A FAMILY AFFAIR

I’ve been thinking in past few days, post-election, how politicians happily use their kids as props to help get them elected and then conveniently use them as an excuse when they decide to quit. Even if they’ve only just been re-elected. Even if their departure will cost the taxpayers for a by-election.

There have been heaps of cases in recent weeks. The Labor candidate for LaTrobe, Rodney, Cocks, is still facing defeat after distributing a campaign letter falsely painting himself as a concerned father when he has no children.  Other pamphlets showed him playing in a park with children that weren’t his. And from memory a dog. Maybe the dog was his.

On the other side we had Peter Costello in one of his brochures smiling happily with three young kids. Nice family image. But they weren’t his.

But Costello did use his own wife and family as a reason for not taking the Party leader’s job in Opposition following the rout of the Howard Government.

Even Kevin 07 was sympathetic. He said he understood because ‘Peter Costello has young children’. He then corrected himself and said ‘ Err, well he has children’.

Steve Bracks used his family as one reason why he abruptly walked away only months after being re-elected Premier of Victoria. And Alexander Downer used the ‘time with family’ excuse to explain why he wasn’t standing for the Leader’s job.  The fact he was a disaster the last time around obviously didn’t come into it.

But would Costello and Downer showed such paternal passion if the Government had been re-elected? Would Downer have said ‘I don’t want to be Foreign Affairs Minister any more because I have to spend so much time overseas’?  Not bloody likely.  Would Costello have said when a re-elected Howard finally passed the baton ‘I can’t take it. Being Prime Minister would take up too much time away from my family’. Dream on.

And Howard used his children as an excuse to commandeer Kirribilli House as his home for more than a  decade, rather than live in The Lodge, because he didn’t want to interrupt their schooling.  One is now a mother. Another lives in Washington. But hey, Hyacinth Bucket didn’t want to live in Canberra not matter how many millions it cost the taxpayers maintaining two official residences. Not to mention the aircraft and staffing costs.

The point is all these men, and some women, made the decision to run for office – presumably with the agreement of their spouse – when their kids were young. It was Mum left at home to raise them through their formative years. Make the personal sacrifices.

Former Victorian Premier Joan Kirner, who was handed a poisoned chalice in the guise of the Premier’s office, got it right. She says spending more time with their families is not the reason for getting out of politics.

‘For most people it is because  they have lost power or they don’t want to keep up the pace any more’. She’s right.

Even to the end they use their families as props.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2007