It was 36 degrees in Braidwood. The tar was melting on the Kings Highway. But a change was coming. The giant cumulonimbus clouds were building up in the west. Big splotches of rain were about to drop in callous randomness across the Monaro.
Some farms crying for it would miss out. Others, with dams full would get yet more. The great grey clouds could throw rain uselessly down the stormwater drains of Queanbeyan but leave the sheep farmers at Bombala in brown destitution. Sleet can lash the side of Kosciusko while bathers bask in the South Coast sun.
Welcome to the electorate of Eden-Monaro _ for the past 21 years Australia’s political barometer. When the Government changes, it changes.
It is the most diverse electorate in Australia: from its highest point to the coast, from the rich dairy land to the desolately named Dry Plains near Cooma. It contains one of the most sophisticated engineering companies in the world and has hippie coastal drop out. Beef, dairy, wheat, tourism, public service, fishing, canning, manufacturing _ you name, it Eden-Monaro has got it.
It has been held by the Government of the day since Bob Whan won it for Gough Whitlam in 1972. Murray Sainsbury held it for Malcolm Fraser and Jim Snow won it with Bob Hawke in 1983 and has held it ever since.
Last week, Jim Snow was standing in Braidwood’s main street in the 36-degree heat. There was an election on the horizon. Was there a change coming through?
Not at the Braidwood pub. Will Jim Snow win his seat? “”He’ll shit it in; he can have two seats,” says a local proffering two bar stools.
Not at the Braidwood Post Office. G’days all round. Everyone knows Jim Snow. Braidwood’s postmaster introduces Braidwood’s postie _ a woman, who is about to go out on her round.
“”Enjoy it before Hewson takes yer job,” he yells.
Jim stopped Braidwood Post Office being flogged off “”to a milk bar down the road,” and the staff’s gratitude will no doubt sound one election day.
“”Geez, Jim, whadabout the TV reception?” a local asks.
It is one of the damnations of the hills of Eden-Monaro that no matter how many translators are put up, the telly will blink snow (with a lower case s) for some of the people some of the time.
Jim listens patiently to an authoritative dissertation on the reception of radio, television and mobile phones on the NSW Tablelands. Jim is not taking it in. I’m quite interested in the physics and would happily spend an hour there, but there is work to be done. We leave with different assets. I have a rudimentary knowledge of the physics of the mobile-phone network and the market price for them; Jim leaves with an image of a face. And next time he sees the image of that face he will instantly recall a name and the fact that this man has an interest in telecommunications.
“”G’day Morgan. How’s the ute.”
Then he misses one. We are at the Narbethong Nursing Home.
“”Mrs Helms, how are you?”
“”I’m a singular,” she says. “”Mrs Helm”
We are introduced.
Mrs Helm is indeed singular. I suspect that she might well decide the result of the next election.
She and her 90-year-old husband espouse all of the virtues that have made Australia: hard work, saving, building a farm, leaving something solid for children and grandchildren, a strong interest in the community about them, good humour and an easy-going tolerance. They have some money. Not enough to be carefree, but enough, if well-managed, to continue their retirement in reasonable comfort. In the ordinary run of things, clearly, Liberal or National Party voters. But I suspect they like Jim Snow. And if they don’t actually vote for him, they must feel guilty not voting for him.
Mr Helm and Jim have been carrying on correspondence for some years. They don’t always agree, but they continue to correspond. Today Jim is in his good books. Mr Helm recalls that Jim got Braidwood the four-wheel-drive ambulance.
Mr Helm wrote to Jim about getting the 4WD ambulance so it could hack over farm tracks to take the infirm to hospital, and before long it appeared, whether the events were connected we might never know. Whatever, Jim was in Mr Helm’s good books.
“”You’re the only bloke who seems to get anything done,” Mr Helm says.
People like the Helms are not overlooked by the painters of the big picture. Opinion polls ask Labor vs Liberal or Keating vs Hewson, and get the answers accordingly. They don’t ask, will you be voting for Jim Snow?
Snow is a realist. He knows that the people wishing him well don’t all vote for him. What percentage vote for him, Jim Snow, despite his party not because of it.
“”Oh, about 2 per cent,” he says, feet firmly on the melting tar of Braidwood’s main street.
That’s a far cry from the egos of the front bench.
People like Mr and Mrs Helm make up that 2 per cent. This is 2 per cent. It might not seem much, but strategically placed it can decide seats like Eden-Monaro which only have 4.5 per cent give in them. And three or four Eden-Monaros is the balance of power in the House of Representatives.
Two per cent is what this election is all about. And that might not be decided on Fightback, or piggeries, or Dr Hewson’s tax arrangements, nor, indeed, the unemployment figures or the balance of payments _ but on a four-wheel-drive ambulance at Braidwood.
The four-wheel-drive ambulance is Labor’s marginal-seat policy at its best. That policy has nothing to do with Paul Keating’s “”big picture”. It is about giving a good local candidate in a marginal seat a lot of support to do what the local candidate wants, what the local candidate knows is best _ working for nursing-home funding or a better road and the thousands of electors’ whinges about television reception, a pension application, the local council or a government department
Jim Snow is proof the policy works. He has held Eden-Monaro since 1983 getting a better result than what the national figures would otherwise dictate.
Though Snow is critical to Labor’s chance of holding power, he is not a machine man. He is not in any faction. (And because of that got a better hearing under Keating than he would have done under Hawke, the more so because he is close to Canberra and can represent all the unaligned when issues come up suddenly.) He ran, and just missed out, on a ministry last time. But he is quintessentially a local member.
He has had sensible and courageous things to say about the legalisation of heroin on prescription, and might make a fist of a ministry, but if he took it would probably lose his seat at the next election.
Eden-Monaro has to be worked _ long and hard. You cannot be a minister and remember the name of a Merv or John in the Braidwood pub or correspond with Mr Helms over an ambulance.
Nor could you go into Torpy’s and chat about a heritage application. There, proprietors John and Cherylyn ÿ(correct)@ Durst are worried that Dr Hewson will rip Canberra apart. They have worked hard to build their business from a dilapidated shack over-run with brambles to a thriving restaurant. If Canberra is hacked, their business, and many like it down the Kings Highway and along the coast, will suffer. People like this are normally Coalition voters. In Eden-Monaro they prefer Labor. Do not bite the hand that feeds.
What will Snow do if he loses? No cliche about we will win.
“”I’d take two or three months to think about it (he’s 58), but I’d remain active. We had a farm for 17 years and I’ve been a pharmacist. I love this job and I’d like to continue. But I can do something else if it happens.”