I was told by Alan Griffin, in the lead-up to 2002 state pre-selections, that one section of the Right had approached him to say they would support any other Left candidate to get rid of me. Alan said he stuck by me. However, in the same conversation, Alan said he expected me to give my unstinting support to Daniel Andrews in the parliament.

The presence of my office for a period of time was a substantial influence for the Left to establish itself in Dunkley as well. By 2014, the Left had managed to win pre-selections for three southeastern seats: Cranbourne, Carrum and Frankston. When I first stood for pre-selection in 1998 for Cranbourne, the Right was dominating in all these areas.

Alan was very uncomfortable about the role Daniel Andrews had played in the Frankston pre-selection process after the selected candidate, Helen Constas, had stepped down and been replac­ed by a member of the firefighters’ union at Andrews’ insistence. Alan was worried that the pre-selection process for a Cranbourne by-election would be hijacked either by the party office or Daniel Andrews himself.

I made use of the parliamentary dinner break to talk to as many people as possible to garner support for the campaign. On one of those nights, towards the end of the dinner break, I phoned one of my supporters to talk about campaign activities. He went on a bit, talking about his grievances at his workplace. The bell rang to announce the end of the dinner break but I ignored it as, unlike in a division, you need only a few people in the chamber to make a quorum. Sometimes the bell rings for a longer time until there is a quorum present in the chamber. This night, as soon as a quorum was present, my ALP colleague, the Manager of Opposition Business, called a division on a procedural motion, expecting a tie in the vote. If that were the case, it would have put the Speaker, Christine Fyffe, a Liberal, in a difficult position. On this occasion, if the Speaker wanted to show her independence, she had to vote with the Labor Opposition, embarrassing the government, otherwise her claims of being an independent Speaker would amount to nothing. As I did not get to the chamber for the vote, the Opposition’s manager of business did not get the tied vote she was hoping for and the Opposition motion was lost.

The bell rang for three or four minutes. This was very unusual after the dinner break but I was so immersed in the conversation about campaigning work I did not realise it was the bell for a division. Christine Fyffe, the MP for Evelyn, had succeeded Ken Smith as the Speaker after rebel Frankston MP Geoff Shaw got rid of Smith. Fyffe was more cautious in the role and was trying to portray herself as an independent Speaker. The Manager of Opposition Business was very upset because she could not create a tie in the vote, challenging the Speaker and potentially embarrassing the Liberal–National government. These gimmicks are completely unnecessary and there aren’t any votes in them as the electorate doesn’t give a damn, but I accept that it was my fault for missing a division.

Andrews said that as a punitive measure he would remove me from my role as a shadow parliamentary secretary. He said he would speak to me again in the new term of parliament to discuss additional responsibilities but this never took place. There would have been a few things in play in the lead-up to his decision. Some wanted my shadow parliamentary secretary’s job; others wanted to get rid of me.

My guess is that one of the people who were interested in my parliamentary secretary position was one of the Right’s numbers people (who later left parliament in disgrace). In terms of power, the Right invariably has been superior to the Left in the party and the caucus. Therefore, I believe he had to be obliged to the Right more than if the Right had installed their own premier. My guess is his decision to take unusually strong action against me was partly due to this obligation. In similar circumstances, others have escaped with no action against them. However, in hindsight, I realised I was an easier target as I did not have powerbrokers strongly backing me.

In the new term of parliament, after Andrews became premier, there were no discussions about new responsibilities. Without suffi­cient evidence it is unfair of me to conclude that the colour of my skin may have played a part.

MPs and potential candidates for a coming election are not given polling figures. This happened in the lead-up to the 2006 election. Although Daniel Andrews was an MP, he had been the marginal seats campaign director for the previous election and I believe still had access to polling figures. One day he told me, ‘Mate, your name recognition rate is very high. It is around 45 per cent, better even than some senior members of the government in their own electorates. Constituents must be recognising you: “Yar yar, we know him, he is the black bloke”’.

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