November 25, 2011
Opinion
Of the three loves of Harry Jenkins' life, the one that peaked when he made Barack Obama laugh, was - in the end - the one that ran a distant third.
Jenkins' dream was always to follow his father's footsteps and become the Speaker of the Federal Parliament. He did it so well that, according to Liberal National MP Bruce Scott, he single-handedly lifted the ratings of question time on TV.
''Wherever I travel, I find people have become avid watchers of question time and I think it is because you are in the chair,'' Scott told Jenkins yesterday.
Former Speaker Harry Jenkins is congratulated by Malcolm Turnbull. Photo: Andrew Meares
What Harry lacked in panache, he more than made up for with a kind of homely sincerity and good humour that was as authentic as it was, occasionally, awkward. It showed when he bade Obama farewell, and wished him a safe return ''to your cheese-and-kisses'' and the ''billy lids'' - and then translated his rhyming slang.
If he sometimes mangled the language, he left no one on either side of Parliament in any doubt about his impartiality from the Speaker's chair.
It helped he had a forensic knowledge of the rules of the game, honed by watching his old man, Dr Harry Jenkins, who was Speaker during Bob Hawke's first term as PM.
But, as Victorian Liberal Russell Broadbent noted in Parliament yesterday, Jenkins had two priorities that transcended his attachment to the job that delivered the big salary, the best office in the Parliament and the chance to hobnob with presidents and queens.
The first was his family and the people of Melbourne's outer north-east who elected him. The second was to what Broadbent called his ''other family'', the Australian Labor Party. It was always, opined Broadbent, bigger than his love of being Speaker.
When Jenkins told Parliament he wanted to renew his Labor connections it wasn't, as one Liberal noted, because he missed having a beer with the caucus colleagues. It was, those close to him insist, because he could see the bigger picture.
Yes, he wanted to participate in internal policy debates, having already declared his passionate support for pokie reform. And yes, he could see the potential for Peter Slipper to be recruited as his successor and for Labor to have an extra number in a hung Parliament.
What made the announcement puzzling - and invited the idea he had been either offered an inducement to leave, or threatened with retribution if he stayed put - was the notion that someone could walk away from the job they had always aspired to fill, and just when those on both sides thought he was doing a tough job well.
But Jenkins, 59, had come close to pulling the pin before, the fourth anniversary of his ascension seemed the right time to move, and most colleagues accepted his explanation as genuine. The irony, however, was not lost on many MPs.
One man has walked from the job that delivered personal glorification because he felt a higher loyalty to his party; another, having felt betrayed by his party, walked out on it when opportunity beckoned for personal glorification.
