Tanya Plibersek: On Her Own Terms book review – Labor MP ‘will one day run for leader’
While this biography is flawed in several respects, there is no Labor MP more popular among party members. Plibersek has not ceded her ambition.
A biography of a politician still active in the political arena with their future unknown and uncertain, is challenging for both subject and author.
The risk for the politician is that the book uncovers unwelcome skeletons about their past that could damage their prospects, or their colleagues interpret it as laying the groundwork for a future leadership tilt that could be destabilising.
The risk for the author is that remainder bins are filled with tomes on promising careers that never reached full potential. Who today would buy a biography of opposition leaders Andrew Peacock, John Hewson or Mark Latham, or treasurers Joe Hockey or Peter Costello?
Yet it is understandable that Margaret Simons decided to write a book about Tanya Plibersek, the longest-serving woman in the House of Representatives, a politician since the age of 28, a minister in two Labor governments and touted as a future party leader.
There is a star quality about Plibersek, 53, who is known for her hard work, intelligence, empathy, charm, systematic application to policy, innate belief in the power of government to change lives, superior communication skills, photogenic presence and charisma, and fierce devotion from supporters.
Plibersek’s story is a great Australian story: the daughter of post-war Slovenian migrants who instilled in her and her two brothers a belief in community and responsibility, and the values of fairness and equality of opportunity; an early life lived in the suburbs that took time to find its path; an early entry into parliament; a participant in and close-up observer of major political events of the past quarter-century; a role model feminist and devoted wife, mother, daughter and friend.
But this biography is flawed in several respects, which is not the fault of the subject or entirely the author. Plibersek, perhaps for reasons stated earlier, did not seek nor encourage this book. Penny Wong, the subject of an earlier Simons biography, was also reluctant to co-operate.
The result is that Plibersek – like Wong – is not all that forthcoming in interviews. Some questions on obvious matters such as what Kevin Rudd was really like were met with muted responses. Plibersek was even hesitant to talk about foreign policy, a portfolio she shadowed after the 2013 election.
Biographers rely on a mix of tools to understand and explain their subject. Interviews, especially for contemporary life stories, are essential, and Simons has spoken to family, friends, staff and colleagues. Newspapers, television, radio and books are fundamental, and Simons also makes good use of these.
Archives are indispensable: birth, marriage and death certificates; property title deeds; school and university essays and reports; family photo albums; personal diaries, notes, correspondence, subject files and scrapbooks. For a politician, policy papers, cabinet documents and party records are vital. But few of these were accessed. The result is, nevertheless, an interesting and informative account of a political life still very much in progress. Simons writes engagingly about Plibersek’s parents, Josef and Rose, coming to Australia, marrying and starting a family. Plibersek’s upbringing in the Sutherland Shire, her growing interest in politics, studying journalism at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) and working as a political staffer and NSW public servant are well covered.
Plibersek’s husband Michael Coutts-Trotter, who served time in jail for selling drugs and later became the most senior public servant in NSW, is well known. His insights into their relationship, family and her career are especially important in chronicling her story and explaining her character.
Simons canvasses a number of sharp, some unwarranted, criticisms of Plibersek such as having “a lack of policy vision” and “lack of energy” to a “lack of hunger” to be leader and not being “a deep or innovative policy thinker” and “prickly” with people she disagrees with. And, living in and representing the inner-city, too much of a bleeding-heart leftie.
She draws on Plibersek’s devotion to the novels of Jane Austen to debate whether she most resembles the teenage Elinor or Marianne in Sense and Sensibility (1811) or a mix of both. It is not persuasive and often irritating. But at least it is not psychoanalysis.
An under-explored area is the Labor politics of the Sutherland Shire, not always a Liberal Party bastion as Simons writes, and no mention is made of Gough Whitlam being the local MP when Plibersek’s mother moved to Oyster Bay in the mid-1950s.
Former minister Michael Lee suggested Plibersek seek Labor preselection for Sydney in 1998. She had quit the party in the mid-1980s over uranium mining and land rights. But as a backbencher, shadow minister and minister, Plibersek learnt the art of compromise, pragmatism and coalition building to make progress with achievements in public health, social housing, paid parental leave, child care and domestic violence.
Simons ponders why Plibersek remained in the outer ministry and did not join the cabinet until 2011. Julia Gillard, interviewed for the book, planned to elevate her after the 2010 election but pregnancy and family responsibilities intervened. Plibersek was loyal to Kim Beazley and grew closer to Gillard during the chaotic Rudd years.
Plibersek’s relationship with Anthony Albanese, both from Labor’s hard left faction, threads through the book. He regards her agreement to serve as Bill Shorten’s deputy during the Albanese-Shorten leadership contest in 2013 as a “betrayal”. Plibersek’s six years as deputy leader portended greater things.
But a planned run for leader after Labor’s shock defeat in 2019 (which Plibersek was not entirely surprised about), with Gillard’s endorsement, further ruptured her relationship with Albanese. Plibersek did not run and Albanese was elected leader unopposed. “If I had run, I would have won,” Plibersek tells Simons.
A factor in her decision not to run, but not the only factor, was that her daughter, Anna, had been sexually assaulted by her boyfriend and the trial was pending. This section of the book is well written and it took considerable bravery from Anna to disclose it.
Albanese disputes Plibersek’s claim she would have won if she had run. It is impossible to know the outcome of an election decided by MPs and party members voting in equal proportion. But there is no Labor MP more popular among party members than Plibersek, which would have made her a formidable candidate in a leadership battle. Plibersek has not ceded her ambition and will, in my view, run for leader one day.
While there are minor errors, omissions and questionable judgments in this book, the most intolerable aspect is breaking a central tenet of the biography genre: constantly bringing the narrative to the present rather than allowing the subject’s life to unfold with unexpected events, opportunities seized and lost, and rollercoaster emotions that is the essence of living.
The attractiveness of biography is that the reader knows where the story leads while the subject does not. The principal task is to allow the reader to see the always uncertain life path as the subject saw it at the time. But in a biography about an active political life with potential not yet fully realised, not even Plibersek knows where her path may take her.
Troy Bramston is the author of biographies of Paul Keating, Bob Hawke and Robert Menzies, and is currently writing a biography of Gough Whitlam
Tanya Plibersek: On Her Own Terms
By Margaret Simons
Black Inc, Biography
320pp, $34.99
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