'mr Marginal' Sitting Tight In A Close Race
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday February 10, 1993
PERTH: The queue to get to see Ron Edwards is a little longer than normal, what with the Federal election and all. But one of those waiting to speak with the politician the Perth media has tagged "Mr Marginal" stands out from the rest.
The hair has turned grey but the visage is instantly recognisable as that of Graham Farmer, known everywhere to a generation of followers of Australian Rules football as Polly. The local orphan lad who went East, starred in one of the great Geelong sides of the early 1960s and who is regarded as the ruckman who changed the way Aussie Rules is played; a sort of Reg Gasnier or John Raper.
"Is Ron's seat tight?" Polly asks about the Federal electorate of Stirling, held by Mr Edwards for Labor since he won a 13 per cent swing in 1983.
"Yes, very tight," comes the response, with the added information that Mr Edwards won the last contest in 1990 by a meagre 234 votes. With a swing of just 0.2 per cent required for Stirling to fall to the Liberals on March 13, it is the most marginal seat in the country.
Polly Farmer, however, seems neither impressed nor interested in the detail. He cares little about the politics of it all and much about the sort of person involved. "I don't know about the rest but Ron is a good bloke. He deserves to win," Mr Farmer observes.
An hour is all you need with Mr Edwards to understand that the Polly Farmer analysis is the basis of Mr Edwards's survival strategy: you don't need to know about any of the rest; just know I'm a good bloke. Promote yourself but keep at arm's length from associations which might damage your standing.
He is affable, youthful for his 47 years, enthusiastic. Importantly, he allows the stranger to sense being drawn into privileged confidences.
For 5 1/2 years he has assiduously worked and reworked his electorate on the basis "Ron Edwards, your Federal MP". No mention of Labor; just the good bloke with the high visibility who was doing his best protecting the people of Stirling.
"It was very clear to me that what was happening with the party in Western Australia - the WA Inc scandals were already evident in 1988 - was a bitter pill for the electorate to swallow," Mr Edwards said yesterday. "Given that I wasn't responsible for it, I didn't see why I or my voters should swallow it.
The Labor vote in WA bottomed in the 1990 election, according to Mr Edwards. "I knew the vote was slipping out from under me and, when Hawke asked me how I was doing, I said: 'It's going badly. I've got your recession on one shoulder and Burkie's WA Inc on the other shoulder. How would you expect me to feel?' This is hard yards, mate."
Mr Edwards, who was among a handful of Federal Labor MPs who urged the Prime Minister, Mr Keating, to go early to the polls in December, says he now feels comfortable again about forthrightly associating himself with the Labor Party. "Look, I'm not kidding myself about the chances but there are some elements to be built into the Stirling picture which are significant."
He concedes he expected to lose the 1990 election. That he survived was one of the triumphs of that poll. But it further diminished his already slight margin and the figures, combined with Labor's low standing in last Saturday's WA State election, suggest Stirling this time around should fall to the Liberals.
Betting does favour the Liberal candidate, Perth radio announcer Eion Cameron. But several factors point to Stirling not being a foregone conclusion.
A transposition of State election results within the Stirling boundaries on to the Federal map suggests Labor is lagging but that the seat is recoverable, requiring a pro-Labor swing of 1 to 2 per cent.
Federal Labor probably can expect a lesser backlash from WA Inc than was inflicted on its State colleagues last Saturday and there were signs from Saturday that Labor's scare campaign on industrial relations could bite significantly in WA in a Federal campaign. So, too, could similar campaigns on the GST and Medicare. (Federal Labor, however, will be without the leadership attractions of the popular Carmen Lawrence in WA, where Mr Keating apparently is regarded poorest by voters.)
Certainly, in Stirling, Labor seems blessed with a trump in Ron Edwards, a former management consultant and lecturer in economics and industrial relations.
"In the past 10 years, I've spent 10 non-sitting days in Canberra," says the man who most likely would have been elevated from Deputy Speaker to Speaker, replacing the departed Mr Leo McLeay, had Mr Keating held off the election announcement and allowed Parliament to resume.
"I pledged from the outset not to contest any ministerial ballot because I want to give my family and my constituents first priority.
"Every day I go to a local shopping centre, just to talk to people. I never get my hair cut, except in Stirling; I never do any shopping except in Stirling."
Crucial to Edwards's survival this time will be the ongoing support of three ethnic communities - the Italians, Macedonians and Jews - within Stirling, which covers Perth's inner north from affluent beachside suburbs to low-income welfare housing.
"It takes a long time to get in but once they accept you as fair dinkum, they're all in," says Mr Edwards. "Gough and I are the only honorary members of the Macedonian community."
And, yes, Mr Whitlam will be over campaigning for Mr Edwards. Like Polly Farmer, he thinks Mr Edwards is a good bloke.
© 1993 Sydney Morning Herald
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