Fairly Good Government

Catch and Kill: The Politics of Power
by Joel Deane
UQP, 2015, 368 pages, $32.95

State politicians get a lot of stick. When things go wrong in their vast spread of responsibilities for services to the public, which is most of the time, they are sneered at as incompetent. When things go right, which is even more of the time, nobody notices. And most of the time the public irritatedly regards them as having had a glamour by-pass, not good enough for the top of the class in Canberra.

Joel Deane’s “insider” account of the Bracks–Brumby years in Victoria is a corrective and also a fine account of one of the better state governments, told in a jaunty, at times gripping, style rich in personalities and quotations from participants. There are many candid gems about recently prominent politicians. It is of course sympathetic, but not overly so, and is not likely to upset those who do not share its politics.

It conveys a sense of good political pacing, eschewing of grand visions but an eye on the ball of priority for unspectacular good government ahead of distinctive “Labor” issues (though these got their share of attention). Other good points include moderation of competitive egos and ambitions and a deft balancing of the influences of party factions and the bureaucracy, business, unions and electoral pressures.

The care the chief figures put into preparing for and then executing government gets a lot of attention. They were fortunate in governing in relatively benign years, mostly free of recessions and other calamities. Their one-term coalition successor from 2010 to 2014, by comparison, has been criticised as reaching office without much preparation as well as being poorly led.

Their coalition predecessor under Jeff Kennett (1992 to 1999) cannot be accused of this; if anything the leader was too strong and the plans excessive. The Cain–Kirner Labor predecessor (1982 to 1992) hit office with expansive plans and ambitions, but these too were often misguided or turned into ministerial ego trips. Spending got out of control and brought serious debt when the 1990 recession and other bad luck hit. The result was ignominious defeat. The relative calm and measured pace of the Bracks–Brumby years resembled more the style of the popular and successful Victorian premiership of Dick Hamer (1972 to 1981) and perhaps that of Mike Baird, now in New South Wales.

The Bracks–Brumby team enjoyed a good relationship with New South Wales Premier Bob Carr but found New South Wales Labor generally, as one insider put it, “warriors”, more interested in fighting than public policy. Queensland’s Peter Beattie they mistrusted as too close to Prime Minister John Howard when it came to competing for funds from Canberra.

Their model was the Hawke–Keating government in Canberra from 1983 to 1996. Former Hawke–Keating minister John Button advised an enthusiastic new Bracks minister to “add political value” rather than intervene in the bureaucracy. Gough Whitlam’s government (1972 to 1975) was ghostly in the background, with Whitlam’s message that Labor should be about governing rather than internal politicking. The excesses of “Whitlamism” inspired the constructive moderation of Hawke–Keating and indirectly that of Bracks–Brumby.

Another indirect legacy of Whitlam was that the Labor grouping known as “the Independents” was still an influence at the outset, and Premier Bracks and others began their careers there. The Independents originated with local branch members who supported Whitlam’s drive in the late 1960s to break up hard-Left union control of Victorian Labor and then organised to reduce factional control. Some notable political careers followed.

There is a belief that a nucleus of four strong ministers works well. Deane shows that the quartet of Bracks, Brumby and senior ministers Rob Hulls and John Thwaites was crucial. They had their tensions, but consistently co-operated. Brumby, who was also leader before and after Bracks, had a good financial head and could be suitably grim as the Treasurer who kept the books balanced, but also had an eye for the bush. Hulls was the social justice enthusiast—sharpened by working with the Aboriginal Legal Service in North Queensland—but he could double up as chief head-kicker in parliament. Thwaites was the man for the environment but brought his forensic barrister’s skills to many jobs. All were from non-traditional Labor origins. Brumby and Thwaites went to the elite Melbourne Grammar, while Bracks and Hulls had early backgrounds sympathetic to the old Democratic Labor Party. To these four could be added Terry Moran, the public service whiz Bracks recruited as secretary of the Department of Premier and Cabinet.

Deane shows Steve Bracks to be a very good politician, easily under-estimated with his unassuming “boy next door” manner. He is described as a subtle mover, “quietly confident”, “doesn’t have to take credit for everything”, with “a gift for body language”.

Bracks says he had in mind two prime ministers: John Curtin, who “personified humility in the way he operated publicly”, and Bob Hawke for his “inclusive style”—both very unlike Kennett, whose electoral toppling by Bracks looked at the time like giant-killing.

John Brumby took over the leadership soon after the ebullient Kennett defeated Joan Kirner in 1992. As Opposition Leader he set about doggedly rebuilding the tarnished Labor brand, in unions and boardrooms alike and in the bush. His particular triumph was in rebuilding the vote in regional towns and cities, which Kennett conspicuously overlooked.

But Brumby’s was a little wooden on television, and his public support did not match his effort. Shortly before the 1999 election Bracks won the leadership from him. Though personally bruised, Brumby stayed on as Treasurer and won the leadership back when Bracks stood down in 2007.

Assertive, energetic and with a filing-cabinet mind for facts, Brumby was another effective premier but by then the luck was turning, with the savage 2007 drought and the Global Financial Crisis. Two big mistakes, which Deane explores in detail, were with water and public transport. Spooked by climate-change predictions of permanent drought and Melbourne running out of water, the Brumby cabinet opted for a large and costly desalination plant and a north-south pipeline, neither of which has yet been used, while sending water bills soaring. Brumby’s government also accepted misplaced advice on the Myki automatic public-transport ticket scheme and under-estimated the sudden surge in demand for metropolitan public transport.

These mistakes were all critical to the coalition winning the 2010 election. Too many swinging seats are on sensitive suburban railway lines and busy level crossings for either side of politics to feel comfortable.

Deane, who was a speech-writer and media officer for Bracks and Brumby, conveys a picture of well-intentioned, talented, hard-working people doing their best at a thankless task. He says a lot about them striving for tax and other economic “reform” and relations with the Commonwealth that suggest patience is a virtue.

I am struck by the armies of advisers and other staff, both public service and party. In Henry Bolte’s halcyon day (1955 to 1972) ministers and opposition leaders had only two or three personal staff, most seconded from the public service, and the Premier not many more.

The book contains a lot of what was once known as bad language. Deane explains:

I make no apology for the profanity in the book. I wanted this story to be told in the private language of the political tribe, and that’s how political people speak. That’s because politicians and their staffers live in each other’s pockets, become family (in the best and worst meanings of the word) and speak to each other with a familial familiarity, with leaders taking the role of the big brother or sister and everyone else an obsequious or preening or annoying or rebellious or alienated younger sibling. There are no parents in politics.