreen Hay as "tittyf.....g".In the article, Mr Brown said his only "mistake" was "to drink at work" but said he accepted his punishment at the time to save the Labor Party from any embarrassment.Mr Stoner said he can not say exactly what happened because he was in Parliament, which was sitting at the time."But everybody knew at the time something unacceptable by a minister had happened - Matt's own constituents refer to him as Captain Underpants," he said. "It was one of a series of incidents involving Labor MPs such as John Della Bosca, Paul Gibson and Tony Stewart. It was about standards ... Matt did not meet those standards and no amount of spin can change that."
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