CHARLES WOOLEY

For independent candidate for the seat of Braddon, Craig Garland, a bit of mud-slinging could do wonders

Today I ask you a not-so-simple political question about the byelection in a faraway electorate. Who really is the bad’un in Braddon?

“Eric has aided and ‘abetzed’ me,” joked Craig Garland, the colourful and hairy independent candidate for Braddon in Tasmania’s North-West. “I’ve had a massive swell of support from all over the coast. I’ve knocked around here all my life in sport, on the waterfront and in the fishing industry and people are saying, ‘Mate, Eric Abetz is doing you no harm.’ ” On the contrary, as Garland, who is campaigning on fishing and forestry, told me this week, “In fact Eric’s doing me a lot of good. So, perhaps I should thank him.”

”Garbo” as he is called on the coast was always a well-known local character but is possibly now even better known thanks to the intervention of the Tasmanian Liberal Senator Eric Abetz. The ever-controversial senator dredged up a 24-year-old assault conviction against Garland to question what he called “his character and potential suitability to sit in Parliament”. If you keep up with current affairs, you might be as surprised as I am that “character and suitability” were ever considered a necessary passport to politics.

The matter Abetz refers to occurred one night back in 1993 at the Eureka Hotel in Geelong. There was an affray between some off-duty coppers and Garland and his mate, a talented Geelong footballer. In court, Garland said there was no indication that those involved were police. A scuffle in the street outside the pub with the off-duty officers resulted in a policewoman receiving a broken wrist, which Garland to this day insists happened when she accidentally fell over. He maintains that he was overwhelmed by a number of men and knocked out and, when he came to, he was under arrest.

Of course it is always regrettable when anyone is hurt in such altercations and in the event a conviction was recorded after Garland plea-bargained guilty to one charge over the fracas. No jail time was served. It was a small town matter and got little reportage until now. Back in 1993, perhaps it might have made a good 60 Minutes story. Off-duty coppers, in my experience, drink at least as much as anyone else but, when it comes to the cold sober light of dawn and the courtroom, it becomes a private citizen’s word against the police and Joe Blow is almost bound to go down. A salutary tale perhaps?

Opinion polling this week in Braddon gave Labor 40 per cent and the Liberals 44 per cent of the vote. Such is the nature of the preferential voting system either Labor’s Justine Keay or the Liberal Party’s Brett Whiteley will succeed only in the shoes of the fisherman Craig Garland, who is expected to win between 7 and 10 per cent of the vote. Most of Garland’s preferences won’t go Liberal, especially now that Eric Abetz’s intervention has inevitably reminded everyone of Mr Whiteley’s own unhappy brush with the law. Back in 2002 Whiteley pleaded guilty to breaching the Electoral Act by distributing 3000 how-tovote cards using the names of fellow Liberals without their consent. It was a serious transgression and almost as murky as a late-night pub brawl but without the mitigating factor of alcohol to blame.

Whiteley admitted in court he had made an error of judgment in the heat of an election campaign. Unlike in Garland’s case, no conviction was recorded and he got a 12month good behaviour bond. The Liberal Party fined him $5000. Probably most Tasmanians — even the electors of Braddon — had forgotten the details of this whole affair until Eric Abetz raised Garland’s conviction and thus reopened a different can of worms. If anyone has profited from this grubby politicking it is ironically Garland himself. “I don’t have much money for a campaign. I needed Eric’s help,” he told me.

Eric Abetz is a consummate political operator, expert at ferreting around in an opponent’s past and forensically sniffing out damaging evidence. But this skill can also generate negative publicity and might imply a sense of self-righteous implacability. Like some medieval witch-hunter, a determined senator might appear so far beyond self-doubt that the word “fanatical” comes to mind. Make no mistake; such talents are part and parcel of our democracy. Abetz is in fact exactly the kind of political attack dog (Labor also has such people) who helped create the present political culture in which talented and decent folk are loath to go into political life. After all, who in this world is completely without sin?

So, you are thinking of standing for Parliament. You have all the qualifications (which are none, so why not?). Well wait up and let’s think it through, pilgrim. Is there anything in your past you might’ve done better? Anything you are even mildly ashamed of or embarrassed about? Is there anyone rightly or wrongly aggrieved who might speak unkindly of you? Back in your student days was there an under-age drinking conviction or did you once inhale? Is there somewhere an unpaid bill or an unhappy business association? Is there a former spouse or partner who might, if coaxed, say unkind things? Have you ever been spotted out on the night of a full moon in the company of a black cat? Think twice before exposing yourself.

Attack dogs are an unavoidable part of political life, prepared to do, as my friend Graham Richardson famously put it, “whatever it takes”. Such witch-hunting warriors always do the nasty grubby work, the gouging, kicking and punching below the belt, while allowing their master’s hands to remain clean. I’ve always had a grudging admiration for Abetz and his kind. They aren’t fools and are in complete command of the Machiavellian dark arts of politics, which still underpin our democratic system. Sometimes they use their powers for the greater good but often they go too far, as I think Eric Abetz has done this past week in the land of chocolate soil, spuds and abalone.

If Malcolm Turnbull needs to win Braddon to keep his job, then Eric Abetz, who is not an ally of the PM, might well have done him great damage this week by attacking a popular fisherman called Garbo. This could turn out to be pivotal and therefore one of those times when it would have been preferable to keep the attack dog on a short leash and muzzled.