The Jay Way

JAY Weatherill takes over as Premier on Friday. What can we expect?

jay

JAY Weatherill takes over as Premier on Friday. What can we expect?

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IT is Question Time in the bear pit of State Parliament, the first since Jay Weatherill was anointed successor to Mike Rann. As usual, politicians from both sides have checked their dignity at the door. Amid the roar of rhetoric and interjections, Weatherill sits calmly, an island of stillness. Occasionally he leans forward to make notes. Opposition leader Isobel Redmond has moved a no-confidence motion in the premiership of Mike Rann, but Weatherill is the eye of this parliamentary storm.

He waits his turn then gets to his feet, a slightly-built man speaking in soft, measured tones. After the testosterone-fuelled chest-beating that was the soundtrack to the Rann-Foley era, this civilised presence is the one on whom Labor has pinned its hopes. He gets straight to the heart of the matter, ignoring the substance of the Rann motion to condemn both sides for the woeful standard of political debate. "If anybody thinks at the moment that the state of politics in this nation reflects well on any elected leader, then they need their heads read," says Weatherill. "We are all regarded in an appalling light."

This is the message he wants the public to hear.

When Weatherill assumes office on Friday, it will signal a deep-rooted change in political style. He presents as a consensus politician committed to social justice who wants to take the electorate with him. Yet his pathway to the premiership - a leader of the minority Left faction whose ambition for the state's top job last year earned him the bitter enmity of many on the Right - shows how ruthless he can be. He unseated a sitting local MP to win his seat in Parliament in 2002 and has followed it up by overwhelming his leadership rivals then forcing Rann, Premier for almost a decade, to leave before he is ready. He became known as "the smiling assassin" who dispatched his enemies with a smile. A Party source says the name is unkind, but true. "He's happy, he's easy to get on with, he has a backbone of steel and when he makes up his mind he goes for it hell for leather," the source says.

Labor thinks Weatherill is its most electorally saleable package; he is smooth but not slick, friendly but with much held in reserve. He looks to be the face of generational change, a young father at a time when one of Labor's latest tactics is to target Opposition Leader Isobel Redmond as too old. "She and I are the same age - born in 1953," Rann said in Parliament before advising her to follow him and step down for a younger successor. "We are the golden oldies of Parliament."

Weatherill has a young family; a wife who shares his politics and two daughters he adores. At 47, he is the state's first Generation X premier, although, unlike his Baby Boomer predecessor, he does not tweet. There are some bogus Jay Weatherill twitterers out there but the real one is not tweeting - yet.

"It's like nice guys do finish first," says Austrade chief economist Tim Harcourt who studied economics with Weatherill at Adelaide University and is expected to take up an international economics position with the new government. "You meet all these bantam roosters when you're that age but he wasn't like that at all. He's obviously used his gentle personality as a strength rather than a weakness."

He will govern by evolution not revolution. A source close to Weatherill says he is not a charismatic leader in the style of Don Dunstan or Paul Keating. He is careful, competent - possibly even dull. "He is steady, even, I think his strength is that he thinks a lot," says another source. "He could also be as boring as batshit."

Question Time under Jay Weatherill may be slightly less hostile but he is also promising to introduce across government a more collaborative political style. Weatherill grew up in a political household and his father George, a Left-wing unionist who once stacked wool bales on the Port Adelaide wharves, sat in the Legislative Council from 1986 until 2000, two years before his son was elected. Labor's core union-based values are inculcated in him but he is not locked in the old battles. His political paradigm is pragmatism and he looks for consensus, not conflict. He has on the wall of his office in Flinders St a framed photo of the Time magazine cover featuring Barack Obama, the US President whose inclusive approach to politics Weatherill greatly admires. "It's about how you conduct the debate," Weatherill says as he prepares to move offices. "You look for points of common ground rather than points of difference. There is plenty to disagree about. I don't think you need to go looking for it just to score some political points."

His commitment to collaboration will be sorely tested. Weatherill will face the same problems as Rann - the precarious economy, a triple-A rating already in question, an over-stretched health sector, a WorkCover system that cannot meet its long-term liabilities, poverty and dysfunction on the APY Lands, the political pressure of soaring power and water costs, and managing the impacts of the $30 billion Olympic Dam expansion. New trouble spots are also emerging, like the South-East where the sale of forward forest harvests for up to $600 million threatens the long-term viability of local communities.

Weatherill, who studied economics at university but has not held a significant economics portfolio, must also oversee significant capital works whose financial impacts could be ruinous, namely the new Royal Adelaide Hospital and the Adelaide Oval redevelopment. "I suppose over the years I've had portfolios that have involved spending significant amounts of money," Weatherill says of his economic credentials. "I also have a bit of an insight into the challenges of small business. I set up my own law firm and those initial couple of years were the hardest of my life."

His victory over those in the Right who a year ago vowed to keep him out was a textbook manoeuvre. Inside the faction his name provoked such visceral hatred there was talk of "burning the village to save the village" - denying him leadership even if it cost Labor government. Many were shell-shocked when their own leadership decided behind closed doors that Weatherill had what they needed - popularity.

Earlier this year the odds had been favouring Attorney-General John Rau to succeed Rann in a leisurely transition plan of which Rann approved. According to Right sources, the Rau ascendancy began to unravel around Easter. Treasurer Kevin Foley was back in the spotlight for all the wrong (late-night) reasons and senior Right upper house MP Bernard Finnigan suddenly quit Cabinet. In the midst of this upheaval the Right was split between Rau and Snelling. This confluence of events sucked the life out of the Right's bid for dominance.

In late July, on the eve of a trip to India, Rann was told by unionist Peter Malinauskas and Treasurer Jack Snelling that Weatherill would take over. Rann was said to be apoplectic, because he assumed the Right would never support Weatherill. In fact Weatherill had already been told by Snelling at least six weeks earlier. According to sources, there were several follow-up meetings at which Snelling had sought reassurance that Weatherill would not dramatically alter the economic direction of the government. "The Right of the party is resolutely committed to making sure the government remains financially responsible," says a source familiar with the discussions. "It is critical to the future credibility of the Government that the triple A credit rating be maintained."

Yet Weatherill - perhaps already seeing the writing on the wall - is putting some distance between himself and the treasured triple A, which Standard & Poor's warned has a 30 per cent chance of being lost within two years. He is committed to being financially responsible and says his Treasurer, Jack Snelling, will maintain a tradition of sound financial management.

But the triple A itself? "I think the better way to think of it as that we need to maintain our financial credentials," he says. It will be important, he says, as an indicator of overall financial management but he has not pledged to maintain it at all costs. "Obviously it's not an end in itself," Weatherill says. "It's an important indication of the confidence in our financial management. There are a lot of external pressures that are bearing on us, but it's been used in the past to measure our financial performance and I'm sure it will continue to be."

For now, he is Labor's great hope, a preferred Premier with a popularity rating of 57 per cent whose stocks may never be this high again. Significantly, he comes into the job via a factional gift that appears to be all give and no take. The Right offered unconditional backing with no caveats, prohibitions or restrictions on what a Weatherill government can do. "Absolutely none," says Weatherill. "And I wouldn't have accepted under any other basis because then you compromise and you're not who people think you are. That's fatal in politics. You've got to be true to yourself."

He will be a Premier from the Left, but not necessarily a Left-wing Premier. Kevin Foley, in an unguarded moment, warned Weatherill he would have to abandon "Left-leaning idealism" if he was to succeed. Weatherill says he will be Premier for the whole Party and cannot play a factional role as leader. "But I have my values and my perspectives that I bring to the role," he says. "I think there is an acknowledgement by the Party that they understand what it means to ask me to lead."

Upper House colleague Ian Hunter says he expects Weatherill will show his Left-wing politics by focusing on equal opportunity and overcoming disadvantage. "It won't be things like nuclear energy or foreign policy or Palestine; it will be much more prosaic," Hunter says.

Weatherill's other great triumph has been to offer himself as a political cleanskin after sitting around a Cabinet table, taking part in major decisions, good and bad, for almost 10 years. After Rann and Foley leave, Weatherill will be only one of two other ministers - Pat Conlon and John Hill - left from the 2002 Cabinet.

He has been planning this scenario for a very long time. When Labor was narrowly re-elected in March last year, he began laying the groundwork by positioning himself as the face of generational change. It paid off and now he has to deliver. "He has thought about this role all of his life, it's not as if it's just fallen into his lap and he doesn't know what to do," says Harcourt, who has informally advised Weatherill for some time.

Rann's determination to spend 10 weeks bedding down his legacy stalled the Weatherill ascendancy. The Opposition attacked him as weak and insipid and called on him to force Rann out. Weatherill copped the flak and bided his time. "It's an unusual period, there is no question about that," says Aboriginal Affairs Minister and key Weatherill supporter Grace Portolesi.

But Weatherill says Rann's extended farewell was not a problem - even though many in the Party wish the Premier had shown more grace and dignity and stepped down straight away. "It hasn't felt awkward at all," he says. "I think in political circles it's seen as unusual but anywhere else it seems like a pretty sensible idea to have a transition that gives you time to prepare for the role."

During the downtime, Weatherill has been consulting very broadly. His inner circle will consist of Deputy Premier and Attorney General John Rau and Treasurer Jack Snelling but he has largely kept his own counsel. Sources say he has developed a plan for his first 100 days that will set up a framework and allow him to hit the ground running. For more than two months, he has done the rounds of key business people and unions, among them the former head of Coles Myer and Tourism Australia, Rick Allert, and influential banker and chairman of the Adelaide Crows Rob Chapman. He is operating from a broader-than-usual political base, meeting people from Adelaide who now live and work in Sydney and Melbourne but who have ideas and a contribution to make.

Chapman, who was promoted last year from BankSA to head St George Bank and now divides his time between Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, says Weatherill sought his advice on the economy. "He genuinely listens," Chapman says. "I think I get to see through people that give you an audience but aren't really listening. He was genuinely interested in the state of play and my opinion on what I thought South Australian needed."

SA Unions secretary Janet Giles, a trenchant critic of the "blokey" politics of Rann and Foley who openly backed leadership change, was impressed. "The difference between a conversation with Jay and a conversation with Mike was quite significant," she says. "It was a conversation. We were asked opinions and he had opinions. It was a proper discussion."

Weatherill is on record as a critic of his own government's "announce and defend" style of ivory tower policy making and wants to replace it with "debate and decide". "It's about engaging people in discussion about change and not seeing government as the expert that dispenses knowledge," Weatherill says. "There is a lot of expertise that exists outside government." What form this will take is not yet known. Decision-making by committee has a poor record in public administration although programs tapping into community leadership could expand his sources of advice. Either way, a significant shakeup of State Cabinet and agencies is in the wind. "I am doing a lot of thinking about that, we are considering change in that area - changing structures that might assist us to govern," he says.

There may be some change in personnel - after taking over Education, Weatherill did not hesitate to replace department head Chris Robinson - but a widespread public sector purge is unlikely. Almost certain to be binned is Rann's 2002 Social Inclusion Initiative, which has had mixed press. "I find them more to do with social exclusion," says Indigenous affairs consultant Tauto Sansbury, who wrote a report for the Social Inclusion Unit on the Gang of 49 three years ago but says nothing was done. "I think the Aboriginal community is socially excluded from many great initiatives that would change their lives." The Catholic Church's Monsignor David Cappo has already resigned as head of the Social Inclusion Board but Weatherill will not be ditching social inclusion itself. On the contrary, he will elevate its status by making it more broadly based. "Social inclusion is a major part of how I see the role of government," Weatherill says. "I don't know what the structures will look like. There will be an aspirational and operative commitment to social inclusion in any government that I lead."

Weatherill grew up in the western suburbs at Henley Beach and has moved only a few suburbs away. He is a local at the Alberton Hotel and says it is within "staggering" distance of his home. He may be a regular but at most he stays for a chat, a counter meal and a butcher of light or glass of good wine.

He is number one ticket holder of the Rosewater Football Club and has no plans to leave Alberton once he is Premier. One of his children had to be reassured after being told at school she would be moving, probably to the Lodge. Both girls, Lucinda, 7, and Alice, 5, attend Alberton Primary School which has a high proportion of indigenous students and a radical vertical class format that groups students with mixed ages. "We like it here," says Weatherill. "It's a very friendly atmosphere. We won't be moving. It's close to the beach at Semaphore."

Behind closed doors Weatherill is said to be almost as well-behaved as he is in public. A former senior bureaucrat who worked closely with him at Families and Communities, Kate Lennon, says he was persistently amiable and unassuming and the staff loved him. "I would ask him to come around with me and talk to staff - they hadn't seen a minister in years," said Lennon (who unsuccessfully sued the Government for forcing her resignation as head of the Attorney-General's Department over the so-called "stashed cash" affair). "He's a person who thinks and acts rather than acts and reacts. He is very thoughtful." She says you could tell when he was displeased but he did not have temper tantrums behind the scenes. "When he was cross his face would sort of … be silent, still," she says. "He would just give you a look."

One of the truest tests of a relationship is that between a Labor Minister and a trade union. In his 18 months as Minister for Education, Weatherill has won over the Australian Education Union that was exhausted and demoralised after a long pay dispute. He went on a charm offensive, personally visiting almost 200 schools where he met not just the principal and teachers but also students. "He would ask them personal questions, about bullying, with no teachers involved," says backbencher Leon Bignell who, with Chloe Fox, is likely to enter the Weatherill ministry. "People really liked that."

Significantly, he introduced the "teaching is inspiring" campaign that culminated in this month's SA Public Teaching Awards. He also set up a principal's hotline and sat by the phone at an allocated time so they could call him directly. AEU state secretary Correna Haythorpe says that after 18 months, Weatherill has a reputation as someone who shows respect. "We don't have rose-coloured glasses with our ministers - we have to work with whoever is appointed in the position," says Haythorpe. "What we seek is someone who is honest and constructive in terms of looking for solutions and there is no doubt Jay has delivered that."

Industrial leaders like Janet Giles do not expect Weatherill to roll over before their list of demands but at least they will be talking, particularly on key issues like WorkCover which she says destroyed relations between the labour movement and the Rann Government. "If you disagree with Mike (Rann) in particular, he cuts you out," Giles says. "You just don't get in the door. You don't get your calls answered. If you had a disagreement, there was no maturity about it. He takes it very personally."

In the sometimes brutish male atmosphere of Parliament House, Weatherill is known as a family man. After a five-year love affair with student leader and now federal Finance Minister Penny Wong - who, with her partner Sophie Allouache, is expecting a baby in December - Weatherill married Melissa Bailey, then an organiser with the CFMEU. Bailey, who worked for Pat Conlon for seven years including as his political adviser, is a town planner who this year left her job as a public servant to work three days a week in private enterprise.

Weatherill says he and Melissa have talked a lot about how to manage being Premier with a young family. "When Melissa and I got together I suppose we discussed where I wanted to head with my career and where she wanted to head with her career," Weatherill says. "We have talked a lot about what it will mean for the children." They will make sure that where possible he sees the girls morning and night. He will schedule an evening break and return to work when they are asleep. "Obviously that's going to come under a lot of pressure, especially the weekends which in the past has been time I have devoted to them," he says. "And the time is one thing but it's also the quality of the time. If you're distracted and dithering and thinking about other things, that affects the quality of time so I will have to be disciplined about making sure I am truly with them."

Grace Portolesi, who has a young daughter, says the state will benefit from having a premier who juggles the demands of family life. "It's a challenge for everybody but I think the benefits far outweigh the negatives in the sense that we will have a premier who will balance work and life commitment," Portolesi says. "That's what many South Australians have to do so that just creates an automatic awareness of how difficult it is for families and workers."

A female Labor MP says it augurs well for the Government that Weatherill is not frightened of women. "He's not a chauvinist. He's very well-mannered and he's prepared to listen," she says. "He's the total metrosexual package. I don't know if he does the dishes but he's very involved at home. He understands that the personal is political and I love that about him."

Part of Weatherill's plan for his first 100 days, which takes him into early next year, will be to form a strategy for directing SA's economic transformation so it builds on its strengths as a smaller city that has invested in arts and science. Expect to hear a lot about social capital as Weatherill strives to make SA better, not bigger. "I think his vision is more about how you build human capital," says Harcourt. "You take certain things about SA's endowment as a given, rather than try to make it something that it's not. It's not a big eastern state, it's not identical to Western Australia, so you're better off using our own human capital skills and traditions."

Weatherill wants to start a new conversation with the electorate. If anything, it will be reminiscent of the early days of the Rann Government with its community Cabinet meetings, engagement with business and willingness to draft Ministers from both sides of the house. "One of the things I will be doing, before coming out with any big answers, is to really start discussing the questions and get agreement around what the question is," Weatherill says.

History shows that a commitment to community dialogue weakens as the daily pressures of politics takes its toll. The question is whether Weatherill will follow the paths of Labor's other fallen heroes - notably Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard who destroyed their own popularity with faulty leadership and bad decisions - or whether he will break the mould and live up to his own advance publicity.

From Friday, Weatherill will have a clear run at polishing Labor's tarnished brand and reversing the bad polls that started slumping around the time of the Chantelois affair. As disaffection with the Gillard Government spills over into the states, the Party is looking to Weatherill as nothing short of its electoral saviour. Weatherill would be wise to take to his new offices the portrait of Barack Obama, just to remind himself what a challenge it is to deliver on other people's expectations.