Profile: Joan Kirner

8 COLUMNS offensive role. Kirner named the politics - no other Labor premier following as her three goals: greater can claim never to have sat on the community involvement in Opposition benches. government decision-making (what she calls 'community Kimer won preselection for her ownership'); the achievement of upper house seat in 1982 with the sustainable development while im support of the rightwing Labor proving the environment (she was Unity faction but soon after Conservation Minister in 1985-88); recanted and joined the Socialist and social justice. Left. In 1988, the Left engineered her move to the lower house; the In case you haven't worked it out plan was always for her to rise only already, Kimer is from the Left of as far as the deputy premiership, Victorian Labor. Her stated goals first to Cain and then to an inde are tinged with the aura of 60s-70s pendent, Jim Kennan. But Kennan's PROFILE tree-hugging: but really, from a leadership chances were blown by political point of view, what choice the costly transport dispute last does she have? For the sake of the January. Ironically, because the Joan Kirner Right would not enter into a joint ticket with the Left in the wake of Few of us ever actually see real Cain's resignation, Kennan has changes in public life. Sure, ended up being Kimer's deputy. politics change but we often don't notice until the change has already happened. When Joan However, ironies and anti-90s Kirner became Victoria's politicalspeak notwithstanding, premier in early August, you Kimer faces enormous difficulties. could see the change, feel it, al It is one thing to convince ministers most taste it • instantly. and union officials of the need for Until Kirner got the nod from her drastic expenditure cuts - Victoria caucus colleagues, Victorian Labor faced a $1 billion revenue shortfall was not just in a slump, or in at the end of the 1989-90 financial trouble. It was in the toilet A Saul- year - and to push them through the wick poll, conducted for The Age state budget. It is another to con only a week before John Cain vince Victorians that they will just decided to resign, showed Labor's have to live with reduced services primary vote at 22%, its vote after and higher prices for transport, preferences about 35%. cigarettes, beer, power. Clearly, under Cain, Victoria was In the final weeks of the Cain on the verge of becoming ungov government, the unions loomed as ernable. The rhetoric of sound the biggest threat. Under the management and dour determina guidance of the Trades Hall Coun tion that was Cain's stock-in-trade Labor Party, for the sake of Victoria, cil, they were organising mass resis had degenerated into a shabby joke she has to separate her administra tance to proposed government job as Victoria's economy slowed and tion as much as possible from losses. But with Kimer's elevation, the state debt rose to $25 billion. In Cain's. THC secretary John Halfpenny and many respects, however, what did the majority Left unions affiliated to Cain in was the fact that the rhetoric Kimer is 52, a former secondary the council now have a more direct of the Cain era had been dis teacher, married to a teacher, a stake in the government's fate. credited. The economic reality is mother of three grown-up children. Kimer's most daunting task is to not as bad as many Victorians, Her political involvement grew convince her union comrades that eager to feel depressed, believe. during the 70s as she became active her special style of tree-hugging can in parent associations; she served be good for them. Significantly, Kirner attempted on Whitlam's Schools Commission within moments of taking over in the mid-70s. She entered parlia from Cain to call a new rhetorical ment in 1982, a fact which makes SHAUN CARNEY is a senior political war, one in which she is playing the her a unique figure in Victorian writer for The Age. ALR: SEPTEMBER 1990.

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