Shane Malone - Eureka Street

Ferguson's public
persona is that of
the earnest plodder.
An economics
graduate of Sydney
University and the
son of a former
depu L y premieT of
New South Wales,
he speaks with an
accent so
parodically
wmking class it is
difficult to believe
it isn't contrived.
'The yune movent',
he famously says.
'The sLrain
parment.'
the Greeks.' The nuances in the Victorian ALP can
be very finely calibrated indeed.
The people of Batman,' Dimitricopolous began,
'com e from m any lands. From Scotland and Ireland,
fro m Italy and Indochina .. -' Eventually they cam e from
Greece. But they came from Macedonia, too. From
Turkey but also Kurdistan. Emily cast her net wide
and drew them all into the embrace of the party.
The outgoing m ember was then called upon to
give his blessing to his successor. It w as a grim
bequest. 'T wo thirds of unemploym ent in Australia
is concentrated in a dozen electorates,' said Brian
Howe, looking war-weary from thirteen years in government.
'And Batman is one of them.'
Party President Barry Jones stepped to the podium.
It took ten minutes to list his credentials, among
them the fact that he has an extinct m arsupial named
after him. In retrospect, this detail may have held prophetic
significance. Barry talked numbers, deployed
the arithmetic of the NSW and Queensland elections.
'It will be a close contest,' he warned.
When Ferguson at last rose to speak, there was
no doubt about the enthusiasm of the applause. He
may well have been parachuted into Batman, but there
were many on the ground who welcomed the fact.
And despite the meeting's now clearly triumphalist
atmosphere, there was a scrupulous absence of gloating.
Ferguson's public persona is that of the earnest
plodder. An economics graduate of Sydney University
and the son of a former deputy premier of N ew
South Wales, he speaks with an accent so parodically
working class it is difficult to believe it isn't contrived.
'The yune movent', he famously says. 'The strain parment.'
But the crowd had not come to hear oratory.
This was a ritual occasion, an opportunity for the candidate
to display his pedigree and reiterate his tribal
loyalties. Amid the usual leaden phrases-' infrastructure
framework' and 'international marketplace pressures'-he
spoke of his forebears, battling immigrants
and war veterans.
H e may have been brought up in Sydney,
Ferguson declared, but now he included himself in
'we of the northern suburbs'. The fact that, at the time,
he actually lived in a $235,000 home in the leafily
Liberal eastern suburbs would have been regarded by
his audience as irrelevant. In the ALP, hom e is where
the heart is.
Ferguson spoke the ritual phrases with becom ­
ing zeal, invoking The Battler, the Safety Net and the
Party of Hope and Opportunity. The crowd responded
with a standing ovation that flooded the room with
a warm inner glow.
Yes, I wondered, but what about all the bad blood
that had been splashed around the press not a month
before Had it all suddenly drained away, or was it
out there som ewhere coagulating Before I could ask,
or even begin to phrase m y questions properly,
all those I m ight ask had spilled out into the
spring sunshine and disappeared, pres umably
to gird their loins for the imminent natio nal
campaign.
They were right. This was no time for mischievous
conjecture. I had a whodunnit on the
boil and a publisher getting twitchy. It was time
to get back to m y keyboard .
N early four m onths lat er, m y novel
finished, m y attention was once again drawn
to Batman. The election was official, campaigning
had begun in earnes t and, according to a
small item in my morning newspaper, a fundraiser
for Martin Ferguson would be held at the Fitzroy Club
Hotel. The keynote speaker would be Hazel Hawke.
The Fitzroy Club was just around the corner. I rang
Pete Steedman, the former member for Casey, a marginal
seat out on the suburban fringe and asked how I
might go about getting observer status.
Back at the Preston Cultural Centre, he had been
sitting in the front row with the big chiefs. Nothing
if not entertaining, Steedman is the Peter Pan of the
Victorian left, an ageing rocker who heads a pop music
promotion organisa tion and zips about in a reel
convertible with custom plates that read PETE 2. If
anyone had the number of someone I could
call, it would be Pete.
A
o so IT WA S. Calls were made. Okay, I was told
somewhat reluctantly, I could attend the event as long
as I didn't annoy the candidate. Heaven forfend, I
swore, that was the last thing on my mind.
Spring had not fulfilled its sunny promise and
the February night was cold and wet. But the dinner
was a sell-out, chicken for the ladies and beef for the
m en . The nomenclatura was again out in force, the
head table solid with state MPs. Hazel looked like
she was enjoying herself, hitting the hustings for the
man who overthrew the m an who threw her over.
'Would you be happy,' sh e asked, 'having the Liberals
babysit your kids'
The last time I'd been to the Fi tzroy Club, it was
called the Albion Ch arles and featured stand-up
comedy. The jokers were long gone, replaced by the
mechanical cackle of poker machines. A man with a
limp and an insistent hospitality commanded m e to
eat, despite my protestations that I hadn't bought a
18 EUREKA STREET • ArRIL 1996