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Looking for sharemate9/20/2023 ![]() ![]() At branch meetings, my father argued for the dole and pension to be raised, and the retirement age to be kept at 65, budget deficit be damned. In 2010, while president of a state Labor branch, his clique of blue-collar sparkies protested Anna Bligh’s plans to privatise public assets. But those flaws produced an authentic egalitarianism. Tragically, Aussie larrikins like my dad were endangered. “Tommy was an Aussie larrikin,” said Bruce, before the speakers played Imagine by John Lennon, Dad’s favourite song. My parents met at a barbecue in their backyard. Bruce’s mum was the president of the Ipswich Women’s Mining Auxiliary. Bruce’s dad was a coalminer and second world war veteran. Why would a white-collar toff camouflage as working-class? For powerĭad’s mate Bruce was both a pallbearer and a eulogist. His nephew Allan Langer – Queensland’s beloved larrikin – was a pallbearer. That weekend, three different country rugby league teams wore black armbands to commemorate Dad’s influence. Five hundred people travelled from across the state. His funeral was at Toowoomba’s local sporting stadium. The medication the doctors gave him produced a replica of the stroke that killed his mum. Within a few days, my father – who had type 2 diabetes – suffered from kidney failure like his dad. ![]() “Labor will win jack shit without them,” he said, before delivering one of his favourite aphorisms about pubs. ![]() “You can’t win a federal majority any more just by speaking to the working class.” “The Labor party will die if it doesn’t modernise,” I said. I thought that I knew more about economics than a self-made small businessman, more about social equality than a foster carer, more about politics than someone who understood how branch meetings worked. He didn’t look or speak like the media and political class I wanted to belong to. Subconsciously, I saw parliament as a place for my classmates at UQ: well-read, PC progressives who could stick to the script. Dad left school at 13 to get a job at the Ipswich abattoir. I was flabbergasted, and not just because he was vastly overestimating my professional skillset. “You could be my campaign manager!” he said with a grin, but clearly dead serious. Dad was considering throwing his hat into the ring. Like Kim Beazley in the lead-up to the 2007 election, my father had dropped 20kg since I last saw him. ![]()
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