Matthew Abraham: Martin Hamilton-Smith quitting politics still bitter about the Liberal Party
ALWAYS a controversial figure, Martin Hamilton-Smith defends his decision to quit politics with cautionary messages about the party he once headed, observes Matthew Abraham.
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THE house is hidden in a shady lane deep in the wilds of Stirling. It’s very Midsomer Murders, without the murder.
But one occupant of this gorgeous 1850s stone residence is only too familiar with blood, backstabbing and bastardry.
For this is the home of one of Australia’s most audacious political defectors, former Liberal leader Martin Hamilton-Smith, who explosively quit the Liberal Party after its 2014 election loss and accepted a kind invitation from Premier Jay Weatherill to join his Labor Cabinet.
Now, almost four years later, Mr Hamilton-Smith is beating a strategic retreat from political life, quitting his seat of Waite at the March election.
“It’s time for me to go,” he says. “I have other things to do with my life.
“Our son Thomas was born while I was an MP, he was nine when I made this decision (to defect to the Labor ministry) and if I do another four years he’ll be 17.
“I don’t intend to play golf for the rest of my life. I’m committed to this state and this country.”
He rejects suggestions he has been spooked by polling obtained by the Sunday Mail in October showing him heading for a crushing defeat in Waite with just 5 per cent of the vote, dismissing it as politically loaded and inaccurate. Still, it would focus the mind somewhat, wouldn’t it?
I first encountered Mr Hamilton-Smith on September 8, 1997, when he won Liberal preselection for Waite, blowing apart plans by the party’s moderate and conservative factions to install one of their candidates in the plum seat.
After his win, one delegate dubbed him the “kindergarten cop”, a sneering reference to his military career and his $2.4 million family business building and running kindies and daycare centres.
So, from day one, inexplicably, the military service in which he served with the elite SAS and retired from as lieutenant colonel was the butt of derision within the Liberals, a party that puts a high value on national service and business acumen.
Now, two decades down the track, we are sitting in the study of the Hamilton-Smiths’ home, a house skilfully restored by his wife, Stavroula Raptis.
Outside, in the one-hectare grounds, a 150-year-old cedar of Lebanon rubs shoulders with a towering copper beech, shading gardens brimming with azaleas and camellias.
In a long conversation, only one question dents the armour of Mr Martin Hamilton-Smith:
Does it bother you the Liberal Party was never in love with you?
He hesitates. “No, not for one moment. One needs to understand why that is.
“What they didn’t like was I wasn’t prepared to get into one of the two major factions of the party and accept instructions.
“To go into one of the major factions you had to be prepared to get involved in branch-stacking, you had to get involved in tribal warfare ... I wasn’t prepared to get involved in that sort of nonsense.”
By contrast, he argues that the present Liberal leader, Steven Marshall, dances on the strings of the federal Liberal MP for Sturt, Turnbull Government minister Christopher Pyne, regarded as leader of the party’s “moderate” faction.
“Marshall is completely beholden to Christopher Pyne,” Mr Hamilton-Smith said. “If Christopher Pyne wanted Marshall gone by Monday, he would be gone by Sunday evening.
“I think Steven will do whatever Christopher Pyne tells him. If Christopher Pyne, as Defence Industries Minister, were to say to Steven Marshall after the election, if he were successful, ‘I don’t want you to have a (SA) Defence Industries Minister, I don’t want you to have a Defence SA, or a board, it’s a federal matter, butt out, we will run all that’, what would Steven Marshall do? ... I have no doubt he will do as he is told.”
Mr Hamilton-Smith believes that both in SA and on the federal stage, the “Pyne moderates” have been responsible for driving conservative Liberals from the party and into the arms of parties like Nick Xenophon’s SA Best, Cory Bernardi’s Australian Conservatives and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.
“A serious mistake the Liberal Party made was electing Steven Marshall and then electing Vickie Chapman as his deputy,” he said.
“This was a takeover of the party by Christopher Pyne. Now hasn’t that been a smashing success?”
This harsh view of Mr Marshall and Mr Pyne bounces off the equally scathing critiques both men have directed at Mr Hamilton-Smith since his defection.
And Mr Marshall is close to former conservative Liberal prime minister John Howard, regarding him as a mentor and an experienced sounding board.
A whole lake of very muddy, very unhappy water has got stuck under the Hamilton-Smith bridge in the past four years.
Ms Raptis, a primary school teacher and interior designer, said the Liberals made it clear her own political ambitions were finished because of her husband’s actions, despite her holding senior positions in the party machine.
So it is no surprise Mr Hamilton-Smith is not No. 1 ticket holder in the Steven Marshall for Premier camp.
“I know Steven Marshall’s abilities well and I know Jay Weatherill’s abilities well and there is daylight, absolute daylight and a thousand miles, between Jay Weatherill and Steven Marshall,” he says.
“I don’t think in terms of ability Steven is anywhere near Jay. I think he’ll struggle (as premier). I’m not saying it wouldn’t work, but I think he’d struggle.”
Mr Hamilton-Smith correctly lists the redevelopment of Adelaide Oval as his brainchild and takes credit for the campaign to stop the submarine contract being lost to Japan.
He concedes that while Mr Weatherill portrays him as a great pal, he sometimes has the appearance of a hostage paraded in front of the media for propaganda purposes.
“I’m sure there’s a bit of that, and that’s fair enough,” he says.
But Mr Hamilton-Smith says if the roles were reversed, and a Labor MP had defected to help the Liberals form government, they would have hailed that MP as a hero, not a traitor.
He has recently blitzed his electorate with a free newspaper trumpeting what he says is $100 million in project cash flowing into Waite because he turned independent.
Which is why he says he will be doing what he can to support Xenophon candidate Graham Davies win Waite at the March election, even though the Liberal candidate, Sam Duluk, is “a good guy ... a lovely bloke”.
Nothing personal. It’s just that Mr Hamilton-Smith thinks the voters of Waite will be better off without his old party looking after them.