Meet Peter Malinauskas: South Australia's political wishmaker
HE'S the man who sent Mike Rann packing and, in the eyes of many, will now be pulling the strings of Premier-in-waiting Jay Weatherill. So who is Peter Malinauskas?
HE'S the man who sent Mike Rann packing and, in the eyes of many, will now be pulling the strings of Premier-in-waiting Jay Weatherill. So who is Peter Malinauskas?
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GRANDMA Eta would no doubt be proud. After surviving World War II, escaping Hungary as communism closed in, finding herself in Bathurst, NSW, with the clothes she wore and not much more, she met a Lithuanian refugee.
Love blossomed and the couple moved to Adelaide, later opening a fish a chip shop.
Fast forward two generations and while Eta, now 91, still volunteers at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, her grandson, Peter, is dismissing and anointing Premiers. It is a story of power and patronage.
"Eta is a champ - her story gives people like me who grew up in a loving home and had a good education no excuse for not making a contribution to society," Mr Malinauskas told the Sunday Mail as he reflected on turning 31 this week - after telling Premier Mike Rann he was out and Jay Weatherill was in.
It's a big call for the former Woolworths trolley boy - a suddenly powerful man with powerful enemies who deride him as a boy unionist installing mates in powerful positions.
In the slow motion coup, Mr Malinauskas played Brutus to Mr Rann's Caesar - a one-time supporter who, along with offsider and Right faction colleague Treasurer Jack Snelling, tapped the Premier on the shoulder. He also told Deputy Premier John Rau he would not be Premier - despite being Mr Rann's preference to replace him.
It takes nerve for a 30-year-old to tell the state's two most powerful politicians their fates. Guts, even.
As state secretary of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association - the "shoppies" - the tall, dark and handsome Mr Malinauskas leads the union with the most clout in the SA Labor Party.
He scoffs at suggestions he is a kingmaker. So how did someone so young come to a position of dismissing and anointing Premiers?
When he was a youngster, parents Kate and Peter instilled a sense of social justice and the importance of objectivity in dinner table chats which were more about current affairs than politics.
Those attributes run in his DNA: his mother's forebears were middle-class Irish but his father's parents both fled the horrors of World War II.
Mrs Malinauskas recalls her son surreptitiously releasing a mouse from a sticky trap when he was told to "dispose" of it.
"He always had his own sense of justice," she recalls. "Peter knows life is for living - he has never held back. He loves people but is humble, from giving blood to looking after his union members like they are family.
"And, yes, of course he got up to mischief, like kidnapping his sister's doll and giving it a bungy jump."
Mrs Malinauskas says her son's sense of compassion and drive to succeed may stem from losing two close mates in a car accident.
Younger brother Rob, 23, says family life at Colonel Light Gardens revolved around backyard cricket and footy, with his big brother.
"We were fierce rivals but there wasn't teasing, just the fun of playing together - and having a big brother when I went to high school was great; I felt really cool," he recalls.
The Catholic family sent Peter to Mercedes College where he showed leadership potential in football and cricket, as well as excelling in his studies.
He was a member of the student representative council and a school captain in year 12. Along with Rob - a former journalist and now senior government adviser on a six-figure salary - Mr Malinauskas plays footy for Adelaide University.
Mercedes College principal Peter Daw recalls him as a future leader.
"He was one of those kids involved in lots of things; he was a popular lad," Mr Daw says.
"He had a magnetic personality that appealed to teachers and students alike. I don't recall him being particularly political - he was on the SRC but that was a collaborative way to work with the school rather than anything radical.
"He has been very generous with his time since leaving and still comes back to the school to talk to year 12s."
Asked if he got up to any mischief, Mr Daw chuckled diplomatically and quipped: "He was the perfect child."
While still in school Mr Malinauskas started work at the bottom, getting a casual job aged 15 at Mitcham Woolies where SDA organisers quickly signed him to the union. Intelligent and articulate, he came to the attention of union organisers and volunteered to be a shop floor representative.
"I loved my job at Woolies; it was a great place to work and I made some great mates in the seven years I worked there," he said.
"While at Woolies, I put my hand up to be the night delegate, a role I enjoyed. That led to me meeting (SDA boss) Don Farrell (now a senator), who offered me a job visiting night workers as an SDA rep."
Mr Farrell - referred to in the ALP as "the godfather" - took a shine to him and Mr Malinauskas rose through the ranks to become assistant secretary while earning a degree in commerce at Adelaide University.
In an email to the Sunday Mail, Senator Farrell wrote: "While studying at university, Peter was working as a night filler at Woolworths in Mitcham, where he became a SDA delegate.
"Showing obvious talents, a good work ethic and a strong commitment to speaking up for workers' rights and conditions, Peter was offered a job with the SDA as a union rep.
"It was always clear that he understood the concerns of retail workers. Now SDA secretary, Peter continues to display his dedication to standing up for the wages and conditions of retail workers."
Mr Malinauskas was equally as effusive about his boss.
"Don worked at the union for 32 years and was extremely generous in showing me the ropes," he said.
"He mentored me when I worked at the SDA."
In 2008, aged 27, Mr Malinauskas became state secretary when Mr Farrell left to become a senator - taking then-senator Linda Kirk's spot when she flouted the SDA's Catholic roots by being sympathetic to the morning-after abortion pill.
Asked about issues such as gay marriage, stem-cell research, euthanasia and abortion, Mr Malinauskas said his personal views would be "considered socially conservative".
"I didn't get involved in the Labor movement because of any of these issues," he said. "I believe in the fair go but I get frustrated with left-wing ideology that focuses more on imposing equality than providing for equality of opportunity. This is why I'm passionate about education - universal access to quality schooling gives everyone the chance to succeed."
Despite being tagged as a "faceless man" in the state's political cauldron, Mr Malinauskas was elected SA's youngest ALP president, is on the WorkCover board and was tagged by gossip columns as one of SA's most eligible bachelors before he started dating lawyer Annabel West.
He counts September 25, 2004, as one of the best days in his life and September 29, 2007, as one of the worst - Port's winning and losing AFL Grand Finals.
In between anointing Premiers he kicks back like an army of fellow 30-something blokes.
"Barring mind-numbing chick flicks, I love going to movies with Annabel, I like eating out with friends, playing footy and watching cricket and footy, and the odd game of golf," he says. "You can't beat a Melbourne footy trip with mates, Midnight Oil, a pub burger and The Hunt for the Red October."
Critics such as those in the Liberal Party talk of SDA tentacles controlling politics with a web of members and spouses in influential positions. Supporters point to the SDA defending its members' interests through the political process.
This year the SDA will have 28 of the 200 voting delegates at the ALP State Convention, a solid bloc big enough - with union allies - to effectively control policy and their own MPs.
While the Liberals characterise the youthful Mr Malinauskas as a "boy unionist" he can take comfort in several things: his union power base, his family, education, Labor in power and Jay Weatherill in his debt.
And importantly for someone spoken of as a future Premier - at 31, he has time on his side.
"My grandmother regularly instructs me to not take for granted the blessings and opportunity this country affords all of us," Mr Malinauskas says.