Well, Bracksy can pull a surprise when he wants to, can’t he?
The press conference didn’t really give much away as to his reasons – while he indicated that the recent events involving his son’s drink-driving helped to “confirm his decision”, the overwhelming impression presented that he’d just decided to get out while the going was good for himself and his government, where the new leader (very likely to be Treasurer John Brumby) had the best opportunity to establish themselves.
If you’re looking for conspiracy theories to explain the timing, there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of scandal floating around. John Thwaites’ enthusiasm for free ski trips seems to have been neatly submarined by Thwaites taking the opportunity to go as well. The only political issue that really comes to mind is that the notably socially conservative Bracks didn’t want to be involved in the upcoming abortion decriminalization debate.
Looking back over the Bracks era, I think the consensus view is that it’s been a time of reasonably competent administration, while lacking much visible symbolism. The Victorian economy, while not growing at the colossal rates of the mining boom states, has generally been healthier than NSW and South Australia. Both Melbourne and regional Victoria – a point Bracks himself was keen to emphasise, have grown. The bread-and-butter services of state governments – hospitals, schools, police – have basically been uncontroversial, despite the extraordinary breakdown in relationship between Police Commissioner Christine Nixon and Police Association head Paul Mullett. Urban water policy, while hardly perfect, has been OK – through a combination of good management and good luck, Melbourne never reached stage 4 restrictions where garden watering was prohibited, though the major regional centres of Geelong, Ballarat, and Bendigo did, to be alleviated by a new pipeline from the Goulburn river.
It is perhaps transport infrastructure and city planning where the Bracks record is spottiest; bringing forward infrastructure works to relieve the overcrowded rail system is likely to be a challenge for Bracks’s successor.
On the broader reform agenda, undoubtedly the biggie was reforming the Upper House to a multi-region proportional representation system – even if it did lead to the DLP coming back from the dead. You could also point to the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act as a good idea.
But beyond all that, Bracks’ greatest achievement was almost certainly getting Labor elected, and ultimately getting Labor a majority in both houses, in the first place. Back in 1998, I went to a party where I met an earnest young intern from the US State Department working out of the US Consulate in Melbourne. Her job was to assess what effect the election of a Labor government would have on investment opportunities for American companies in Victoria. Amidst considerable giggling, my friends and I told her that she was wasting her time, as the chances of Kennett losing the election were virtually zero. Kennett was larger than life – hated by a minority for hacking away much of the state social safety net, but seemingly loved by the MMM listeners in the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne where his bread-and-circuses approach to government, complete with the Grand Prix, went down a treat.
Bracks, John Brumby, and the Labor powers that be, figured out that the regional centres of Bendigo, Ballarat and Geelong were unhappy with Kennett’s Melbourne-centric approach to governing Victoria, and campaigned heavily there. It worked. To the surprise of everyone, Labor won 13 seats, many of them in those key regional centres. After protracted negotations with three independents, and a bizarre by-election after the Liberal MP for Frankston East had a heart attack and died on election day, Bracks became Premier, and gained power in their own right in 2002 with a thumping election win.
Through the 1990s and early 2000s, incumbency was king in state politics. That Bracks and the Labor organization were able to overcome this, by attracting regional voters, was pretty remarkable.
Elsewhere: Pavlov’s Cat, Blogocracy.
Bracks did extremely well to pinch seats from the Coalition in unlikely areas, and I wonder if, in several respects, Bracks is the forerunner for Rudd. Both are basically conservative, managerial leaders who place great emphasis on distancing Labor from fiscal disasters of the past.
In addition to the country seats, Bracks has pretty firmly entrenched Labor’s power on the dark side of the Yarra, where the sitting members hold massive majorities in many cases.
lacking much visible symbolism.
And hooray for that!
I don’t like that all commentary (of which this is a very mild example) has to look for political motives for the decision. Maybe he and Thwaites just wanted to get a life?
My only real complaint against Bracks has been the failure to rein in the ideologues of Treasury and their obsession wit PPPs and surpluses. Otherwise, considering how much we subsidise the other States, they’ve done very well fiscally.
The underpinning of the Bracks Government has been Brumby. He withstood the brunt of Kennett and stepped aside for Bracks but it was his economic management that were the kingping of the government.
I expect little change with Brumby as Premier.
Wilful: Bracks may be a genial guy, but he is a politician, and rare indeed is the politician who chooses to go out on top just because he’s bored/tired/wants to smell the roses.
Furthermore, it is a bit of an unusual time to go voluntarily, so soon after an election.
Even if he has gone out purely voluntarily, it’s not unreasonable to at least consider the possibility of skeletons in closet (even if it’s only to dismiss them) or wonder if there was anything specific in the timing.
Anyone talking to earnest young interns from the State Department should start by telling them that State governments of any persuasion in Australia don’t nationalise industries as a matter of principle. And then, maybe she could get a real job.
Phil: it was a summer internship, and I think she may have been given this particular job because she wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed.
Thanks Robert. Often hard to tell with our transpacific cousins. Most State Department people in my experience were pretty damn sharp, but I imagine internships are not necessarily distributed on the basis of ability….
I find it hard to believe that Bracks would quit because of the abortion issue. As far as political issues/problems go it’s not such a big one, certainly not big enough to get a premier to resign if he wasn’t otherwise inclined to do so.
Victoria owes Bracks thanks for getting rid of Kennett, when the latter seemed all but unbeatable. But his government has been growing more unaccountable and, on occasions corrupt, so a bit of change may be a good thing.
As I said on the other thread, I’m sure Pavlov’s Cat is on the money regarding Bracks’ reasons for retiring:
http://pavlovblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/bracks-2.html
Sometimes politicians can be taken at face value. There may be all sorts of current frustrations in his political life, but that doesn’t mean that his decision isn’t motivated by what he says motivated it.
Also, he is 53.
If he wants another career, he has to build it soon. Otherwise he keeps doing political stuff until he retires properly, with only a government gift to keep him occupied. Mind you, he would make a better ambassador in Rome than a certain incumbent.
I agree with David that his age is important, certainly for the career change reason — in fact 53 is bloody late for ordinary folks to try on such a thing although of course Bracks is better placed for it than most — but also because if one has not yet begun to reassess one’s life and priorities by this age then one is basically not very bright.
I was looking at footage of the son Nick last night on the news. He’s 20. That means Bracks became Premier when the son was 12 and more or less missed his whole adolescence (and probably half his childhood as well). If Bracks’ other kids are younger, then he may simply have made the decision to be around for them a bit more.
I was struck by the expression on his face during his press conference when he mentioned the 2010 election. By 2010 he will be 56, not particularly old in the scheme of things but certainly an age by which many politicians have retired one way or the other. When Don Dunstan resigned amid growing scandal from the SA premiership in 1979, looking ancient, sick and beaten, he was a year younger than Bracks is now.
The other thing is of course that everyone always wants to know ‘the story’, but big life changes, when made voluntarily, usually happen for a whole parcel of reasons, some of them quite different from each other but impossible to disentangle from the bundle one by one.
The only thing I can fault Bracksy with is caving to the Greens (on a preference deal) in agreeing to saddle Melburnians with the toll for a goddamn tunnel for the Eastern Freeway in the outer east.
This was done in the early days of his Premiership to win a by-election vital to his Government’s survival and to “saveâ€? the mighty Mullum Mullum creek, a foetid little mini-Yarra with it’s headwaters in a stormwater drain in Nunawading somewhere.
It’s a mistake that at least trebled the cost of the freeway and one the residents of the outer east in Melbourne will be paying for for some considerable time to come.
Apart from that, I reckon he did a pretty good job as Premier.
He was civil and compassionate, prepared to stand-up to Howard and certainly a great deal less of an a**ehole than his immediate predecessor.
I’ll state that not only did three of the worst people I’ve ever worked with in my industry came from the one state department, but also from a single branch of six within that department.
I’ll admit that other areas were better served than that one. They must be.
Evan, The Bracks Tollway sucks – especially the way the weasel dropped it on the voters – but probably doesn’t suck any more than the Kennett Tollway on the other side of town. Personally I’ll be doing whatever I can to send Eastlink broke the way the Cross City Tunnel people went down.
As for Robert’s contention that “Urban water policy, while hardly perfect, has been OK”, well that’s crap – the ALP has fiddled while Victoria dried out. The Thompson dam was built to drought-proof Melbourne for forty years and that forty years expired on Bracks’ watch. Water restrictions are not a solution, they’re a stop-gap. The ALP have a responsibility to harness water resources with a new dam.
It’ll be interesting to see if the government can stop frittering away its fiscal position on recurrent expenditure long enough to invest the required capital in a dam (isn’t it great we’re running deficits in a boom time?). It’ll also be interesting to see if Brumby is as stupidly tied to the greens as Thwaites was over this issue.
Craig, might I suggest you identify where this new dam is going to be built, and where the water to fill it is going to come from? You’re indulging in the “rain-follows-the-plough” fantasy of the 19th century.
More water for Melbourne either involves local resources (rainwater tanks), transforming non-potable water (recycling, desalination), or diverting water currently used for other purposes to Melbourne. The government has chosen options 2 (a desalination plant) and 3 (a pipeline from the Goulburn River).
And while I don’t like water restrictions, the Liberal Party has not been prepared to propose price signals to reduce water consumption anywhere.
Craig Mc suggests that Victoria is running a deficit.
Sorry, but that isn’t quite right.
According to the ABS Government Financial Estimates, Australia 2006-2007 (ABS Code 5501.0.55.001), published by the ABS 8.11.06 (these bring the latest AMS figures I could find), Victoria is actually running a surplus of about $186 Million.
I don’t mind people bagging a Government for what it’s done or failed to do, but criticising it on the basis of dodgy assumptions is a bit much.
Evan is multiply wrong as he could be on the Eastlink tunnel. There has been no state by-election in the area covered by Eastlink in Bracks’ time as premier, and certainly no preference deal with the Greens over the issue.
Evan might be thinking of the Mitcham by-election, which happened not only before Bracks was premier, but before he led the party. Or he might be thinking of Frankston East – the thing that made Bracks premier. Or maybe he means Burwood which is a long way from Eastlink and Mullum Mullum. Or there was Aston, which was federal.
None of these involved preference deals with the Greens over the issue. In the first three the Greens were so keen to see the back of Kennett that no preference deals were required. In Aston Labor refused our requests (including public transport upgrades which would have prevented the current mess) so the Greens did not recommend preferences in favour of Labor.
Stephen reckons I’m “multiply wrong” on the East link tunnel deal.
The only thing I’m wrong about is the timing of the relevant by-election. It occurred not “early” in Steve Bracks’ premiership, but right at the start.
It was, of course, the Mitcham by-election that gave Bracksy (with the support of the three independents) his first minority Government. This was a “must-win” election and Labor could not form Government without taking the seat.
Green preferences were vital.
The Green candidate (whose name escapes me at the moment, but I can get it) put his requirements quite simply: He made it known that he’d be directing preferences to whichever party promised to build the longest tunnel and save the mighty Mullum-Mullum.
Labor’s candidate, Tony Robinson, promised a 2.5Km tunnel and this, as it turned out, was the successful bid.
Bracksy had promised that the freeway would be just that: A freeway, not a tollway, and he stuck with this during the campaign. He was evidently acutely aware of the public’s dissatisfaction with the Kennett tollways.
During the campaign Labor had “costed” the tunnel at $100 million (within the State’s capacity to pay), but the costing was dodgy, being done without any soil or core sampling.
Now, any Engineer can tell you that you can’t estimate the cost of a tunnel without knowing what, exactly, you’re going to be tunnelling through, and the costs estimate turned out to be quite wrong: Out by a factor of 3.5 (with the tunnel eventually costing $350 million).
The State could not afford this and the Commonwealth refused to come to the rescue.
Hence the tolls.
So, Stephen, I reckon the Greens ought to have the courage to claim credit where credit’s due: They saved the mighty Mullum-Mullum (a somewhat less than pristine creek, less than 1m wide, and arising in a 36″ diameter stormwater drain) for the benefit of future generations at a cost of a mere $350 million.
Not exactly saving the Franklin, now is it?
Perhaps you’ll tell me where, in all this, I’m wrong.
Well, it did in 2005/2006. It’s position is still rather good, but my point was that this is as good as it gets, and you have to make do with reduced GST and stamp duty revenues when the wheel turns. This is when we should be retiring debt, although I admit the debt levels as a % of total revenue are shrinking.
Well a dam on the Mitchell seems to be getting a run in a major daily, and as it points out – a lot of water has run through it into Bass Strait just recently – possibly through peoples’ rain-water tanks as it washed them into the sea.
It would mean turning it from a national park into a national aquatic park, but that’s OK – it’s not like anyone except the greens and Thwaites were pretending it was a real one anyway.
One doesn’t have to agree with everything the Victorian state government has done in order to admire Bracks. On the face of it, and until it’s shown otherwise, I think his reasons for leaving are plausible and, indeed, commendable.
But I do remain troubled by the gap between my admiration for the man himself and my distaste for the machinations of his party.
For example, some people here and elsewhere have cited the reforms to the Victorian Upper House as part of the Bracks legacy. Apart from the fact that those reforms were part of the deal forged by the three independents that gave Bracks government in 1999, Labor has been vindictive in its propaganda against the Upper House Greens elected in 2006 as a result. Why? Because they have dared to dissent from the ALP on quite principled grounds. A key example of the ALP’s response is its (unbranded) so-called ‘Gotcha’ campaign.
Yet, despite the stupidity of such campaigns, I must concede that a Bracks Labor government is infinitely preferable to the only other likely alternative. Therein lies the rub, not only at a state but also at a federal level – Labor can rely on the fact that it is relatively (much) better than the Libs, rather than taking a stand on the merits of particular issues. At a federal level (on the basis of the polls), few people want Howard returned, and so we cop the expansion of uranium mining. If Labor is electorally threatened, it responds with the kind of propaganda seen in the Gotcha campaign, rather than arguing the case or contemplating reasoned change to its policies. That’s the big worry for me, and leads me to caution voters against according the party itself with the credit of individually outstanding members. Admire Steve Bracks by all means, but don’t let Labor off the hook.
Beyond these concerns, I will remember Steve Bracks above all for his seemingly impossible but famous victory over Kennett at the 1999 state election. I was studying at the time, and remember bemoaning Kennett in a conversation with the electricity meter-man. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if…but these hopes were dismissed as impossible dreams. Yet, for Bracks, and to the benefit of all Victorians, those dreams were not impossible at all. I wish him well.