By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A cheeky headline jibe led to a memorable first encounter with the iron-will of former Hotham MP, the late Simon Crean.
Back in 2005, his political career was seemingly on the slide. Hounded out as Opposition Leader, and now demoted from shadow treasurer to the opposition trade portfolio.
“Crean gets traded in,” trumpeted the Monash Journal. Together with an inglorious photo of him doing a walk of shame past the word ‘GOING’ on a background sign.
Not long after the story rolled off the press, Crean’s media man was on the phone. The reporter was soon booked in for a one-on-one with the local Labor MP and former union boss.
In his office on Clayton Road next week, the jacket was off.
Maybe he knew the vultures were circling his seat. Talk was circulating of a preselection challenge from then-NUW state secretary and later State MP and Attorney General Martin Pakula.
And indeed over the next six months, Crean had to fight for his seat and his political life.
In the sit-down interview, he described himself as a “fighter” who stood up to “factional warlords”.
He was certain that his determination to stop branch-stacking led to the undermining of his leadership.
“Of course it did.
“What it did was threaten the power bases of factional warlords – they didn’t like it.
“You’ve got to be courageous and take the battle up and not roll over to them.”
And with the word “courageous”, he leaned forward and shook a clenched fist.
A picture of Gough looming over his left shoulder, Crean expressed disappointment of being dumped from the leadership group for “new blood”.
“New blood is important but there has to be the fusion with those who’ve had the understanding as to what worked, what didn’t, why it did and why it didn’t.”
In the whirlwind months ahead, Pakula was hot favourite to depose Crean in the name of ‘generational change’.
But Crean remained defiant, correctly predicting his strong “rank and file” support would deter Labor’s central panel from voting him out.
In local ballots, a decisive 70 per cent of Hotham branch members supported Crean.
And so, Pakula withdrew. In a gracious euology, Pakula recently wrote “I was silly enough to fight him once. He taught me a lesson.
“But our love for the (National Union of Workers) and what it meant to the Labor Party transcended that fight and we mended things. Respect.”
A charged-up Crean said it was a “win for the good guys”. He called it a “massive rebuff” to a legion of state MPs Tim Holding, Janice Munt, Ann Barker and Hong Lim who had backed Pakula.
From 2007, Crean served as a Minister in the Rudd and Gillard governments before signing off ahead of the 2013 election.
A distinguished 23 years in Parliament and member of four Prime Ministers’ Cabinets, Crean died suddenly on a work trip in Europe on 25 June.
When hands were shook at end of the interview in 2005, Crean fixed a cold stare and suggested a new headline.
“Not traded in but a new model.”
