The strong-arming inside one Australian parliament has gone to a new level after a state government minister broke his arm while arm wrestling a cabinet colleague in his office.
The New South Wales customer service minister, Victor Dominello, suffered a fractured humerus bone while arm wrestling the state’s attorney general, Mark Speakman, in September last year.
“I don’t have any comment except there’s been no fracturing of my relationship with Victor,” Speakman told the Australian, which revealed that Dominello suffered the injury while the two cabinet ministers were messing around during a lunch break last year.
“He fractured his humerus bone and was treated in the public hospital system,” a spokesman for Dominello said.
Dominello – who was spotted wearing a sling after the incident – is a close ally of the premier, Gladys Berejiklian. Besides the break, he’s had a torrid time of late.
Staff members inside the minister’s office were interviewed by police in relation to an incident in the lead-up to the March state election in which the private details of hundreds of motorists – including the then opposition leader, Michael Daley – ended up in the hands of a journalist.
No charges were laid, but the NSW Labor party has referred the leak to the Independent Commission Against Corruption.
It’s not the first time NSW politics has gotten physical.
In 2004 the Labor MP for Murray Darling, Peter Black, caused an uproar after entering the NSW lower house and lunging at fellow Labor MP Virginia Judge.
Black was counselled by the then premier, Bob Carr, but the deputy opposition leader Barry O’Farrell was booted from the parliament for saying Black was “pissed”.
In 2005 the Nationals MP Andrew Fraser, accosted the Labor minister Joe Tripodi during a debate over road funding, grabbing him by the suit jacket.
