Bishop bows out with panache
FOR much of her 20 years in parliament, Julie Bishop was mentioned as a good chance to one day be leader of the Liberal Party.
But when, in August last year, she finally stood for the job she had coveted for so long, she mustered only 11 votes, despite polls consistently showing her to be the most popular minister in the government.
But though many of her colleagues would have preferred that she, rather than Scott Morrison, take over from Malcolm Turnbull, they baulked at voting for her, in part because they were convinced she would not win but also because they knew the Right would never accept her as leader.
Bishop’s emergence as the rock-star glamour foreign affairs minister of the Abbott and Turnbull governments was a redemption story that began shortly after she spent five miserable months as shadow treasurer during the heyday of Kevin Rudd’s ascendancy.
Elected deputy after the defeat of the Howard government — in which she was education minister — Bishop’s performance was nowhere as bad as her internal critics, some of whom coveted her job, claimed.
The shadow foreign affairs role proved far more congenial and within months of being appointed to the job she had managed to create a popular public persona that never waned.
With the election of the Abbott government, Bishop really came into her own.
Always immaculately turned out, she became a fixture at A-list events around the globe, from the G’Day LA jamboree, to the Portsea polo and her December appearance at Karl Stefanovic and Jasmine Yarbrough’s Studio 54-themed wedding party in Cabo, Mexico, where she danced wildly to Sister Sledge’s We Are Family.
Try as it might, Labor never laid a glove on her. In spite, or perhaps because, of her obvious love of the highlife, she remained popular.
And despite some missteps in foreign affairs — such as publicly saying she would find it hard to work with Jacinda Ardern during the Barnaby Joyce citizenship affair and donning a headscarf for the Mullahs in Tehran — Bishop was a success in the job.
The moment for which she probably will be remembered was when she denounced Russia at the United Nations after it used its veto to block a Security Council resolution that would have set up a criminal investigation into the shooting down over Ukraine of Malaysian Airlines MH17.
“The recital of discredited contentions and the anticipated excuses and obfuscation by the Russian Federation should be treated with the utmost disdain,” Bishop said, going on to say “the exercise of the veto today is an affront to the memory of the 298 victims of MH17 and their families and friends”.
Other notable moments from Bishop’s time in the job included her determined but ultimately unsuccessful efforts to save the Bali Nine drug smugglers Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan from an Indonesian firing squad, and her speech in Singapore in which she called on China to evolve towards democracy and the rule of law.
For most MPs this would have been more than enough highlights for a career in federal parliament, but the suspicion remains Bishop had eyes on the very top job. This was partly due to the fact that as deputy leader of her party for almost 11 years, Bishop was always going to be mentioned as a contender.
But it was also because of her evident popularity with the public and the fact she was a moderate alternative in a government dominated by conservatives, many of whom had a barely concealed loathing of her, in part because they believed her to be a prodigious leaker.
That she was passed over for leader in favour Brendan Nelson, Malcolm Turnbull, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull again and, finally, Scott Morrison must rankle. But by the time she finally put her hand up for those 11 votes there was a feeling her time had passed.
Earlier in her stint as deputy, Bishop had been assiduous in cultivating backbenchers, travelling the country to attend fundraisers for anyone who asked for her help. But by last year this was a distant memory and the gossip among colleagues was she had “checked out”. Her exit was done with panache. Shortly after Question Time finished she rose to her feet to announce she would not be recontesting her seat of Curtin. When she had finished, Morrison and Bill Shorten rose to offer their tributes but Bishop had already left the chamber.