League: Too cold, too PC - Lowe rejects Auckland

League legend Graham Lowe is leaving New Zealand for warmer weather and a bit less political correctness.

Lowe, his wife Karen and their 16-month-old twin boys, Jack and Sam, will go to Brisbane as soon as they have sold their Auckland home.

Lowe, 58, who has had several health problems, including a brain haemorrhage, strokes and a triple bypass heart operation, said Queensland's warmer climate was the main reason behind the move.

"You just can't beat the Queensland weather.

"My health has been pretty good for the last five years, but I know that being in the warmer climate will add even further years to my life.

"And also with my boys, I think the good climate will benefit them as they are growing up.

"I noticed that just before Christmas Jack got a bit of a cold and then he started wheezing. My eldest daughter has asthma ... and as soon as we shifted to Queensland it fixed it and she was cured straight away.

"It was just the wheezing I heard in Jack. I thought I don't want that to happen."

But the former Kiwis coach says New Zealand's obsession with political correctness also influenced his decision.

"I am as proud a Kiwi as you can get, and maybe I am showing my age but I want to remember the New Zealand I grew up in," he said.

"I don't think it is quite the same at the moment. I still love the place but the political correctness is just too much for me.

"The way I feel about it I thought I have two options. One is to stay here and stand for Parliament which I considered doing.

"Then I thought even I am not silly enough to do that. The other was to go."

Lowe has lived on and off in Australia since the mid-1960s. He coached Manly in the NRL and the Queensland State of Origin team.

For the past five years he has lived in Auckland.

He was a director of the Warriors, but in more recent times has worked as a taxi driver.

"I wish I had done that 10 years ago," he said of the taxi driving.

"That is the most enjoyable job I think I have ever done. It was absolutely wonderful.

"I have only been in that six months, it was a big thing to leave and I am really going to miss it because I won't be doing that in Australia."

Lowe will continue his column with the Herald and also do other media work in Queensland.

He is also not ruling out a return to league in some form or another.

"I have a lot of links with Queensland football and a lot of mates there.

"Different ones have already spoken to me about being involved somehow, so I'll play all that by ear."

* Graham Lowe analyses this year's Warriors in Friday's Supersport and returns with his weekly column on March 11.