‘Robotic Jess’ Wilson must learn from ‘sweaty Steve’ Bracks and ‘foot-in-mouth’ Jeff Kennett to become Victorian premier
Elected to parliament less than five years earlier, this moment in March 1999 was the rookie opposition leader’s chance to show voters he was made of the right stuff to take on Jeff Kennett at the looming election.
Jess Wilson would do well to find a video of the speech.
Bracks was a nervous mess. One big sweaty, stammering mess. Within minutes of him rising, sweat was pouring down his face and neck, saturating his (fortunately) white shirt. No one could focus on what Bracks was saying because we were all transfixed by the cascading sweat.
The man who wanted to be the next premier of Victoria was melting before our eyes.
More than a quarter of a century later, Bracks – who six months later pulled off a shock election victory over Kennett to start his reign as a triple-election- winning Labor hero – agreed the sweaty speech was a moment that changed his political fortunes.
Speaking to The Australian on Wednesday, Bracks, who was premier for eight years, acknowledged it was this moment when he realised he needed professional training and to be “himself”.
“I was (very sweaty), yeah,” he said. “I changed because I got better training on what to do and that helped enormously. I just became myself, didn’t try to become anyone else; that gave me a breakthrough when I realised that is what I needed to do, and I hope that’s what came across.”
Bracks noted Kennett was always himself, saying that was part of the secret to his success, and urged he Wilson to follow the former Liberal premier’s lead.
“I wasn’t trying to be anyone else, I wasn’t trying to perform as if I was the ideal opposition leader. I just said ‘I am what I am’, and that’s what I did. And it worked,” he said. “I realised that’s what I needed to do and that’s the change I brought about. It was quick enough, it had to be. You don’t get much time in this game.”
So Wilson – and, for that matter, her political supporters and foes both in Labor and her own party – shouldn’t be too hard on herself two days in.
If Bracks can recover from drowning in his own sweat, there’s no reason she can’t recover from looking and sounding like a robot – or a school prefect, as veteran broadcaster Neil Mitchell described her – after being installed as Victoria’s latest alternative premier.
Much has been made of Wilson’s youth. She’s 35. But the young mother finds herself in good company. While Bracks was nine years older than her, and a more experienced political campaigner, Jeff Kennett and Daniel Andrews were in their 30s when they got what is recognised as the worst job in politics.
Like Bracks, she doesn’t have time to slowly establish her profile and credibility in the electorate. Victorians elected Bracks six months after he became opposition leader. Wilson has 12 months to convince voters to back her.
Kennett, at 34, was even younger than Wilson when he became opposition leader on November 3, 1982 but he was more experienced than Wilson and Bracks, having been in parliament for almost seven years and serving as a minister for 18 months.
Reflecting on his elevation to the leadership as a young man, Kennett said he allowed his natural energy and enthusiasm for life get him through the early days.
After a while, he discovered the more he was himself – even if that rubbed some people up the wrong way – the more he enjoyed himself and the better he performed.
“I think that’s why I got it (the leadership); my energy more than anything else,” he said, adding that he found the elevation “no difficulty at all”.
“You are always learning. You make mistakes and you learn from mistakes. But I had no hassle with that,” he told The Australian.
“I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it thoroughly. There were issues where I made mistakes or said something that was stupid, but I enjoyed it.”
Kennett and Bracks – in separate interviews – essentially offered Wilson the same advice; be yourself and back yourself.
“She has to be herself and the most important thing is you have got to have a sense of humour,” Kennett said.
“You need a sense of humour in this game and you must have the capacity to go to bed at night, go through the things you might have done badly, understand how you are going to fix them tomorrow, and then get a good night’s sleep. I would say to anyone coming in at this level, you’ve got no idea what the work requirement is until you are here. Secondly you have to be yourself. Thirdly, you have to have a sense of humour and lastly you have got to develop an internal system, to deal with every day.”
Andrews was 38 when he got the job of opposition leader, and it took him a few years to grow into the role; his transformation was both physical and performative.
Chubby Daniel became lean Dan. The plastered-down hair was swept back. The suits and ties were (mostly) put away and jeans and a sports coat donned.
As he became more confident, his public performances became easier and less stilted. He developed a measured tone in public and rarely lost his temper, mostly presenting as a calm person.
Sure he could be an attack dog in parliament and he played his politics hard behind the scenes, but he developed the ability to mostly not allow whatever craziness was going in the background impact his public image.
He became electable.
Mitchell recalled that cartoonists drew Kennett with his foot stuck perpetually in his mouth in the 1980s. But in the end, albeit at his third try, Victorians did accept the “real Jeff” and elected him.
Like the former premiers, Mitchell urged Wilson to be herself.
“A lot of people who know her tell me she is a warm and pleasant person – well that doesn’t come across at the moment,” he told The Australian.
“She is robotic, she is wooden. Politics has moved on from reciting the talking points approach; that’s what Jacinta (Allan) does and she looks less for it.
“(Wilson) needs to be authentic and talk to people, not at them. At the moment she is talking at them ... she is nervous and hopefully she’ll settle down and get some advice.
“She sounds and looks like the head prefect at the moment.”
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