To paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald, there are no second acts in Australian political lives.
Take Stephen Smith. On Sunday the former defence minister launched a quixotic campaign for the leadership of the Western Australian Labor party. Forty-eight hours later the WA Labor caucus united to tell Smith that they had considered his offer and politely declined.
As they should have. As they were always going to do. As former WA Premier Geoff Gallop observed, “a new generation state parliamentary Labor Party” deserved to get on with their job and “there can’t and shouldn’t be a turning back.”
Of course, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s actual observation is that there are no second acts in American lives. His point is often misinterpreted that there are no second chances. What Fitzgerald was more likely asserting is that Americans often look for shortcuts: that Americans prefer to avoid the hard effort of the type that occurs in the “the second act” of a play when a protagonist needs to work out how to resolve a dilemma.
The saying still holds. Dusting off a former politician smacks of the same shortcut mentality. This week the WA Labor party declined the shortcut. Why would they take it? Leader Mark McGowan and his team have done the hard work. They’ve gone through their second act and are ready for the third act of their play: an election where their efforts seem ready to be acknowledged by the electorate.
Despite incessant media speculation that this person is going federal or that person is being parachuted into lead a state party (this time it was Smith in WA, previously it’s been Alexander Downer in SA and Malcolm Turnbull in NSW), such moves rarely happen. Most of the time, the protagonists of Australian politics work through the second act.
Since World War II only six former premiers have moved to the federal sphere. The last three – Bob Carr, John Fahey and Carmen Lawrence – were hardly stunning successes. Lawrence was dogged by her time in office in Western Australia, Fahey served unremarkably before personal circumstances brought his time as a federal minister to an end, and Carr thwarted his own ambitions to become “the Strom Thurmond of the Australian Senate” by abruptly resigning after the 2013 election.
To be fair, Carr added much needed ballast and lustre to the foreign affairs portfolio at a time when Kevin Rudd was stalking Julia Gilliard and her cabinet. But it is difficult to see what Smith – a former defence and foreign affairs minister – could have added to a state opposition party currently leading in the polls.
Bringing Smith into the state leadership would have shown a lack of faith in the current generation of politicians, a failure of renewal, and, frankly, a lack of originality. I can’t imagine what motivated Smith – without a seat, without a set of numbers to bless himself – to declare his candidacy.
As a former political mentor of mine used to say that “when the curtain comes down, it’s time to get off the stage.”
But media speculation has been growing for some time that Smith was about to be drafted to the state party leadership. The media love these potential Machiavellian plots despite the fact that they so rarely come to fruition. I suspect the media likes to speculate about what it knows, and former politicians are well known to political reporters.
And reporters also know that former politicians are often ego-driven, easily flattered and often nostalgic for the days when they used to be the centre of attention. Combine all those factors and it isn’t hard to fuel speculation about a former premier going federal or a former federal MP taking over a state party.
In Australian politics it is often said “there’s nothing more ‘ex’ than an ‘ex’.” I agree. Once you’ve done your dash, it’s time to stand aside and let the next generation of talent take over. It can smack of hubris, and a little bit of selfishness, to consider that there’s no one else coming through the ranks who can do the job.
I do make a few exceptions. Sometimes the electorate realises it has made a mistake by tossing out a good MP and seeks to return that person to office, like voters did in NSW when they brought David Harris and Jodi McKay back to the parliament.
Sometimes a person of significant talent and attributes who is still serving, like Linda Burney, moves to another sphere in order to continue making a contribution. And I give a total pass to independents, like Tony Windsor, who has no party structure grooming the next crop of candidates, and no ambition to serve as premier or prime minister.
For the life of me I can’t contemplate why Windsor wants to spend his remaining years on this earth engaged in another round of battles in Canberra, but his single-minded focus on representing his community is admirable.
For the rest of us former politicians, it’s probably best we realise we are just that – former. And we should remain so.
