Politics & Council
3 January, 2024
Bush power - country pollies who make it to the top
SUMMER READING By CHRIS EARL IN AN age where 75 per cent of Victoria’s population have little or no connection with country Victoria, the chances of a bush pollie rising to the state’s top political job are slim. Last week was one of those rare...
SUMMER READING
By CHRIS EARL
IN AN age where 75 per cent of Victoria’s population have little or no connection with country Victoria, the chances of a bush pollie rising to the state’s top political job are slim.
Last week was one of those rare exceptions when Jacinta Allan, a 24-year veteran of State Parliament, got the nod to sit in the premier’s chair after Daniel Andrews called time on his political career.
The one-time after-school checkout chick and brass band tenor horn player from Bendigo has spent most of her life as an MP and the majority of that time as a minister.
She’s not the first country pollie in recent years to occupy the Premier’s suite in Treasury Place. The south-west Victorian vet and Liberal MP Denis Napthine emerged as successor to Ted Baillieu when the Coalition briefly held the state’s purse string earlier this century.
But for the first time in almost 80 years, for some Loddon communities at least, their local member is also the premier.
Jacinta Allan’s Bendigo East electorate includes local districts around Serpentine and Dingee. Until a redistribution a decade ago, Bridgewater was also on her patch.
Whether having the premier as your local MP makes any difference - Serpentine is still waiting for its new fire station promised a few years ago - time will tell.
She was certainly out and about in the immediate days after last October’s flood emergency with visits to Newbridge and Bridgewater and an under-the-radar stop in Serpentine.
Jacinta Allan has a few historical precendents to smash if she is to come close to emulating the last local premier in the Loddon.
Albert Dunstan served in the top job for more than eight years either side of World War Two - he is one of the four long-serving former premiers honoured with a statue in Treasury Place (Daniel Andrews has also qualified to be cast in bronze) - and was variously the member for Eaglehawk and then the member for Eaglehawk and Korong Vale, taking in Loddon communities throughout his 30 years representing rural areas in Spring Street.
Born at Donald and later farming at Kamarooka, Dunstant was a Country Party man who did deals with the United Australia Party (a forerunner of the Liberals) and Labor to decide the fate of governments and eventually take his own party into government. He had earlier helped bring down the conservative government of Sir Harry Lawson, the son of a Dunolly parson who practised law in Castlemaine and had six years as Victorian premier, his greatest legacy said to be construction of the Great Ocean Road that gave sustenance to the unemployed after World War One.
For Dunstan, the Australian Dictionary of Biography gives him credit for moving the Royal Melbourne Hospital to a new site in Parkville and the sale of Crown land at Fishermen’s Bend to General Motors-Holden that would become a major hub in Australia’s post-war car manufacturing.
When Dunstan died in 1950, his seat was by then known as Korong, it was Wedderburn farmer Keith Turnbull who took local concerns to Spring Street as a Liberal Party MP.
Keith Turnbull had returned from serving in the army during World War Two and after winning the seat of Kara Kara in 1955 (Korong had been abolished), he was part of the new government of country Victoria’s most famous political product Sir Henry Bolte who made Turnbull the Minister of Lands and Soldier Settlement. Turnbull later picked up the conservation portfolio in 1961.
Keith Turnbull was defeated when the Country Party benefited from Labor preferences in 1964, losing to Maryborough industrialist Bill Phelan.
Sir Henry Bolte would stay in the premier’s suite for almost another decade, the farmer from Meredith first installed as a stop-gap leader of the Liberals defying predictions and odds with his unique personality and style of leadership.
He was the last country premier until Denis Napthine who led the Liberals to defeat after just a single term in office and gave rise to the dominance of Daniel Andrews for almost a decade.
It is more than 50 years since any party in power in Victoria has won the next election after changing leaders mid-term.
That was when Sir Rupert Hamer took over the leadership mantle from Sir Henry Bolte.
Jacinta Allan has history against her after last week’s leadership switch by Labor. But only the foolhardy would be game to predict her, and her party’s early demise.
Her party, too, has had a couple of “country background” premiers this century - Steve Bracks cut his teeth in central Victoria and John Brumby held the seat of Bendigo in the Federal Parliament for a while although both were Melbourne pollies by the time they scaled the steps to the premier’s office.
Loddon communities will be watching with more than casual interest in how Jacinta Allan adjusts the policy directions of her government.
Mayor Dan Straub has already signalled he would like to meet with Jacinta Allan sooner rather than later. Plenty of big issues on the agenda that he, and other community leaders, will be hoping to have more than a sympathetic ear.
Roads quite naturally are right there at the top as is backing for investment in population and economic growth of Loddon towns.
With the housing crisis enveloping metropolitan Melbourne and regional capitals - and yes, Loddon could also do with more houses - it might make sense for Victoria’s 49th premier to look laterally and see the benefits of investing in smaller towns within reasonable distance of Bendigo.
The economic and social benefits that would come from investment in Loddon communities would be immense.
Time will tell whether Jacinta’s government is in tune with rural aspirations and whether she will a premier from the bush like Napthine or matching the longevity of Bolte or Dunstan.
At least 25 per cent of Victoria’s population will watch and wait with interest.