Broadbent considered a political “veteran”
by Keith Anderson
This year marks 30 years since Member for Monash Russell Broadbent was first elected to Federal parliament.
One of the “veterans” of the parliament he is not ready, yet, to call it a day having been endorsed by the Liberal Party to contest the next election.
The only others still around from Mr Broadbent’s early days are fellow Victorian Liberal Kevin Andrews, who has held the seat of Menzies continuously after winning a bielection in 1991, a year after Mr Broadbent first entered parliament, and ALP Member for Lingiara in the Northern Territory Warren Snowdon who first sat in the House of Representatives chamber in 1987.
Mr Broadbent’s career has not been without its ups and down.
But an eight-two win/loss record at the ballot box is testimony to his overall success as a local member.
Labor’s Bob Hawke was prime minister when Mr Broadbent took up his position in the parliamentary chamber for the first time.
The tally of prime ministers during his career has now reached eight – Hawke, Paul Keating, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard from the ALP and Liberals John Howard, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison, with Keating rated by Mr Broadbent as “the most colourful and entertaining“of them.
For Mr Broadbent political “battles” have not been limited to those sitting on the opposite side of the chamber.
He mentions “wins” in the party room on a number of issues that had particular relevance to his electorate, such as disability services, drought relief for Gippsland farmers and proposed increases to the Goods and Services Tax (GST), and on a couple of occasions “stuck to his principles” and crossed the floor of the House to vote against his party’s position.
Born at Koo wee rup, Mr Broadbent has lived most of his life at Pakenham where he owned and operated a retail business until politics took over.
His drive to represent the community in which he lived first surfaced in local government, serving as a councillor on the former Pakenham Shire from 1981 to 1987 including two terms as president.
The first attempted foray into Federal politics came in 1984 when he unsuccessfully stood in the later abolished seat of Streeton that took in Pakenham.
Six years later he won the seat of Corinella for the Liberals but held it for only one term.
By 1996, after Pakenham became part of the McMillan electorate following a boundary redistribution, Mr Broadbent returned to parliament for one term before his second election defeat.
He regained McMillan in 2004 and has since been re-elected a further five times, the most recent as the Member for Monash after the electorate’s name was changed ahead of the 2019 election.