James Button - Speechless

A t the age of ten I ran for election to the Swan Hill Excursion Committee of Hawthorn West Primary School in Melbourne. I was keen to get on this committee. The students voted; Miss OMara counted the papers. Of thirty students, I got thirty votes. That was my downfall.

Miss OMara turned to me, her voice very cold: You voted for yourself, didnt you?

Yes, I piped, I did.

You ought to be ashamed of yourself, she said. Youre off the committee. Go to the back of the room.

I took a desk in the corner and buried my hot face in a book. I was ashamed all right, humiliated. But I was also bewildered. If it was fine to want to be on the committee, why was it wrong to vote to make it happen? Would Gough Whitlam not vote for himself for PM? I came from a political family. I knew the deal. To get ahead, you had to get the numbers.

A year later my parents sent me to a private school, Melbourne Grammar, where many boys had metal smiles and all called me Button. It was a jolt at first, but my young teacher, Steven Shann, was perhaps the most inspiring I ever had. He threw out regular lessons and turned the classroom into a miniature city, with a newspaper, law courts, businesses, a stock exchange, political parties and a parliament that debated issues of the day. I was editor of the 6-S Weekly, my first job in journalism. I was also a judge, and Leader of the Opposition. But it wasnt enough for me.

Elections for Prime Minister were held every two weeks. Near the end of the year, I noted with alarm that only one election remained. My window was closing. I moved a motion in Parliament that two elections be held in the last two weeksto give more kids a go at being PM, I said.

The MPs were not fooled. One told Parliament: Buttons only doing this so he can be Prime Minister.

Nothing of the sort, I protested.

It was everything of the sort. My motion failed. In the election the students smelt a candidate who was a little too hungry for the job, and voted for the other guy. I came second. My political career was over. I was eleven years old.

*

Thirty-six years later, in December 2008, I got a phone call. The measured, authoritative, friendly voice belonged to Terry Moran, head of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (or PM&C). Moran had a public servants delicacy but his drift was clear: the Prime Ministers speeches were not going well. Moran said he needed a writer to work with him to help him simplify and lift his prose. He also needed someone to help him shape his narrative and that of the government. A clear writer, engaged with politics and policy, capable of elegant prose and, ideally, with a sense of humour. I dont know how you are with humour, Moran said.

I didnt know either. I didnt know the first thing about speechwriting. For twenty-three years I had been a journalist. Morans unexpected offer was both troubling and tempting.

I havent read your book, Moran continued.

Thats because I havent written it, I said, embarrassed. For three years I had been Europe correspondent for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. Now I was fiddling with a book based on the London bombings, the French riots, the Danish cartoons and other events I had reported on that raised questions about immigration, national identity and the place of Islam in the West. I knew something about these subjects but to make the book more topical I was trying to relate them to Australia, without much success.

I was also reluctant to go back to my old job at The Age. I didnt want to be another ex-correspondent on the features desk, pining for the glory days overseas. Morans call came at the right time.

But why was I right for the job? The worlds of journalism and politics are so interconnected and intimate, yet so far apart. I felt Moran probing for a bridge, too, when he said: I think the Prime Minister might find a pleasing symmetry in your working for him.

I assumed he was referring to my father, John Button, who had been Industry Minister in the governments of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. Would Rudd really care about that, I wondered. He had not come to my fathers state funeral in April. This had been interpreted in the media as evidence that Rudd was not a true Labor figure, as this had been a true Labor event. But neither I nor anyone in my immediate family had really minded. He had only known my dad a little.