Inside the colourful life of Liberal Party politician Andrew Peacock, who has died aged 82

He was the unforgettable politician who boasted many nicknames but the tales of Andrew Peacock’s life were as colourful as the man himself.

Liberal politician Andrew has died at the age of 82.

Andrew Peacock boasted many nicknames.

He was the “colt from Kooyong’ when he assumed the seat from Sir Robert Menzies.

He was “the Sunlamp Kid” for his permanent tan, and a playboy demeanour feathered by romances, real or reported, with glamorous women.

It was said Peacock changed suits several times a day and used a Gucci toothbrush. He lived in Monomeath Avenue, Canterbury, one of Melbourne’s wealthiest streets. His surname, both of title and background, presented easy conclusions.

His political career was not of what happened so much as what could have happened. The big ones didn’t fall his way as they might have. He was like a colt who couldn’t find the line.

The unkind perception remains that unlike his political contemporaries Bob Hawke and John Howard, he didn’t want it enough.

Peacock ran for Prime Minister twice, in 1984, and 1990, and received a majority vote in the latter election, though it wasn’t enough to pinch the required seats from Bob Hawke’s ALP.

“I didn’t want it anyway,” he told Jeff Kennett on the night of the loss.

“His life was so full of colour and movement,” Kennett says.

Andrew Peacock in his office in Washington DC in 1997.

“In the end, that life, or that enjoyment of life, was what probably defeated him. A lot of people never took him totally seriously in terms of his ambition.”

Peacock, from War Minister to Foreign Minister, from prime ministerial aspirations to a post-political career as Australian ambassador to the US, always appeared to lead a charmed existence.

He was urbane and quick-witted away from a tv camera, where he suffered politically for seeming wooden. In the flesh, he wore power easily. His long time staffers adored him for his courteousness and curiosity.

His privilege went back to school, Scotch College, where his sense of self was told in a story about the Head of the River rowing competition. On losing, he apparently yelled at his crew: “You let me and the school down”.

Peacock later strived for the funnier side. He told jokes against himself. His greatest defeat was not a federal election, but in 1974, when his horse Leilani, looked to be the winner of the Melbourne Cup only 100 metres from the winning post.

He still had nightmares about it, he told The Australian on his 80th birthday in 2019, as if to say that he did not fixate on the near-wins of his political life.

In the same interview, he spoke of the old-world etiquettes of politics. He argued that he did not yearn to be Prime Minister. For him, politics, which was once devoid of the personal animosities that drive today’s news cycle, was about getting things done.

On Derby Day, 1988, the then deputy Opposition Leader stood in the Flemington mounting yard when Hawke, who was prime minister, sidled over.

Prime Minister Bob Hawke and Andrew Peacock in 1984.

Hawke, the everyday punter clasping the Sportsman, addressed the man in a morning suit.

Peacock was born into racing. His father, a founder of a large shipbuilding firm, had once warned him against men with moustaches, Alsatian dogs and New Zealand horsemen.

He and Hawke had yelled at each other in the week prior. Once, Peacock had called Hawke a “little crook”, Two years later, as opposing leadership candidates, they would belittle one another.

But the professional rancour was for show. Politics was their day jobs. With easy familiarity, in the mounting yard, neither man looked at one another.

“Whaddya reckon,” Hawke asked Peacock of the parading horses.

“That thing could be underdone, ya know,” Peacock replied.

Speaking to a racing lunch crowd in 1994, Peacock spoke of a speech he gave long ago.

Menzies, who had been in the audience, told him afterwards that the speech was “brilliant and original”. The problem was that the brilliant bits were not original and the original bits were not brilliant.

Peacock had shown Menzies his draft maiden speech when he won the seat of Kooyong in 1966. Menzies said “the English was very good”.

“But the speech is too long,” he said. “I’d cut it in half – and it doesn’t matter which half.”

Peacock’s political fortunes largely ebbed and flowed in an inverse proportion to John Howard, the so-called “Lazarus with a triple bypass” who assumed the top job in 1996.

Peacock, who resigned the Liberal Party leadership after his 1990 loss, was described by Paul Keating as a ”souffle” which “never rises twice”.

Andrew Peacock with his wife Susan in 1971.

Howard and Peacock both accused the other of disloyalty, most notably after a nasty phone call between Peacock and Jeff Kennett was aired in 1987.

Peacock later told Kennett of the call: “Here I am, fast asleep, alongside my wife, and I take a phone call from you and I lose my job.”

But, as Peacock said, he and Howard never stopped talking to each other. The professional enmity did not extend to personal animosity.

Peacock alluded to politics as a calling in his latter life. He lived with his third wife, Penne. Australian and US flags hung at the entrance to their Austin, Texas, home.

He continued to breed horses in Australia and Europe (daughter Jane Chapple-Hyam is a horse trainer) and his main job was walking the labrador, Butters.

His best friend, he said on his 80th birthday, remained Hollywood star and former partner, Shirly MacLaine.

The pair had connected when Peacock was foreign minister. They had hooked up in Canada, France, Cambodia, Thailand, England and Mexico, where MacLaine later wrote that they went UFO-spotting at a volcano.

Peacock often alluded to politics as a calling in his latter life.

She said Peacock was “charming, funny and a conservative”.

“He used his voice like a snake oil salesman, which always made me laugh because, as I told him, I was also in the business of professional seduction through voice manipulation.”

Peacock had been friends with a succession of US presidents across the political divide, and regularly corresponded with George Bush Sr until his death. He had mellowed and was more tolerant, he said.

In 2010, on the 150th anniversary of the Melbourne Cup, Peacock said he had had a lot of fun in life.

Andrew Peacock was the member for Kooyong.

“I have had a lot to do,” he said.

“I even got 52 per cent in an election once and lost it. I have had a few disappointments. I can tell you there is no more distressing, depressing moment than having the favourite that runs second in the Melbourne Cup.

“Whatever the tribulation in life may be, nothing is quintessentially as bad as that.”