www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/21/1069027321297.html
Email to a friend Marginal seat report: HUGHES Hammondville in Hughes, in Sydney's deep south, was born in the depression, when desperate men scavenged for food in the bins outside Paddy's Market in inner city Sydney and bought dog meat for stews to feed their families. The government wanted to clear inner city streets, and so did an Anglican called Cannon Hammond. Big companies gave him 100 pounds each and he built tiny wooden houses in the bush- three unlined rooms and an outdoor loo. To get into a house, you had to have been evicted and to have at least three children. The latter meant you got child endowment, and that gave you the income to pay a portion towards the home. Holdsworthy airbase is close by, and when World War 11 hit, everyone in Hammondville got work. Many of those homes still stand, although houses have been demolished to build small clusters of medium density houses. His parent migrated from England when he was five, They broke up during World War 1, and Mr Hall went from orphanage to reform school. His mother taught him to read and write when she and her husband worked on stations as cook and farm hand. He became a revolutionary (he has a picture of Lenin on his bedroom wall) and through communist circles in Sydney, developed a taste for books and classical music. He sold his Hammondville home for $125,000 when his wife died, and financed the purchase of a small brick "villa" in the suburb worth $152,000 by selling his books and his collection of 78 records. He lives with and cares for his daughter Shirley, who is intellectually handicapped. I met him because a little while ago he phoned his local member, Liberal MP Danna Vale. His daughter was on the disability pension and received extra money for attending a sheltered workshop. When she was moved onto the aged pension the the extra money stopped. Mr Hall wanted to know why, but warned Vale, "I'm an old commie, love, I won't vote for you". Shirley had not gone to sheltered workshop for some years, so in theory she was liable to pay back money. Still, the money saved to government by Mr Hall caring for his daughter at home was much greater than a sheltered workshop allowance. If Shirley said she wanted to resume workshop duties the extra would resume. Alternatively, Shirley could start paying rent to her father, and receive a rent allowance, which was greater than the workshop allowance. Vale drove to Hammondville yesterday afternoon, buying cakes on the way for Shirley. Mr Hall settled into his chair and spoke of the depression, and politics, and his life. It was all documented, he said, and showed us his depression dole card. He showed her a book of his poetry printed by the church. He gave her his poem on Hammondville, now in the local museum: Old Cottages in the street Neighbours of the old gum trees Close by, the modern flats Try to outdo their neighbours old. The dogs of war are barking now Anxious days for mum and the kids * But the years roll and it's peace again. "If there is Light in the soul, there will be beauty in the person. If there is beauty in the person, There will be harmony in the house, If there is harmony in the house, There will be order in the nation. If there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world." "When an old society is pregnant with a new one, force will be the midwife of progress." After nearly two hours of talk, Vale raised the pension issue. She learnt nothing and she hard to travel rain and shine. When my wife died, the social security suggested she stop going, and look after me a little bit." Danna Vale became a juvenile justice lawyer after raising her four children and joined the Liberal Party when John Hewson lost the unloseable election in 1993. She urged two local men to stand for Hughes, then considered a safe Labor seat. They refused, and she says she woke up one morning convinced that God wanted her to stand. She began doorknocking eight months before the 1996 election without financial support from the Party. In 1998 she was the only sitting Liberal in Australia to record a positive swing when she beat former ABC chief David Hill. She has framed a letter of congratulations from John Howard after her success and it hangs in her office. Above that letter is a letter from Malcolm Fraser dated April 5, 2000, after she stood up in the partyroom to denounce John Howard's decision not to overturn the Northern Territory's mandatory sentencing laws. It reads: "I want to congratulate you for the role you have played in recent days and especially for the events of yesterday. It is always hard where there are a few who have a particular view which they hold very strongly but which runs counter to the stated position of government. The fact that you have stood up and been able to influence the future direction of government policy is enormously important. The Party, in my memory, has never denied the capacity of an individual to follow his or her conscience in matters which the particular member believes to be important. I am delighted to see that the Party's liberal conscience has been stirred, and seems to be alive and well. I wish you all good fortune in pursuing the issues to an appropriate and proper conclusion." Vale is a gushing fan of John Howard's, and refers to Fraser as "a socialist Prime Minister". Yet in the party room after the suicide of Johnno, she told colleagues her son had been charged over a minor property offence, had got away with a warning, and was now a decent citizen. Howard stood firm, and Vale then wrote a letter to Howard and every member of his Cabinet.
page 3 Howard called her into his office where they talked for more than an hour, She would not back down. The next day, in the party room, Howard asked who would cross the floor to support a bill sponsored by Labor and independent MP Peter Andren to overturn the NT law. Only three Liberals indicated they would exercise a conscience vote, including Vale. Howard had won, except that Vale's crossing would have diminished all those who did not. Vale offered to back down in exchange for cash for diversionary programs, a juvenile justice protocol, interpreter services and federal government oversight. If she had got nothing, she would have resigned from the Liberal Party. As she explained to Howard in that one-on-one meeting when he asked why she was so determined, she didn't want to regret not trying everything to make a difference. "I believe it's a spiritual journey, not a political journey," she said. She told me at the time that she felt like a mother to those kids in the Northern Territory. She told me yesterday that after caring for her four sons full time, now she cared for the 88,000 voters of Hughes. Policy ideas are starting to trickle in but I'll save those for tomorrow. Today, Mike Wall, Andrew Cave and Stephen Clarke say I'm wrong to expect policy from Beazley. Robert Lawton says no-one wants policy any more and Tim Roxburgh gets angry about it. Hamish Forde says it doesn't matter because the Greens will come to the rescue. MIKE WALL Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Howard use this same policy in 1996 when he defeated Keating? Weren't we looking for policies from the Libs then and none came until the election? Why the criticism of Labor for lack of vision when they are following Lib strategy? Doesn't it mean that they are not necessarily out of ideas but just not giving the government a target to swing at? It would be beautiful to see Labor with the answer to all that ails us but as you have suggested noone has the answers and it is out of their hands anyway. ANDREW CAVE, Kuraby Q Your correspondents are being rather too hard on Mr Beazley for not presenting a viable policy alternative to the current government. John Howard campaigning on a the GST (which was really a very thin policy base for choosing a government) relied on just how much Keating was still hated in many parts of the country. Against that John Hewson was ripped to shreds for releasing his policies so early. I don't imagine any political party has missed the significance of that. Labor will not release policies until much closer to the election because it is fea...
|
http://csua.com/feed/