Last weekend’s landslide victory for Rob Oakeshott, independent candidate for the Federal seat of Lyne on the NSW north-coast, is a warning shot across the bows of those lumbering old dreadnoughts, the major political parties. And that includes Labor.
It was a political walloping, with Oakeshott coasting across the line with 64 per cent of the primary vote, or 74 per cent on a two candidate preferred basis. “I’ve got a job!’’ he yelled when the result was announced, and I’ll bet thousands of people watching that jubilant, victory-clinching moment on the Saturday night tv news though that rebel victory yell was a more honest, heartfelt response than the usual tribal party platitudes.
But that sweet victory has been years in the making. When Oakeshott resigned from the NSW Nationals in March 2002, political commentators wrote him off as committing political suicide. “There are too many Bob Jellys in the National Party,’’ he said at the time, in a reference to the fictional sharp-practice mayor and shonky developer in the popular ABC television series, “SeaChange.’’ After almost 12 years as both Nationals and Independent state member for Port Macquarie, Oakeshott had seen the social and environmental wreckage wrought by fast-buck developers at the expense of local communities “We are stuck in a regime which can best be summarised as “by the vested interests, and for the vested interests,’’, he said earlier this year, shortly before announcing he would resign from state politics to contest the seat vacated by former National leader and Deputy Prime Minister, Mark Vaille.
Much of the analysis following his romp-home victory has focused on the loss of a seat held for more than six decades by the Nationals, and the implications for the party’s future. But it’s also a warning to the Rudd Government to pay more attention to rural Australia, the environment, the community and outcome-specific policies.
Take a mouse-click tour of Oakeshott’s campaign website and you’ll notice a very different campaign style. There’s no footy cheer-club style rhetoric about The Party, no dumbed-down sloganeering in place of policy, or weasel words about “delivering world class outcomes.’’ It’s a brisk, plain English website that respects the community’s intelligence, by offering real detail, and lots of it. Want to know about his environmental policies? Scroll down past the policy statements on transport, health, education, emergency services, and you’ll find he gets straight to the point – Port Macquarie’s environment is an economic, social and cultural asset that needs to be protected. There’s a list of specific priorities for the next five years, that range across sustainable development, heritage, habitat conservation, feral pests, climate change and community involvement. Yikes, here’s someone who’s actually given environmental matters some considered thought – maybe even consulted widely within the community, and used those consultations to shape policies.
What’s really heartening about Oakeshott’s victory (and I’ll confess to tearing-up after watching the news grab) is it shows the political tide is, at last, turning in favour of good old-fashioned community service, hopefully sweeping aside the tawdry self-serving ambitions we’ve sadly come to expect from most big-party politicians. There’s probably also a lesson here for political aspirants who believe they have to knuckle under to party pressures – often at the expense of their own beliefs and integrity – if they want to make a difference. Perhaps it might have been a different story, in terms of political influence, if a certain high profile former rock star had decided to go it alone like Rob Oakeshott.