Peta Credlin’s the right stuff, but now’s the wrong time

Run, Peta, run. Every hour of every day, Peta Credlin’s phone fills with messages. But patience is a virtue in politics.

Peta Credlin, media star. Picture: John Feder

Run, Peta, run. Every hour of every day, Peta Credlin’s phone fills with messages. Pick a seat — Mallee, Higgins — get in there, win it. She reads them, she occasionally replies with something wry, never with anything committal, not that she has entirely ruled it out because how could she?

She is Liberal to the bone, a warrior for the traditional conservative values — free enterprise, low taxes, limited government — plus she loves politics, truly, she’s a total junkie, happiest even as a small girl sitting under a tree, reading Odgers.

She is also one of those people who lifted herself from one of the lowest income brackets — her family was not poor, but neither was it rich — into the highest, and nobody ever asks how she did it.

Luck?

There’s always a bit of luck involved. Also good health, parents who prioritise reading and education, but in the end you’ve got to do it yourself.

Here is her story: Credlin grew up one of five children in a small Victorian farming town, Wycheproof. Later they moved near to Geelong and she attended Sacred Heart College.

Do I have to say brilliant student? Of course she was. She studied law at the University of Melbourne, lived at Newman. She was admitted as a barrister in Victoria and in 1999 applied for a job as a political staff member with Liberal senator Kay Patterson.

From there, she landed in Canberra, where she met Brendan Nelson, Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott, and worked for all three leaders. She helped get Abbott elected. She also got noticed.

Credlin with former boss Tony Abbott in the house. Picture: AAP

For all their braggadocio, politicians tend to be pussies when confronted by a formidable woman, and when Credlin strode the halls of power, they’d fling themselves against the walls to make way for her. She’s a commanding presence, in part because she’s tremendously tall, often made taller by magnificent millinery, and she can come across as steely.

Labor saw her as one of the ­Liberal Party’s key strengths, and all the dark arts were employed to undermine her: never mind that she was married, surely she was a man-eater, just look at those ­animal prints, look at that mane of hair. Her own side should have had her back, but they got busy complaining to each other about how she was terrifying: fierce and uncompromising, she was said to have shut out the lovely Margie Abbott, a claim Credlin denies.

There’s no question that Credlin made enemies but they were in the main a spineless lot.

She was one of the highest profile ­victims — no, that’s the wrong word, maybe let’s go with targets, because they didn’t bring her to her knees, but anyway they tried to get her by smearing her name.

Cheap? Sure, and also too easy, in the bad old days (they’re not dead yet), and so it started: she seemed awfully close to the boss, didn’t she?

Snigger, snigger. Vile, just vile.

That kind of trick has long been turned in Canberra, but in Credlin’s case the gloves were off and the rumours made it into print. It’s wrong to think she laughed it off. She was deeply embarrassed and hurt. She had to stand up and talk about her ­private life, which is nobody’s business.

Now she’s out of politics and very much happier, but look, everything for the Liberal Party has gone to pot and people are wondering if she might come back.

She has ruled out Higgins, where she once lived. There’s some speculation that she’ll go for Mallee, now that Andrew “Broads Abroad” Broad has gone overboard, and the Nats are clearly on edge about it. How else do you explain MP Darren Chester nervously telling a reporter: “It’s a long way from the Mallee to Sydney, mate.”

Sure, but Credlin grew up in Wycheproof remember? It’s in the Mallee, and her family wasn’t fly-by-night. There are Credlin graves in the local cemetery dating back to the 19th century.

Will she run?

There are two stories going around: one, she’s not interested because she’s enjoying her media career too much. She fronts her own show on Sky, she’s loving spending time in Europe, cooking, and going to the gym. (You thought she was fierce before? She has been lifting weights at Gold’s gym. She’s ripped.)

The other story is that they — the Liberals — don’t want her because she’s too divisive, and also she wrecked the Abbott government, when actually, no: Abbott has to own his mistakes, it can’t all go back on the chief of staff. She was powerful but not the boss.

Also, it was Turnbull who did the wrecking and it was Turnbull who lost control of government. They were hanging on by one seat when they got rid of him, and they’re now in the minority, and Credlin cannot be blamed for that.

Which is not to say she didn’t make mistakes. She did. Who hasn’t?

Still, my guess is she’s too smart to get caught up in the fallout from the Turnbull era, in which the Liberal Party is still living. The opportunity is there if she wants it, but look, the Coalition at the next election will likely get — what’s the technical term? Smashed? Hammered? Pulverised?

Why be part of that?

She can sit this one out, and not idly. She is among the best political commentators around and that did not come naturally: she did as she has always done, worked at presentation, honed her skills, took advice, practised. The content she has always had down pat: name any seat, she can tell you where it is, who holds it, by what margin, and not only that, she ­actually gets politics, which isn’t actually about how many seats you’ve got. It’s far more interesting than that.

Also, four years from now, there will be seats all over the country looking for Liberal candidates, and she’ll be able to pick one, live in it for a while, and get elected. So many rats are scuttling away from the sinking ship, it would be easy enough to scuttle on, but there is no reason for ­Credlin to be in a hurry.

People forget: patience is not about waiting. Patience is about timing.