By Melissa Fyfe and John Mangan
It was an election that surprised the winners, the losers, and perhaps even the voters. Ten years ago this week, Victorians went to the polls in a historic vote that created a month of democratic uncertainty. A massive rural backlash left Jeff Kennett shell-shocked and with no capacity to form government in his own right. Labor, which never expected to win, realised power was within its grasp. After a byelection and the successful wooing of three independents, a month later Steve Bracks began a decade of Labor rule on October19, 1999. Melissa Fyfe and John Mangan look at key players of the time and what they’re doing now.
STEVE BRACKS Labor
The long shot who became premier.
TEN years after the slimmest of election victories as a new and relatively unknown opposition leader, Steve Bracks now enjoys an international profile as an adviser to the government of East Timor, as well as being a global ambassador for the Australian automotive industry. On top of that he chairs the Cbus superannuation fund, is a director of the Jardine Lloyd Thomson Australia and Bionic Ear Institute boards and is a senior adviser to National Australia Bank and KPMG. He is also independent chairman of the Australian Subscription Television and Radio Association.
He was wearing his East Timor hat last week in Dili, ''discussing with the prime minister and his government strategies over several years to deliver major infrastructure projects, how they get international support, preparing a plan''.
The turning points in the 1999 election can be put down to government hubris, Bracks says: a Jon Faine ABC radio interview in which Premier Jeff Kennett refused to answer questions, and a Herald Sun front page graphically showing the coalition MPs who were not allowed to talk to the media.
He sensed victory when, outside polling booths in Ballarat on election day, female senior citizens confided: ''I voted for you, dear.'' ''That's when I knew something was happening!''
Bracks doesn't cite any regrets, but says one thing he did not realise was that, if he won, his speechwriter, Michael Gurr, would be able to have the night off. ''When you win, you don't need anything prepared, you know what to say.''
JEFF KENNETT Liberal
The premier who lost the election
AS CHAIRMAN of beyondblue and president of Hawthorn Football Club, there's no missing Jeff Kennett these days. In recent weeks he has been in the spotlight on behalf of beyondblue, successfully winning an injunction in the Supreme Court against Channel Nine's 60 Minutes broadcasting a report on suicide.
In his capacity at Hawthorn, he's been similarly vocal on the AFL tribunal's decision to suspend Lance Franklin for two games following a controversial bump on Ben Cousins.
After completing national service in 1970, Mr Kennett launched his own advertising agency, KNF, in 1971 and five years later was elected to State Parliament as the Liberal member for Burwood. A rocky spell as opposition leader led to his dumping, before he bounced back to take the Coalition to victory in the 1992 election.
Mr Kennett's 2571 days as premier were marked by a radical program of budget cuts and privatisation, big-ticket projects such as the redevelopment of Docklands and Crown Casino, and a take-no-prisoners approach to critics.
His term came to a surprise end after the 1999 election when a triumvirate of independents, holding the balance of power, opted to support Steve Bracks' untested Labor team.
''I have done this with a heavier heart than you can possibly imagine, given that most of you don't think I have any heart at all,'' Mr Kennett said, after announcing his resignation.
CRAIG INGRAM independent
Abalone diver who won Gippsland East as an independent.
INGRAM often tells the story of how he went from swimming with sharks in Gippsland to meeting a few around Spring Street. When he first entered Jeff Kennett's office, Ingram says he could hear the theme from Jaws playing in his head. Kennett sized him up quickly, asking straight up if Ingram owned his abalone licence or just had interest in it. ''He was trying to work out what my financial background and worth was. And that was in front of Susan (Davies) and Russell (Savage).''
Ingram, the only one of the three left in parliament, is a conservative politician, but he leaned towards Steve Bracks who, he said, ''played it straight''.
Meanwhile, the Coalition had people in Gippsland doing background and police checks on him, says Ingram, who now believes he would never have achieved his personal agenda with the Coalition. The Nationals did not like his plan to return flows to the Snowy River, for example.
People ask Ingram if he would like to go back to 1999. The answer is no. Making a decision about who forms government was ''an incredible weight on someone's shoulders'', he says, ''and it wasn't an easy decision''.
SUSAN DAVIES independent
The former ALP candidate who helped her old party to power.
IN HER maiden parliamentary speech Susan Davies spoke about her great-great grandmother settling in Outtrim, near Inverloch. Now she has followed suit, on a little farm ''really enjoying growing cows and calves and revegetating, making the land beautiful again'', she says. With a passion for environmental issues, her roles include chairing a renewable energy co-operative.
''Everybody assumed the Kennett government would be returned with a landslide,'' Davies says. ''But quietly, I think, a great many people right across Victoria just made a decision this had all gone too far.''
With the three independents holding the balance of power, former ALP premier Joan Kirner suggested Davies call a Queensland independent, Peter Wellington, and the idea of drafting a charter arose. With clauses reinstating the powers of the auditor-general and improving freedom of information, negotiating the charter helped the independent MPs to forge a close bond that endures. ''It was like having an older brother and a younger brother there. I have a huge affection and respect for both of them.''
Davies won Gippsland West in a 1997 byelection when former Liberal leader Alan Brown resigned, but with boundaries recast in 2002 the seat was abolished and her attempt to win Bass was unsuccessful.
''I'm sure we [independents] did the right thing,'' Davies says. ''Victoria became a kinder place, and it's still a kinder place.''
ALAN STOCKDALE Liberal
Kennett's right-hand man
LIKE Jeff Kennett, the premier he served with such loyalty, Alan Stockdale has not been content to sit idle since retiring from State Parliament before his party's 1999 election defeat.
Mr Stockdale held the seat of Brighton from 1985 until 1999, and having been appointed shadow treasurer in 1985, was treasurer for the duration of the Kennett government's administration.
He was acclaimed as the world's first minister for multimedia when he assumed that portfolio in 1996, adding information technology to his responsibilities in 1998.
These days Mr Stockdale remains in the political front line, having taken the reins as the Liberal Party's president in February last year. He has been on the boards of numerous companies, such as California-based Axon Instruments, which specialises in drug discovery and scientific research.
''Whether we would've won the '99 election if we'd have gone slower on some things I don't know,'' he told The Sunday Age last year. ''Politics is not about simply holding power, it's about improving the society in which you live. I think the Kennett government did that quickly, effectively and, in many respects, those policies are being carried on by the current Government.''
RUSSELL SAVAGE independent
Former National Party independent who backed Labor
''THERE'S nothing more dull than ex-members of parliament,'' says ex-MP Russell Savage from his farm in Queensland, inland from Noosa. ''Once you're out, you're out.''
That's why the former independent member for Mildura has kept a low profile since farewelling Spring Street after losing his seat of Mildura back to the Nationals at the 2006 election. Pundits attributed the loss to the Bracks government's failure to reopen Mildura passenger rail services, and the decision to locate a toxic waste dump in his electorate. It was no way to treat a man who, along with fellow independents Susan Davies and Craig Ingram, handed Bracks office after the cliffhanger election.
''The thing is, the three of us never wanted to have that responsibility of choosing a government,'' he says. ''People would've thought that was bizarre, but it wasn't fair on the individual members; we just wanted to represent our areas.''
Savage recalls a meeting while Kennett was still caretaker premier in which Kennett suggested Savage give him the nod to take his ministers to Government House to be sworn in, assuring Savage that if they changed their minds when the new parliament sat he would hand over to Bracks. Apart from wishing he had driven a harder bargain to get the rail services restored, Savage says he has no regrets. ''I sometimes think what would've happened if I'd supported Kennett. But I don't think about it for too long.''
JOHN THWAITES Labor
Opposition deputy leader who fought the Kennett government on health and planning issues.
JOHN Thwaites did not think Labor would win in 1999. But once he got over the shock, the work had only just begun. There were major hurdles. A handful of seats were on a knife's edge. The Frankston East byelection had to be won, the independents wooed.
''My colleagues and I were very excited about the prospect of being in government,'' says Mr Thwaites. ''But we needed Steve Bracks' caution and conservatism to keep our feet on the ground.''
The former health and environment minister left Parliament as deputy premier when Mr Bracks resigned in 2007. Much of Mr Thwaites' work is now on climate change and he is a professorial fellow at Monash University, chairing its sustainability institute.
''We remained focused on doing everything we could to get into government,'' he says. This meant writing parliamentary and legal strategies, calling in old Labor heads to advise on transition to government, and even checking the history books on similar constitutional situations.
And meetings. Suddenly everyone wanted to meet them. ''People who hadn't been interested in us gained a sudden interest,'' says Mr Thwaites. ''It was an exhilarating time and an unbelievable opportunity.''