I worked as a political staffer for the Labor Party, on and off, from December 1994 to August 2009.

In 2009, when I was leaving for the last time, I sent an All Staff email to the staffers I was leaving behind. It was a slightly nostalgic attempt to explain why political work mattered. And still matters.

The email was leaked to VEXNEWS and was run in full. And, later, I wrote a book about those years, Catch and Kill, which goes into the subject in more detail and depth.

Still, with another State Election approaching, I thought I should republished that email from 2009.

Here it is.

Friends, Victorians, Colleagues:

After more than five years writing speeches for the Premier, more than three years emceeing media stunts for the Attorney-General, and just shy of a year press sec-ing for a State Opposition (hands up who remembers the key message from 1995: ‘They’ve gone too far, there’s a better way forward’?) erroneously written off as unelectable (hands up who cringes when they hear the same said about the current Opposition?) – after all that, I have decided to hang up my political boots for the second time.

To be brief (and, to be warned, this is not a brief email), I’m leaving.

My last day will be this Friday, August 28. My last speech will be for the Premier’s Literary Awards dinner, on Tuesday, August 1. My last drinks will be from around 6pm on Friday the 28th at the Cricketer’s Arms on Spring Street.

I’m not one for sentiment (if you see me walking around with a watery eye it’s because my eldest daughter gave me conjunctivitis last week) so let me cut to the chase:

Serving in the Opposition Leader’s and Premier’s office for the likes of John Brumby, Steve Bracks and Rob Hulls—not to mention the innumerable Shadow Ministers and Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries I’ve had the pleasure to work with over the years, especially Keith Hamilton—has been a privilege.

I won’t bore you with my personal highlight-reel in its entirety from the past 14 years (with a six year sabbatical in San Francisco thrown in), but I will leave you with some impressions.

I was hired as press sec for the then-Opposition Leader, John Brumby, in December 1994. The COS was Rob Hulls (who even then, sitting in a broom closet up the hall, hardly needing a telephone to make himself heard to all and sundry), the media director was Mark Madden (who pretty much taught me how to be a political advisor), and the other half of the ‘media unit’ was Aileen Muldoon (who pretty much taught me how to be a media advisor). It was a talented office, populated by the likes of Julie Ligeti, Kim McGrath, Bruce Cohen, Lachlan McDonald, James McGarvey, Joe Burke and Phil Reed.

My baptism of fire involved being told to get a haircut by the COS, being accused of Yuppiedom by the Leader for wearing a baseball cap, and being tossed into a car driven by the aptly-named ‘Road Rage’ Ronnie and hauled up to Swan Hill to be shown what real life was like beyond Brunswick Street (the Leader didn’t seem to realise I’d grown up in Mooroopna). Ronnie, for the uninitiated, was the kind of person who abused a blind bloke for whacking the Statesman with his cane. By the time I’d returned from Swan Hill, I knew I’d fallen in with the right band of bleeding hearts, bullet heads and bullshit artists.

My favourite moment in Opposition was crashing a Kennett Cabinet meeting with Peter Batchelor. This was when Kennett was ensconced in 55 Collins Street while 1 Treasury was being spruced up and Cabinet was meeting on the 46th floor, in the Latrobe Room, and discussing the contracts for CityLink.

Peter called a media conference outside the entrance of 55 Collins, told the journos the Kennett Cabinet was making a big mistake and needed to make a fully informed decision and that he had the necessary information (cue Peter to brandish a bundle of papers that contained the collected works of Enid Blyton for all I knew). Peter then talked his way past three sets of security guards, walked into the Cabinet Room, which had maps of the CityLink route plastered on the wall, and marched up the front and delivered a short, sharp, passionate speech to the assembled Ministers.

Peter then presented Cabinet with his document, caught a lift back down to the waiting journos outside 55 Collins and gave an encore media conference.

Another favourite moment: visiting Keith Hamilton in his Ministerial office—formerly the digs of the Leader of the Nationals, Pat McNamara. The office had been renovated before the 1999 election. It was larger and more palatial than the Premier’s, with new fittings and even a remote control for raising and lowering the curtains and a sweet view of east Melbourne (a traditional nesting place for Nat MPs). Keith let me play with the remote control for the curtains, and remarked drolly that, judging by the fit-out, Pat wasn’t planning to leave when he did.

My favourite moment as Rob Hulls press sec is hard to settle on, because there were just so many truly unforgettable episodes.

It could be when Rob derailed a Standing Committee of Attorneys General meeting in Darwin by demanding—in front of the assembled AGs and bureaucrats—that the then-Chief Minister of the NT, Denis Burke, stand aside because he’d been charged with contempt of court. You should have seen the look on Burke’s face.

Or it could be the time when, to promote a new gumboot factory, Rob (don’t ask me where his ideas come from) decided to dance in gumboots with the Tony Bartuccio dancers. Rob’s performance was hardly Dancing With the Stars—more like liturgical gumboot dancing, really—but he drummed up TV coverage to promote the new factory.

But, for me, it has to be the time when—after knocking back my idea to promote Boat Week by being winched out of Port Phillip Bay (in the dead of winter) by a helicopter—Rob decided to go winter water skiing on the Bay instead. The water was Arctic. Rob jumped in, strapped on the skis, tried to get up and fell over, tried again and—against all the odds—somehow managed to get out of the water and wave to the assembled cameras and smile through gritted teeth, although he did have to resort to a hobbled silly-walk back to the car afterwards because he’d torn both hamstrings on the first failed attempt to get out of the water.

Moments in speechwriting are harder to lock in—the job being more about sitting down and reading and chewing a pencil and scratching your head, than riding side-saddle in the Ministerial Cadillac. Perhaps that’s why speechwriting, despite being one of the oldest professions in the world (politics and prostitution are older), is so misunderstood by non-combatants.

As an aside, being asked to write poems to commemorate the Kerang rail disaster and Black Saturday stand out as moments outside of speechwriting, and are important because I believe strongly that the arts can and should play a far greater role in public affairs—and I want to give kudos to Lynne Kosky for seeing the potential for the arts in the public sphere.

If pushed, though, three speechwriting-specific moments come to mind.

No. 3. is the ‘conflagration’ effect. To explain, Steve was (contrary to the opinion of some) an excellent public speaker because of his ability to be himself—easier said than done—when he was in front of an audience or a TV camera. Writing for Steve, I’d try to strip down his speeches as much as possible—with plain language and direct sentence structures—so that there was nothing in the way of him being Steve when he stood up and spoke.

Every so often, though, I couldn’t help myself and would slip in the odd verbal chicane. Take November 17, 2005. The Legislative Assembly was sitting in Costa Hall at Deakin Uni in Geelong, and the Premier was slated to deliver a Ministerial Statement on Democracy. I decided to pull out a few fifty cent words for the occasion and wrote the following sentence about Victoria’s first Premier, the conservative squatter William Haines:

‘William Haines can also lay claim to being a lead player in our State’s first constitutional conflagration—as well as our Parliament’s first political crisis.’

For some reason—despite knowing that the alliterative conjunction constitutional conflagration had the potential to cause an oratorical pileup—I grew possessive about that sentence and submitted it for the Premier’s consideration. I was unable to go to Geelong to hear the speech, but my then-COS, Tim Pallas, did, and, when he arrived back, made a beeline for me and, very gently, said, ‘Mate, just wanted you to know that the Premier gave conflagration a red hot go.’ I never used the word again. Although, when Tim became an MP I drafted a speech for him and ensured ‘conflagration’ reared its ugly head (unlike Steve, Tim didn’t give the word a red hot go.)

No. 2 is the ‘bricks and mortar’ commitment. In 1992, during the last days of the Kirner Government, Adrian Rollins (now of the Fin Review) and I were writing departmental media releases and speeches for the Health Minister, Maureen Lyster. To spice up the 9-to-5 life of the then-public service (our director used to put a pillow on his desk and go beddie-byes every lunchtime), Adrian and I started seeing how many times we could get the Minister to say clichés like ‘bricks and mortar’ into our speeches, with extra points being given if that cliché was reported in the media. To cut a long story short, I was winning until Adrian wrote a draft speech for the Premier’s speechwriter about the decision to build a hospital in Werribee.

Obviously, the speech was cut-and-pasted and given to Joan Kirner without much thought, because, that night on the telly, she uttered the line (and I paraphrase), this hospital will demonstrate in bricks and mortar our Government’s commitment to healthcare. The competition ended after that.

(And, call it fear of speech karma, but, since becoming the Premier’s speechwriter, I’ve never quite been able to trust departmental speaking notes as a consequence.)

No. 1 was being in the bull pen during the 2006 campaign, with the apex being the campaign launch in Ballarat and the key line, for me, being:

‘Nations are not monuments. They are not made of stone. They are works-in-progress made—and remade—each and every generation out of the hard work and hope of our men and women.’

There’s nothing quite like the manic, addictive pressure of a campaign.

So far as my favourite Steve Bracks moment, I come back to two:

First, press sec-ing Steve’s first media conference as a Shadow Minister for Finance. Steve politely listened to the advice of all and sundry about what attack lines he should deliver, nodded and said thank you, then walked out and was himself—calm and considered, reasoned and reasonable, and utterly believable. That quiet confidence was the secret of Steve’s success.

Second, watching from the front row during the 2006 campaign as Steve, quietly and calmly, with the minimum fuss and maximum focus, went about the business of preparing for big moments like the opening speech, debate, and the campaign launch. Steve may have had some luck as Leader—name me a successful politician who hasn’t had good fortune—but his success was in no way accidental.

So far as my favourite John Brumby moment, I have two I’m prepared to share:

First, is the time I spent as his press sec during the dark days of Opposition (believe me, they were bleak). I cannot begin to tell you how much I learned from John about strength of character, endurance, and sheer bloody mindedness. JB was, in my mind, more like AB—the Alan Border of the Victorian ALP. He built the Parliamentary Party into a hardworking team focused on winning back the Ashes. (Ricky Ponting take note.)

Second, was seeing John become Premier in 2007 (as an aside, the unexpected resignations of Steve and John Thwaites were undeniably classy and unselfish and said volumes about the maturity and depth of the Government’s leadership group). As surprised and saddened as I was by Steve’s departure, though, my underlying feeling was that, for once, political justice had been served, because if ever there was a person who deserved the opportunity it was John Brumby. Likewise, if ever there was a person who was going to not just be leader, but do something with the leadership, it was going to be—and has been—John Brumby.

I was hoping the lead up to 2010 campaign would become another favourite moment with JB, but it was not to be. All of which begs the question: Why am I leaving?

Seeing as you’ve read this far I’ll tell you. My wife, Kirsten, has taken up a job running the National Disability Alliance, which is aiming to get a no-fault insurance scheme for Australians who are born with or acquire a disability. Given the fact that our eldest child, Sophie, has Down Syndrome, and knowing that the escalating need for disability services will overwhelm the capacities of Treasuries across the Federation unless there is national reform, I’m keen to give that project every chance to succeed.

That means taking more responsibility for the care of our three children for at least the next 12 months.

Instead of writing for the Premier, I’ll be working part-time as a corporate speechwriter, polishing a few novels that are on their way to publication (and, yes, one of them is about a speechwriter), and finishing a short book about how I came to go from a child of the DLP to a Young Liberal to a member of the ALP’s bleeding hearts club. I’ll be keeping busy, in other words.

Leaving has been a hard call, but the right call.

I will miss it.

I will miss writing for the Premier. I will miss working with people such as my speechwriting colleagues, past and present, the unflappable Kris Gough, the unsinkable Sarah Dolan, and the incorrigible Stephen Smyth. I will miss working in the same office as my big brother, Tim. I will miss the Arthur Boyd painting outside the Media Room. I will miss the Parliamentary Library.

I will miss making a contribution, I suppose.

Of the people to thank there are so many that I risk offending those I leave out. Let me, then, confine myself to the people I have worked for directly. My Leaders and acting Leaders and Ministers, particularly: John Brumby, Steve Bracks, Rob Hulls, John Thwaites, Keith Hamilton, Lynne Kosky and Tim Holding. My chiefs of staff: Rob Hulls, Tim Pallas, Geoff Walsh, and Dan O’Brien. My media directors: Mark Madden, Sharon McCrohan and George Svigos. And my former colleague and ever-industrious local MP: Brian Tee.

And, last but not least, my fellow speechwriters: Sarah Dolan, Stephen Smyth and Kris Gough.

With all due respect to all others mentioned above, let me reiterate my thanks to Sarah and Stephen, with whom I have worked so closely over the past five years. Sarah, I am yet to unlock the deeper meaning contained within your swim time splits; Stephen, Ricky Ponting and Viv Richards may have had the genius to get away with playing across their front pad, but not even Viv could (and not even Ricky shall) get away with such unorthodoxy once they were the wrong side of thirty-five.

Let me leave you with a thought.

I’ve always considered my office to be a bus stop. Why, you ask? Simple: I am not part of the civil service. I am not permanent. I am here today, but someday soon I will be gone and someone else (maybe Ted Baillieu’s speechwriter) will be sitting at my desk looking out the side window at the back of the Old Treasury Building while the flashes go off intermittently inside the Registry Office, signifying the forging of a new union.

In other words, the time at our disposal is finite.

Governments—unlike the timeless eternity of the public service—have limited life spans and need to behave accordingly: agitating for progress, focusing on defining issues and moments, and realising that, although politics may be, as Bismarck said, the art of the possible, that does not mean, as Havel pointed out, that we should stop striving for the impossible.

Do your best.

Joel Deane