David Marr’s Quarterly Essay on Bill Shorten comes up short of news

Alternative prime minister Bill Shorten emerges from an in-depth profile as a man with the job ahead of him.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten with now Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Picture: Kym Smith

At the end of David Marr’s 100-page essay on Bill Shorten, it is clear the author is underwhelmed. He set out to try to understand who the Labor leader really is. He settles on the well-worn trope of an ambitious faction man, shrewd deal-maker and talented networker who desperately wants to be loved and is yet to define his leadership with bold ­action.

Marr, who has written revealing and damaging Quarterly Essays on Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd, comes up short on news this time. He relies on previous newspaper and magazine profiles, sources school and university publications, uses evidence presented to the trade union royal commission, and talks to some of those who know Shorten well. But he does not tell us anything significant we didn’t already know.

Even an interview with his subject does not yield anything noteworthy. Is this the fault of the writer for failing to probe his subject with an eye to discovering something fresh? Or is it the fault of Shorten for failing to take the opportunity to enlighten his profiler with the story of who he is? It is unclear.

Marr is one of Australia’s best long-form writers. His finest journalism has been published in The Bulletin, The National Times and The Sydney Morning Herald. He is a terrific biographer, most notably of Patrick White (1991) and Garfield Barwick (1980). And he is an inveterate critic of the conservative establishment, the Coalition and News Corporation, publisher of The Australian.

In this, his fifth Quarterly Essay, Marr produces an interesting dissertation on the man who wants to be Australia’s next prime minister. He sifts through the thicket of claim and counter-claim to tell the story of Shorten’s life from schoolboy to university student, lawyer, union secretary and minister, and his two years as Opposition Leader.

He carefully probes Shorten’s private life: the strained relationship with his father, Bill Shorten Sr; the loving and influential relationship with his mother, Ann McGrath; the previous marriage to Deborah Beale; the marriage to Chloe Bryce; unedifying rumours of marital infidelity; and the allegations of rape that threatened his career. Some of this makes for uncomfortable reading.

The essay is topped and tailed with a cursory mention of new Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, hastily added after the historic leadership challenge. If time had permitted, the piece would have benefited from a more detailed analysis of what Turnbull’s political ascendancy means for Shorten’s leadership.

It is true, as Marr tells us, that Labor was heading for a likely election victory until last week. This is what the polls told us. It is why Abbott was ruthlessly cut down by his colleagues. Shorten was certain he could defeat Abbott at the next election. Abbott was Shorten’s political gift. Now he is gone. Some of Shorten’s colleagues fear Abbott’s woes made the Labor leader complacent.

Now the political landscape has been transformed. Marr’s essay was published last Monday. The same day, The Australian received its latest Newspoll. Shorten went from being the preferred prime minister to trailing Turnbull 55 per cent to 21 per cent. Labor is behind the Coalition on a two-party preferred basis by 49 per cent to 51 per cent. Labor’s primary vote has sunk to 35 per cent.

It remains to be seen whether Turnbull can unite the Coalition behind his leadership, demonstrate he has learned from his past failures, shift course on policy, convince voters to trust the government and develop a compelling case for re-election. It won’t be easy. But there is near universal agreement that Turnbull’s elevation has made Shorten’s path to the Lodge much more difficult.

Marr’s chief critique of Shorten is that “he has failed to emerge strongly as leader” since defeating Anthony Albanese in the October 2013 Labor leadership contest. He doubts if Shorten has shaken, or ever will shake, the image of being “the plotter who brought down two leaders to clear his own way to power”. The ghosts of Rudd and Julia Gillard hover.

His praises Shorten’s expertise as a backroom operator in the party, the unions and parliament. “No one works the system better than Shorten,” he writes. “He is a master of the art of negotiation, a deal-maker of immense skill. He betrays without flinching.” Marr sees Shorten as a “shape-shifter” who will do anything to get ahead. He damns him with such praise.

The personal description of Shorten is equally unforgiving. “Shorten’s body is not made for suits,” Marr writes. “His baggy frame sits on skinny legs.” He looks like “a plugger dressed for court”. Shorten has a winning smile, he writes, but has aged considerably since being elected to parliament in 2007. “Now there is more head, less hair and not so much of the charm that once swept men and women off their feet.”

The essay describes a boy born into a Labor household who at school, with his twin brother Robert, was encouraged into “athletics, debating and theatre” and had his sights set on politics by age 16. Marr shows how Shorten at Monash University “threw himself” into political combat — a claim Shorten tries to demolish but the author marshals evidence to prove.

One of the more interesting aspects of the essay is the extracts from student newspaper Lot’s Wife that chronicle Shorten’s university exploits and the biting criticism that he attracted. He was “a figure of fun” for his student opponents, who derided him as snobbish, vain and ambitious.

He used campus politics as a springboard into Victorian Labor, securing jobs as a staffer, meeting party leaders and plotting union power plays. Marr writes with admiration of Shorten’s backroom abilities. He recognises his talents as a union secretary and his dedication to improving the lives of working people.

One of the persistent criticisms of Shorten from friends and colleagues is identified: “All of his life Shorten has left behind people who feel betrayed by him.’’ Shorten denies he has “dazzled and dumped” people who are no longer useful to him.

Marr gallops through the Shorten story. In 1998, he turned down the offer of the safe Victorian state seat of Melton, which could have propelled him to the premiership. Marr describes the high point of Shorten’s public esteem — the Beaconsfield mine collapse — but says only a “faint halo” remains from those days as a reassuring union leader. He compliments Shorten’s ministerial career, especially his role in brokering the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Many pages are spent rehashing Shorten’s appearance before the union royal commission and the allegations of improper company payments to the Australian Workers Union and donations to his campaign for the seat of Maribyrnong. Marr is critical of the political motives behind the commission but also of Shorten’s responses to questioning. Former ACTU secretary Bill Kelty rang Shorten after his testimony and said if he wanted to be prime minister, “you have to absorb the pain”.

In a strange five-page diversion, Marr interviews comedian Shaun Micallef, who turned Shorten’s famously unfunny “zingers” into a national joke on his television show Mad as Hell. The supremely talented Micallef reveals that Shorten, taking it all in good humour, prerecorded an acceptance speech in the event the show won a Logie. It didn’t.

Overall, Marr questions whether this blue-collar union man from a classless background, but educated at prestigious Xavier College and friend to the big end of town, can “scale up from party leader to prime minister”. He argues Shorten “needed more time” to develop as a candidate for the nation’s top job. He says his “character” and “career” will be front and centre at the next election.

The laundry list of failed opposition leaders is recycled: Billy Snedden, Bill Hayden, Andrew Peacock, Kim Beazley, Brendan Nelson. It is a “sad list”. But political precedent is frequently shattered nowadays. Who would have thought three prime ministers in a row would be removed by their colleagues before serving a full term? Shorten is determined to burst through.

It is true, as Marr says, that Shorten is “bricked in to the job” of Labor leader, given the 2013 party rule changes make his removal very difficult. Shorten will almost certainly lead Labor to the next election. But Marr is wrong to say “there are no whispers against his leadership”. Indeed, they have become more prevalent this year. And political parties always percolate with gripes about the current leader and talk about future leaders.

The essay contains several minor errors, such as describing Mark Arbib as a cabinet minister and muddling the analysis of the byzantine world of Labor factions and unions. But it does serve as a useful primer on Shorten’s life to date, highlighting his strengths and weaknesses, while leaving room for readers to decide if this faction man will be Labor’s next saviour or its wrecker.

Troy Bramston is a senior writer on The Australian. His most recent book is Rudd, Gillard and Beyond.

Faction Man: Bill Shorten’s Path to Power

By David Marr

Quarterly Essay 59

Black Inc, 128pp, $22.99