REMEMBER WHEN

GOLD COAST BULLETIN Tuesday, February 10, 2004

MERRI Rose swapped a life of politics for one leading to the humble Moreton Island shack of her fisherman lover.

The tiny village of Bulwer, on Moreton’s northwest tip, was about as far away from the rough and tumble of politics as you could get, and Ms Rose could not have been happier.

After spending a day in hiding following her shock loss to the Liberals’ Jann Stuckey, Ms Rose emerged with boyfriend Danny Corney, ready to embrace life after politics and spoke of a weight being lifted from her shoulders.

Ms Rose, divorced almost two years earlier, ruled out marriage to the quietly spoken fisherman, but the couple were clearly in love and cannot wait for a quiet life away from the spotlight.

After their chance meeting on

a remote stretch of Moreton beach more than a year earlier, Mr Corney became a rock at the former Tourism Minister’s side and he was relishing the prospect of taking her away to a simple island existence.

Ms Rose said she was sitting alone on a stretch of beach when she met Mr Corney.

“This dog came up to me and I asked him if it was his. He said ‘no’ and then we got talking,” she said. “He was really easy to talk to and things went from there.”