I know what it’s like to be the politician’s son who makes mistakes. I wouldn’t wish it on Tom Dutton

When my dad became premier, I knew I had to behave in a certain way. My siblings and I were always aware that if anything negative did happen, there was a high chance it would be in the media. For me, that’s what happened when, in 2007, I got behind the wheel of my parents’ car after a night of drinking, had a crash, and became national news.

Dad has always been amazing, but that pressure from other people really played on me. He became premier when I was 12, and I spent my entire teenage life having that follow me around.

Nick Bracks in 2024. Credit: Arsineh Houspian

It’s one thing having a father as a politician and people knowing who he is and him having to deal with that. But it’s such a bizarre situation as a teenager, when you don’t really know who you are or how you should behave, and you’re constantly thinking, “What do these people think of me? Are they judging me? Are they expecting me to be more confident or more charismatic? Are they making fun of me?” whenever you walk into a room. It really plays on your self-esteem and becomes such a thing in your head. I didn’t look at people and think of them as this person’s son or daughter; I looked at them as being their own person. But everyone would look at me and say, “Hey, you’re Steve Bracks’ son.”

Often, in search of your own identity and in an attempt to break out of that shadow, you find yourself chasing validation and rocking the boat. Usually, this is on a subconscious level, but I think trying to feel in control of my own life and my own identity is what led me to become completely out of control in my behaviour and make the poor choices I made.

One of the hardest things about the crash was having to call my dad and tell him what had happened, and knowing what that meant for him and for us as a family. Telling your parents you stuffed up like that as a normal kid would be hard enough, but then knowing my mistake was going to have drastic ramifications on my dad, my family and all of these other people, it was a lot for a 20-year-old.

When I read last week that a photo of the federal opposition leader’s 18-year-old son, Tom Dutton, holding a bag of white powder had made news headlines, I immediately felt so sorry for him because unfortunately, I know exactly what it’s like to go through that. It would be so confusing and difficult for him in the position that he’s in, the family that he’s in, and the age he is. It’s a lonely, exclusive club – there’s so few people you can talk to who understand the experience, and there’s no guidebook on how to deal with it.

The main thing I remember after the crash is how much shame and guilt I felt. At the time, I don’t think I was aware of how severe those things were and what they did to me psychologically. I was telling myself I was a bad person. It’s only now as I’ve gotten older and reflected on it that I can really see it, and see how heavy a thing that was to be carrying.

The other thing that happened was that even more people knew me. Any anonymity I’d had before that was gone, and now they knew me not just because of who my dad was, but because of this thing I had done.

A couple of days after the crash, Angus Kennett wrote me a note saying he understood what I was going through. He’d been through something similar when he was younger with his dad [Jeff Kennett] being premier. Just reading that and being able to hear from someone else who had been through it made a difference. I don’t know what Tom’s situation is, but I know how hard it can be and how much you need support.

Nick Bracks with his parents in 2006.Credit: Eddie Jim

When one of your parents is in the public eye like that, you feel like you can’t make your own decisions and become worried about making the wrong choices or saying the wrong thing in case it upsets someone. But that’s not a healthy way to approach life, especially when you’re at an age where you’re naturally trying to figure things out and testing boundaries.

I don’t say that as a way of downplaying or excusing the choices I made, but piling guilt and shame onto young boys for decisions a lot of kids will make in their lifetimes doesn’t work. When that happens, it can stick around for a long time. It bleeds into everything else in your life, and you become paralysed, worrying about being judged for anything you do and what people will think. It plays on your sense of feeling autonomous and reinforces this mindset of, “when I do make a decision, bad things happen”, which is not how we should be conditioned, and it’s not how we help boys to grow. Unless it’s dealt with in the right way, and you have the right support and guidance when those bad things do happen, there can be really negative outcomes.

It took a while for me to find my feet after the accident. But what it came down to was literally just putting one foot in front of the other and continuing to do that every day until things got a little bit easier. Eventually, I figured things out and let the shame go, but it took time, support, and space.

Nick Bracks is an author, mental health advocate and host of the Move Your Mind podcast.

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