What Happened to Alan Carpenter?

I haven’t written anything in a while, but decided I would pick up the pen again after a long absence. Sorry to the people who enjoy my often ambiguous bitching, but I have recently been embroiled in state politics, and so I felt it was appropriate to put in my two cents about Alan Carpenter. The funny thing is that I actually didn’t mind him despite his affiliation with the opposite party and his government’s failure to do much good for the state. I thought I would take the time to explore the few ups and many downs of his Premiership.

Carpenter announced his retirement from politics on Friday, effective as of October 2nd. As it were, after the 2008 state election he still held the seat of Willagee, and committed himself to the full four-year term despite the general inclination he would step down from politics in general after the tumultuous loss. Again, six months later when former Labor Leader Jim McGinty retired from his Fremantle seat, there were talks Carpenter would follow, and infuriatingly, six months later he decided to follow suit, forcing the electorate of Willagee into a by-election and costing upwards of $1 million (which could have been mostly saved if the Fremantle and Willagee elections had been held at the same time, but never mind…). But back on to his time as top dog.

Carpenter took the top seat from Gallop in January 2006 after he stepped down for medical reasons. Since then, Carpenter’s often controversial policies and decisions have landed him in hot water on numerous occasions; something I don’t think he quite recovered from. Despite his arrogant demeanour, and his often too brutal honesty, I think perhaps in the back of his mind he knew he was never elected, and therefore it undermined his inner-confidence. The seat was Gallop's, he won it and Carpenter would always be second; he was thrown into a position he probably wasn’t equipped to deal with. Rebecca Carmody (Sunday Times; 27/9) reported that even though he seemed over-confident, his hands were always shaking (although it too could be premature senility), which would seem unusual as he was a journo by-trade, and an MP for 5 years prior to his Premiership. A well-seasoned parliamentarian such as himself should have no reason to be physically nervous. But, moving on.

I will start with the best before I hit the worst; Carps had made some excellent advances in education, with the raising of the school-leaving age to year 11 and 12, as well as the initiation of the Pluto gas project, creating billions of dollars worth of revenue for the state. He rarely succumbed to petty politics (forcing a Labor-authorised site focussing on Buswell’s past indiscretions off the web as just one example), and tried to keep the post as honest as possible. His focus was always on education, putting in place policies to ensure every child was educated, including the Indigenous. His attempts to keep the post respectable included aiding in the establishment of the CCC [Crime and Corruption Commission], which ironically enough aided in, if not caused his downfall.

But that’s where the buck stops. After an embarrassing defeat at the early election he had called to “clear the air” he wisely stepped down as party leader, returning to the embarrassing position of backbencher, forced to face the demons of his failures every time the Assembly sat. His arrogance and belief in his own decisive superiority in the end, pretty much caused his defeat. His decision to lift the ban on parliamentarians from dealing with disgraced former pollie Brian Burke was ill-advised by his staff, and the consequences saw interference from the CCC and widespread exposure of the corruption existing in his Cabinet. He ignored warnings concerning Marlborough and D’Orazio; his attempts to push his own people into the Labor pre-selections against the wishes of his party did not go unnoticed by the press or the public. But perhaps worse of all, throughout boom-time in WA where the state saw revenues in the $Billions, taxes still increased and the people saw so little of their hard work. The government was mismanaged, corrupt, and in disgrace. When Carps called the election early to start a-fresh with a clean slate, he failed to see past his own advisers who told him what he wanted to hear, that Labor was a sure-fire win. He ignored party advice, and instead surrounded himself by people who wouldn’t rival him or express honest opinion. The rabble which at the time was the Liberal Party pulled off a far more effective election campaign ending in a dramatic, yet not entirely unforseen victory. Carps knew the Nationals would never side with the Labor, and his attempts to sway them to a coalition were weak and with little conviction. He knew his race was run, and stepped down in favour of his deputy, Eric Ripper. Good on him though, for turning down the Parliamentary Pension, saving the state about $5 Million.

On a more personal level, if he taught me anything, it would be that Politicians aren’t the Hollywood superstars I saw them as (seriously, I really did and in many respects still do), and despite the fact that you may have severely mishandled your position and mangled your pride, you still have to suck it up and get back to work. People forget the past rather quickly (creating an “Oh-yeah” effect; someone tells you Kevin Rudd went to a strip club, and you would more than likely respond with “Oh yeah, I remember that” and shortly forget it once more) and you can’t set store on what happened, or what you should have done differently. I couldn’t possibly imagine the humiliation he suffered when he returned to Parliament utterly disgraced by his own party, sitting behind the leader he despises so much, and across from the Premier he resents. Don’t get me wrong, I have no sympathy for his loss, his bad decisions, or the way he mishandled his position, but I do feel a touch of pity when I look down on the Assembly floor, and find him looking back at me in the Gallery rather than caring what his colleagues are debating.

So it didn’t come as a surprise to me that, the day after I last saw him half-heartedly debate amendments to a bill for Racing and Gaming, that he decided to step down to “disappear into the great ocean of humanity” and live life privately. The only reason I write this, is because despite how very little I knew him, he struck me as being prevalently legit, unlike most careerists you see on the 6pm news. I may take the mickey out of him (constantly), like most critics would but in the end, when you are dealing with a living, breathing human and not merely a name on page four of the Australian, you have to assess their person before you assess their portfolio.

He’s not of my party, but he will always have my respect.

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