Steve Price: Brad Battin needs to show some Jeff Kennett showmanship
My crime was replacing Kennett, on air, with Opposition Leader John Brumby. Jeffrey was on holiday but guarded his regular weekday half-hour spot on the Neil Mitchell show like it was one of his children.
The Premier was a lot more volatile back then, during his eight-year reign in the top job, and to say we almost came to blows is not an exaggeration. The pair of us have laughed about it subsequently. He was also, prior to defeating Labor's Joan Kirner in 1992 as Victoria wore the 'rust-bucket state' tag, an exceptional Opposition Leader.
John Cain Jr, the predecessor to Kirner, and Labor had driven Victoria into the ground and Victorians were fleeing in great numbers to places like Queensland. Back then the Herald Sun ran a page one that was just black, signifying how bad things had got in the state. Basically, a funeral notice.
Kennett was like a dog attacking a bone and he was a daily presence in media whether it was on AW with Mitchell, arguing with the ABC or shovelling dirt at journalists when he finally became premier. Hardly a night passed without Kennett appearing on the nightly news.
Kennett was a showman admired and despised in equal parts. Compare that brand of retail politics from a career advertising man with the bland versions of Opposition Leaders Victoria has had to endure through the tortured decade of Labor leaders Daniel Andrews and now Jacinta Allan.
Think about this — the Victorian Liberals have been through Matthew Guy twice, Michael O'Brien, John Pesutto and now Brad Battin. Talk about navel gazing and self-destruction. Surely it can't be that hard to find a suitably aggressive, media friendly alternative to two of the most despised political leaders we have ever experienced.
It hasn't happened and as steady a hand as he has been, Brad Battin is just not cutting through.
Let me prosecute the case that it's not entirely Battin's fault. I'm currently presenting the Peta Credlin Sky News TV program five days a week for five weeks. This week we contacted the Opposition Leader's office to request a live on-air chat about a loosening of the laws around self-protection if someone breaks into your house in the middle of the night armed with a machete.
The response from his media team was to suggest we talk instead with David Limbrick of the Libertarian Party. Offered a prime-time spot to prosecute the case that Premier Allan was ruling over a state of lawlessness so bad that people were arguing we should be able to arm ourselves with baseball bats and fight back, instead we were pushed towards an Independent, not even a Liberal.
This was not an isolated case, indeed last week we asked the same office to interview Battin about Jacinta Allan's vote grabbing delusion that she would legislate to make it law you can work from home two days a week. Same response. Sorry, Brad's not available.
I was prompted to check when the last time Victoria's Opposition Leader had appeared on Sky's top rating four day a week Credlin show and found, according to our records, it was five weeks ago. I present the Friday version of Credlin and can't remember the last time he appeared with me either.
Now Battin and his team can choose to appear in the media and with whomever they choose. But to suggest he has a high profile as Opposition Leader is ludicrous. Most Victorians would struggle to even name him.
It's a problem the conservative side of politics, both state and federal, struggle with.
The NSW Liberal Opposition leader is a bloke called Mark Speakman who as late as this week was facing a leadership challenge over a net-zero bungle.
In South Australia a bloke even I have never heard of leads the Liberals – Vincent Tarzia. Vincent took over after former leader David Speirs was forced to resign after pleading guilty to two drug charges and a video showed him snorting a substance from a plate.
The best known Liberal Opposition leader in Australia would be WA's Basil Zempilas, who has been in the job five months. Basil, of course, is best known for his football commentary on the Seven Network not for his politics and he leads a team of just seven members of the lower house.
Then of course we have the newly minted Federal Liberal leader Sussan Ley who when a poll was taken to identify who she was by showing members of the public a photograph of her, not one person knew who she was.
One thought she was Gina Rinehart another a bank executive and to be fair not everyone knew who even Anthony Albanese was.
Liberals around the country are searching for leaders that can connect with wider Australia. Ley deserves her shot at the top job and given the Coalition will be in Opposition for the next four years she has plenty of time to get known.
Brad Battin doesn't have the luxury of time with a state election just 14 months away and Victorians deserve better than an alternative Premier being hidden away. Unlike most state and federal politicians, he has a work history as an ex-police officer and prison guard – ideal for prosecuting the case in a lawless state overrun by violent crime.
Someone needs to tell him to accept every media opportunity offered to him. He should take a leaf out of Kennett's playbook where he insisted on live in-person interviews so he couldn't be edited.
Victoria had and still has a love-hate relationship with our most successful recent Liberal Premier, but one thing is for sure you couldn't ignore him.
So, media savvy was he that after being confronted by a barbecue wielding union protester out the front of the old AW studios in Bank St he made one more big demand. He asked us to install a landline into his office to conduct live interviews from there.
We did it only to regret the decision as Jeff kept dialling in to go on air like some sort of media commentator.
At least Victorians knew who he was. Dislikes
• Convicted drug and gun criminal Snoop Dogg as the Grand Final entertainment – how does that fit the AFL's family image.
• Anthony Albanese promising to recognise a Palestinian State.
• Cowardly masked neo-Nazis marching through Melbourne in the dead of night.
• ACTU pushing for a four-day week at Canberra's economic roundtable next week. Likes
• Reserve Bank cut interest rates for the third time this year.
• EV drivers look like being slugged a road user tax – about time.
• Ageless Magpie Scott Pendlebury at age 37 going around next year.
• Donald Trump doing what our leaders should do cleaning up Washington DC of homeless criminals and drug dealers. Steve Price Saturday Herald Sun columnist
Melbourne media personality Steve Price writes a weekly column in the Saturday Herald Sun.
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