Socky Horror Show At Airport

Sydney Morning Herald

Friday June 20, 1997

By MIKE SECCOMBE in Canberra

If you want to see the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, get his knickers in a knot, mention his stockings.

The Opposition frontbencher Simon Crean did it on Thursday night in the Qantas lounge at Canberra Airport. Various reports from others in the lounge suggested Downer "lost it" and "went ballistic" and began shouting abuse.

As other bemused travellers watched in amazement, colleagues moved in to separate the pair. To understand why it happened you need a little background.

Earlier, during Question Time, Downer tried to stop Opposition criticism of the Prime Minister's 17-day overseas itinerary, which is a bit short on serious matters of state and long on sporting and social events.

He said Crean was planning a publicly paid trip to Europe during the winter parliamentary break and taking his wife and two children. This was not quite true; Crean was paying for his kids and his hire car.

The details of such trips are supposed to remain confidential until they are collated and tabled every six months. So when they met at the airport, Crean had a go and Downer had a go back. The conversation grew louder until Crean baited Downer about his stockings.

A bit more background. Last November Downer dressed up as Frank N. Furter, the transvestite-transsexual from Transylvania in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, for a competition run by the Advertiser newspaper in Adelaide.

Ever since, people have joked about it and and referred to a British Tory MP, Stephen Milligan, who was found dead in 1994 wearing suspenders, women's underwear and a plastic bag on his head.

It seems what upset Downer was a Crean suggestion that he should not just wear stockings but a bag over his head too.