DOYLE’S GEELONG YEARS
ROBERT Doyle’s links to Geelong were always strong, but they are increasingly cause for concern rather than celebration.
The ex-State Opposition Leader and now-resigned Melbourne mayor was a pal of former Geelong mayor Darryn Lyons and displayed a Geelong Football Club guernsey in his Town Hall office, marking his time as the Cats’ No. 1 ticket holder for seasons 2014 and 2015.
But it was the ties of Mr Doyle — currently in hospital with stress and anxiety after a slew of allegations of sexual harassment — to Geelong College that made headlines this week.
Robert Doyle was 11 when he attended Geelong College as a student in the late 1960s.
Ambitious and bright, the scholarship student was occasionally homesick as he boarded at the prestigious school, where many welloff families send their children for an academic headstart in life.
After graduating in 1971, Mr Doyle studied law but abandoned it to become a teacher, returning to his Newtown alma mater to teach, from 1978-81, in the classrooms he had attended as a student.
It was this period that came under scrutiny this week, with revelations two students complained about teacher Mr Doyle’s “questionable behaviour” to school authorities.
The college this week revealed the complaints — made years later in 2015 to the school’s independent facilitator — had been passed on to police. Victoria Police did not proceed with a formal investigation into Mr Doyle on the grounds there was not enough information.
Mr Doyle’s time at Geelong College was to shape his adult life in other ways.
Jennifer Ramsden was a student at the time he was teaching at the college. Mr Doyle finished teaching at the school in late 1981. He and Ms Ramsden married in January 1983.
But somewhere along the line the reported timeline got fuzzy. Mr Doyle has been reported as previously saying their relationship did not begin until three years after he finished teaching at Geelong College.
The marriage lasted two decades and led to three children. As the relationship hit the rocks, a heartbroken Mr Doyle would crash at Mr Lyons’ Geelong bachelor pad.
It was during this tough time that Mr Doyle and Mr Lyons became close. “He was going through a breakup and had his children at school in Geelong and, basically, he was in a really tight spot and I opened the door to my house and said, ‘It’s yours’,” Mr Lyons has previously told the Geelong Advertiser.
Mr Doyle later supported Mr Lyons during his successful quest to become Geelong’s second popularly elected mayor in 2013.
Just weeks into his term, Mr Lyons hired Mr Doyle’s former chief of staff Alister Paterson as his own.
At the time of Mr Lyons’ dismissal as mayor by the Andrews Government, Mr Doyle said his good mate had been unfairly singled out in the drama. “These cultures become so corrosive that they affect everyone who is within them and it almost becomes normal,” Mr Doyle said at the time. “You need your friends when times are really tough, and I’m not a fairweather friend, I’m a loyal friend, so I’ll be there to help.”
After the Doyles announced their split in 2004, Mr Doyle, 58, met Emma Page-Campbell, 36, in 2005, later marrying in 2011. She is publicly standing by her man.
Part of Geelong College’s motto is sic itur ad astra meaning, “This is the way to the stars”. As inquiries hang over his head, Mr Doyle, former Geelong College student and teacher, seems to be heading in the opposite direction.