Robplum the Hero (45)

You forgot to mention Whitlam in that. Hawke thought he had it but Keating did him in, took a bit of time. As happened to Rudd with Juliar (she learnt to do it quickly) and then back again - he learnt very quickly.

The one thing I do like about the US voting system (which our system is based on) is that the President is voted in by the people, not the party after the votes have been counted.

Working in Local Govt, I have had to deal with a few pillos pollies. I worked in 1 area for 20 years and it was Laboring all the way. Had to organise a Reconciliation March and I had "make this happen." I was told by the pollie that there could be 1,000 people show up and they wanted to match on the roads around Mt Druitt Shopping Centre on a Saturday Morning.

Okay, 3 of the roads were 3 lanes each way and the other 2 lanes each way. 2 of the roads were controlled by Main Roads while other 2 were Council's. To comply with all safety regulations & guidelines, it meant that all lanes on the centre side would have to be closed during the march. Meaning noone could get in or out of the centre for about 2 hours (march plus closing and reopening roads). And 3 of the roads were major tranport links.

Convinced him that we would not get Main Roads approval, and it would upset many 1,000s of people who got caught out. In the end, the 70-80 people marched the footpath.

Not long after this, I did have a bit more to do with him besides work (and he would ask me first before pushing things) as he became the patron of my dog club and also of the men's group I was in.

When Hawke came to power, he chaired the Committee reviwwing the Family Law Act and the Act for Child Support. The Committee recomended 123 IMMEDIATE changes with further reviews required. He did seem to lose a bit of clout after that. In all the time Laboring was in power, they made 5 changes (3 of which made matters worse for both sides).

On Fathers Day 2000 (I remember this as we were planting 2,000 crosses in Parramatta Park to represent the Male Suicides due to relationship breakdowns - was on the news), we were talking about this and he told me that even though Laboring had instigated the Review, it seemed that Howard had done more in his short time in power by implementing 12 of the recommendations. But a lot more was needed.

He was one of the few that did work very hard and did good work for his electorate. Unfortunately, when he had done his 2 terms to enable him to get the Super-dooper pension, he could not get pre-selection. Needed someone who would nod their head and vote the way Caucus told them, not someone who cared about his electorate. "These are Housies and they will only vote Laboring."