David Penberthy: Dan Cregan’s move leaves the people of Kavel worse off, but himself much richer

His stunning late night coup will damage the Premier but leaves Dan Cregan with a job worth more than a can of baked beans, writes David Penberthy.

Dan Cregan says he loves his job so much he would do it for a can of baked beans.

To which many taxpayers would say: That could probably be arranged.

Instead, Dan Cregan is doing his job for an extra $150,000 a year, at a time when thousands have had their pay cut and job security shredded due to Covid-19. This is all because of a tactically stupid and grubby deal to land himself the Speakership.

It is 30 years next January since I started working for this newspaper. In the three decades I have spent covering state and federal politics, I never cease to be surprised by the capacity for those in public office to be both intelligent and foolish at the same time.

The term tactically stupid might sound harsh but let’s think through the actions of Dan Cregan over this past crazy seven days. He started this week looking like he was going to be a dogged and unimpeachable independent in the vein of Rebekha Sharkie, the federal Mayo MP, who is earning a deserved reputation as a fully focused champion of Hills residents.

By Tuesday night, it looked less like he was in it for the residents of the Hills and perhaps more in it for himself, after the extraordinary midnight coup where, with something as dramatic as a change to the South Australian Constitution – all done on the fly – he emerged $150,000 better off as the new independent Speaker.

Cregan had the good, if belated, sense to pass up the chauffeur-driven limousine that normally comes with the package, in what can only be described as a case of the world’s biggest and most obvious penny-dropping, as he realised his sudden ascent to the job and its riches made all this look deeply suss.

Newly elected speaker Dan Cregan during Question Time at Parliament House on Wednesday. Picture: NCA NewsWire /Naomi Jellicoe

I don’t know Dan Cregan very well but have spoken to him a couple of times, once after the Hills bushfires and the other day at some length about ICAC reforms. He is very smart – clearly he has a strong legal mind, so much so law firms were trying to woo him back into the fold. But his handling of the Speakership strikes me as phenomenally stupid.

It begs so many questions, none of them good for someone who is trying to pitch himself as a white knight who has walked away from the major parties, especially when he had to rely on one of them (Labor) to emerge the victor in this Speakership coup.

The alleged failings of ousted Speaker Josh Teague, and the apparently burning need for SA to alter its constitution to allow for an independent Speaker, all came from nowhere in an 11th-hour scramble aimed at one thing and one thing only – making the Marshall government look like a dysfunctional mess.

Don’t get me wrong – I am certainly not pretending it isn’t a dysfunctional mess. The factions are doing what factions have always done. But let’s forget all this can’t be about reform of the office of the Speaker. This was politics at its most brutal and raw, aimed at damaging an already wounded Premier who has lost authority within his party on the cusp of an election.

The other thing about Cregan taking this job is it requires so much ceremonial and procedural work it will actually reduce the amount of time he can devote to his electorate.

It is of zero benefit to the people of the Adelaide Hills.

My understanding is when the independents and Labor were hatching the plan the other day, with former Labor MP Frances Bedford still in the mix, there was some incredulity among key players that Cregan was seriously going to be the candidate.

Their surprise went to all the points made above about the perception it might create and the risk he was taking by making a move that jarred with his stated reasons for becoming an independent. Remember, those reasons were: Hills transport, Hills infrastructure and Hills ­hospitals, as opposed to doing a job which has historically involved poncing around in a wig.

I watched all of question time on Wednesday and was stunned by Cregan’s chutzpah as he eyeballed people who had been friends and confidantes on the Liberal side just a week prior, in some cases upbraiding them for interjecting, telling them off for disrespecting the chair and rising to say, “I am on my feet” when things got ­unruly.

It was a remarkable case study in human behaviour. If I had dogged every single one of my co-workers I doubt I would ever show my face in the office again. Yet here he was, running the joint.

Dan Cregan walks to Government House for his swearing in as Speaker on Wednesday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Naomi Jellicoe

Through his actions, Cregan has shifted himself away from the sphere of the Sharkies and the Tony Windsors and the Ted Macks of this world, those independents who were driven solely by a desire to serve their electorates and maximise the attention they received from governments.

He instead moved towards the realm of the Peter Slippers and the Mal Colstons, the realm of former attorney-general John Rau simultaneously becoming an SC, and former Liberal leader Martin Hamilton-Smith, a Weatherill government ­minister.

He moves into the space where, fairly or unfairly, it looks like the question isn’t so much “what’s in it for my constituents?” but “what’s in it for me?”.

It may not yet cost him his seat, although the Libs will do their darnedest to destroy him.

Indeed, they already are, such as distributing the mini-manifesto he penned before the 2018 election saying this: “How do we fix the system? The answer is not to abandon the political process or major parties.

“The answer is to take back power by joining up (and) to keep the systems accountable from the inside. The alternative is to leave the system to minor parties and the political fringe, who will always be captive to sectional interests and unable to govern well for the rest of us.”

Indeed.