‘You need to build trust when you don’t need it – for the time when you do’: an interview with Steve Bracks

Steve Bracks was on track to be immortalised in his role as Victoria’s premier only to choose to resign early in 2007 for (actual) family reasons. In this interview with Scott Hamilton and Stuart Kells, he shares his insights on finding common ground from the oppositional vantage.

Last year, we climbed the majestic steps of Old Treasury Building on Spring Street, at the top of Collins Street – known as the Paris End or the Money End of Melbourne – to interview former Premier the Hon Steve Bracks.

All of Victoria’s ex-Premiers are given an office in Old Treasury to conduct their affairs after leaving government. Only a few get a statue out the front of 1 Treasury Place (where the offices of the current Premier, Deputy Premier, DPC and DTF sit). Jeff Kennett made the statue rules when he thought he was on track to govern Victoria for many years, but suffered a surprising loss in 1999.

Steve Bracks snatched government, and then the ‘Bracks-slide’ happened in 2002 and he won again in 2006. He was on track to be immortalised only to choose to resign early in 2007 due to family reasons. (This is not a euphemism; there really were family reasons: his son had a serious car accident.)

On reforming government

One of my biggest reforms was to make the state’s upper house more democratic and to have fixed four-year terms for both houses. A marked change from our previous policy to abolish the upper house if we came to power.

I reached across the aisle to Peter Ryan and Pat McNamara [Nationals], during the caretaker period while we were waiting on Frankston East by-election. I was looking for a bit of insurance in case things didn’t turn out well for us. They engaged. This was all unbeknown to Kennett and the others.

I was manoeuvring that if we lost the by-election and got a tie, then I would offer the Nationals the Speaker position. That was Ken Jasper.

We almost got there, too. We met them in the Sofitel here – I had Peter Batchelor with me. I had good relations with the Nats, off the back of experience of standing in the by-election in Ballarat, when we got about 75% of the Nat preferences. Anyway, Peter Ryan ended up getting cold feet on the Speaker offer and it turns out we won Frankston East and didn’t need them anyway. But it was a good example and good insurance.

On constitutional reform

On marine parks

This is an excerpt from an article first published in The Mandarin (Premium) on 5 July 2020.

Read more: Andrew Leigh and John Hewson on why the economy needs bipartisanship now more than ever before

Read more: From Queensland with love: an interview with Anna Bligh

Scott Hamilton and Stuart Kells are Melbourne-based authors, researchers and policy advisers. They are researching the history of bipartisanship in Australia.