New South Australian State MP Peter Malinauskas faces high expectations

GREENHORN MP Peter Malinauskas – handed a hefty combination of police, corrections, emergency services and road safety – arrives on the scene in the face of immense expectations.

New South Australian cabinet minister Peter Malinauskas (left) with Premier Jay Weatherill after a swearing-in ceremony at Government House, Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2016. Mr Malinauskas has been named the new minister for police, corrections, road safety and emergency services. (AAP Image/Michael Ramsey) NO ARCHVING

FIRST impressions count for a lot in politics.

This week, Premier Jay Weatherill unveiled a new and “refreshed” Cabinet line-up which promoted two fresh-faced MPs to ministries and removed a couple of underperformers. The clear aim was to sell it as a line-up to continue a staged regeneration of the State Government which, apart from Mr Weatherill, is unrecognisable from the team elected in 2002.

Greenhorn MP Peter Malinauskas – handed a hefty combination of police, corrections, emergency services and road safety – arrives on the scene in the face of immense expectation.

Few MPs in recent memory have arrived in State Parliament burdened with the heavy tag of “possible future leader”, which now weighs on Mr Malinauskas like an overloaded shopping bag.

Only Opposition Leader Steven Marshall and Transport and Infrastructure Minister Stephen Mullighan have had such a similarly heavy burden to bear. And when the bar is raised so high, it is only possible to meet par by passing over it or disappoint by falling short. Such hype brings with it a searing spotlight that never focuses on others of less ability. That glare is often most blinding at the moment of arrival, as popular opinion is forged.

Mr Malinuaskas is known in the broader public for a few things. He was the factional heavyweight who walked into the office of former premier Mike Rann – a state leader who had been in the job for almost a decade and won three elections – and told him it was time to clear out.

He is a “former union boss” who wields immense power over the shape of the Government.

His rise to the Cabinet came as part of an impenetrable backroom factional deal which resulted in the Right of the Labor Party boosting its numbers in the state’s key decision-making body.

There is also a slightly-awkward and regularly repeated bit of TV footage where the man-who-would-be-king motions a thumbs-up to an unseen other from the floor of the Upper House. In a subconscious way, it hints at a deal quietly done somewhere in a backroom, out of sight.

The Australian union movement is currently in a spot of serious bother.

Latest Australian Bureau of Statistics figures, which are now more than a year old, show union membership has collapsed. In August 2014, just 15 per cent of workers were in unions. A measly 11 per cent of private sector workers, may of whom are the swinging voters that decide elections, are showing solidarity. The federal royal commission into union corruption spent $46 million to swing a wrecking ball through the credibility of the movement.

Today, Mr Malinauskas’ card has been marked. His tentative steps in his new ministries will all be seen against the backdrop of loyal union man, and expectation of higher office.

The raging debate over compensation for police officers will be a critical first test. Regardless of the merits of the argument, observers will be watching to see where his new allegiances lie.

To be able to eventually represent all people, he needs to prove a new and broader loyalty.

Premier Jay Weatherill’s career is an example of how hard first impressions are to change. When he took the leadership in 2011, with the backing of Mr Malinauskas’ factional force, Mr Weatherill was widely seen as a nice guy promising a new age of sensitivity and consultation. On the downside, he was seen as slightly weak and needing a bit more steel in the spine.

It took close to three years, including the political slaying of Right faction “godfather” Don Farrell, for Mr Weatherill to emerge as the self-styled tough guy that he is today.

While it is possible to move public opinion, it takes a long time and sacrifice to shift. Mr Marshall also battles with the constrictions placed on him by first impressions.

Rising to the Liberal leadership as a relative unknown in his first term as an MP, and despite a concerted profile-raising campaign in the brief year he had before contesting the 2014 election, Mr Marshall crashed into polling day defined by little other than the fact that he wasn’t Labor.

This absence of a personal brand meant that his gaffe in telling people to “vote Labor” on election day, and a shapeless smear about the fact that he once ran a Wok in a Box franchise, were enough to derail what otherwise appeared an unstoppable train. He remains best-known as the man who lost the unlosable, tarred as a failure until he wins.

In a game where people take different positions each day of the week, voters often look to the origin story for some kind of certainty. When those origins are forged in fire, the way that they have been for Mr Malinauskas, bending it in a new form takes immense strength. On his side is the likelihood it will be at least two years and an election loss before he has a chance of becoming Labor leader, and therefore a decade before Premier is a decent chance.

He is, likely, the man to succeed Mr Weatherill . That internal challenge is a much simpler one that eventually convincing the state his persona is broad enough to lead it.