Jeffrey Gibb Kennett (born 2 March 1948) is an Australian former politician who served as the 43rd Premier of Victoria between 1992 and 1999, Leader of the Victorian Liberal Party from 1982 to 1989 and from 1991 to 1999, and the Member for Burwood from 1976 to 1999. He is currently a media commentator.
Kennett was previously the president of the Hawthorn Football Club, from 2005 to 2011 and again from 2017 to 2022. He is the founding Chairman of beyondblue, a national mental health advocacy organisation.
Early life The son of Kenneth Munro Gibb Kennett (1921–2007), and Wendy Anne Kennett (1925–2006; née Fanning),Four Weddings at School Chapel: Kennett—Fanning, The Argus, (Thursday, 3 April 1947), p.6 ; Weddings Celebrated, The Age, (Thursday, 3 April 1947), p.5. he was born in Melbourne on 2 March 1948. He attended Scotch College;Nick Economou, 'Jeff Kennett: The Larrikin Metropolitan', in Paul Strangio and Brian Costar (eds), The Victorian Premiers: 1856–2006, Annandale: Federation Press, 2006, p.365. and, although an unexceptional student academically, he did well in the school's Cadet Corps Unit. He also played football (on the wing) for the school.Crawford, S., "Jeff Kennett has a few kicks before the siren", The Sunday Herald Sun, 4 September 2011. His failure to rise above the middle band academically almost led him to quit school in Fourth Form (Year 10 – 1963), but he was persuaded to stay on. His Fifth and Sixth Forms were an improvement, but he was still described in school reports as "[a] confident and at times helpful boy. Sometimes irritates. Sometimes works hard" (1964), and "[a] keen, pleasant, though sometimes erratic boy" (1965).Tony Parkinson, Jeff: The Rise and Fall of a Political Phenomenon, Ringwood: Penguin, 2000, p.19.
After leaving school, Kennett was persuaded by his father Ken to attend the Australian National University in Canberra, but lost interest and left after one year of an economics degree. He returned to Melbourne and found work in the advertising department of the retail giant Myer – kindling an interest for advertising that would one day earn him his living.Parkinson, Jef, pp.22–23.
Kennett's life in the regular workforce was cut short when, in 1968, he was conscripted into the Australian Army.Parkinson, Jef, p.24. Kennett was selected for officer training and graduated third in his class from the Officer Training Unit, Scheyville (OTU), near Windsor, New South Wales, outside Sydney. He was posted to Malaysia and Singapore as Second Lieutenant, commander of 1st Platoon, A Company, 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (1RAR).Parkinson, Jeff, pp.25, 29. This military career (and his earlier experience in the Scotch College Cadet Corps) has been noted by many biographers as an essential formative influence on the adult Kennett's character. His sense and regard for hierarchical loyalty, punctuality, and general intolerance of dissent or disobedience may be traced to this period.Economou, 'Jeff Kennett', pp.365–366.
Kennett returned to civilian life in 1970, reentering a divided Australian society, split by the Vietnam War, of which Kennett was a firm supporter. Having returned to Myer, Kennett became impatient with his work, and so with Ian Fegan and Eran Nicols, he formed his own advertising company (KNF) in June 1971.Parkinson, Jeff, p.36.
Thereafter, in December 1972, Kennett married Felicity Kellar, an old friend whom he had first met on a Number 69 tram on the long trips to school.Neales, S., "Jeff's Friend Flicka", The Good Weekend, 2 November 1996, pp.30–33. Their first son was born in 1974, followed by a daughter and two more sons.
Political career
Kennett was elected as a Liberal Member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Burwood in 1976, having had an interest in local politics since the early 1970s.Economou, 'Jeff Kennett', p.366. His preselection for the seat reportedly irritated then Premier Dick Hamer, who disliked Kennett's campaigning style, and had endorsed the sitting member, Haddon Storey. However, by 1981, Kennett was promoted to Cabinet as Minister for Housing and Minister of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs. He was one of several younger MPs whom Hamer promoted to Cabinet in a bid to renew his government. Kennett retained his post when Hamer was replaced as Liberal leader and Premier by Lindsay Thompson in June of that year. Following the defeat of the longstanding Liberal government in 1982, Kennett was the leading candidate to replace Thompson despite being the youngest member of the outgoing government. On 26 October, he was elected leader of the Liberal Party and hence Leader of the Opposition. He took an aggressive posture against the Cain government, and was often criticised for his "bull-in-a-china-shop" style and his anti-government rhetoric.Economou, 'Jeff Kennett', pp.367 & Cartoon 10 between pp.146–147.
Under his leadership, the Liberals were heavily defeated by Labor in 1985. Afterwards he faced a challenge to his leadership of the party from Ian Smith. Kennett survived, but increasingly, he was seen as an erratic and unapproachable leader. He faced two more challenges to his leadership in 1986 and 1987. In 1987, in one notable incident Kennett referred to the Federal Liberal leader John Howard as a 'cunt' in a mobile telephone conversation with Howard rival Andrew Peacock.australianpolitics.com (1995–2006) The car-phone conversation damaged both Howard and Kennett politically,'Why Peacock was axed' Sydney Morning Herald 24 March 1987 p. 1 but aided Peacock in his push to return as Federal Liberal leader (1989).Kennett-Peacock Car Phone Conversation . Retrieved 5 May 2006.
Toward the end of its second term the Cain government had lost support and the Liberals were expected to win the 1988 election. The Liberal vote indeed rebounded strongly – they won a majority of the two-party vote – however much of this margin was wasted on landslide majorities in their heartland. As a result, the Liberals took only one seat from Labor in the capital, and were left four seats short of a majority. Failing to become premier, Kennett was again criticised within his own party, and in 1989 he was deposed in favour of a little-known rural MLA, Alan Brown.
Kennett's performance during his first stint as Liberal leader is a matter of debate. Economou sees his 1985 and 1988 election campaigns as weak,Economou, 'Jeff Kennett', p.368. while Parkinson believes he was a significant asset in pushing the Labor government of John Cain in several key seats.
First term as premier Kennett publicly pledged never to attempt a return to the Liberal leadership. However, when Brown proved unable to challenge the government effectively, he allowed his supporters to call a spill in 1991. Brown realised he didn't have enough support to keep his post and resigned, allowing Kennett to retake the leadership unopposed.
With Victoria facing billions of dollars of debt, Kennett was seen as "Premier-in-waiting" from the moment he retook the leadership. Cain had resigned a year earlier in favour of Deputy Premier Joan Kirner, who was unable to regain the upper hand despite being personally more popular than Kennett. The Liberals' advantage was strengthened by an important decision taken during Brown's brief tenure as leader—negotiating a Coalition agreement with the National Party. The Liberals and Nationals have historically had a strained relationship in Victoria; they had sat separately for most of the second half of the 20th century. It had been believed that Kennett had been denied victory in 1988 due to a large number of three-cornered contests in rural seats.
The Coalition went into the October 1992 state election as unbackable favourites, having been ahead in opinion polling by large margins for almost two years. They stoked the voters' anger with a series of "Guilty Party" ads, targeting many Labor ministers and highlighting concerns in their portfolios. In the second-largest defeat that a sitting government has ever suffered in Victoria, the Coalition scored a 19-seat swing, attaining a 16-seat majority in the Legislative Assembly. The Liberals won 52 seats, enough for a majority in their own right. Nevertheless, Kennett supported his coalition partner, retaining the Nationals in his cabinet.
State school closures In the first three years of office, funding for public schools and the Department of Education was substantially reduced. 350 government schools were closed, including many Technical High School ("Tech") in Victoria, and 7,000 teaching jobs eliminated.STRUGGLE FOR A NEW PUBLIC DEMOCRACY School, Community and the State , by Tony Knight. Northland Secondary College era 1992 – 1996. The Tech School closures had a widespread, delayed effect two decades later when a skilled labour shortage in the state was declared by the government, attributable largely to the generation of children who were denied a trade-focused high school education, significantly reducing the number of school leavers commencing trade apprenticeships. The few who did so were insufficient to counterbalance the number of retiring tradespeople in the coming years. This directly resulted in the number of Skilled Migrant (subclass 190) visas being made available each year increasing to 190,000 from 2012 and an active campaign to entice migrants with trade qualifications to Victoria.
Public transport Other controversial moves included the sacking of 16,000 public transport workers in a major technological upgrade of the system, and the initiation of a major scheme for privatisation of state-owned services, including the electricity (SECV) and gas (Gas and Fuel Corporation of Victoria) utilities, the ambulance service, as well as several prisons and other minor services. The sale of the Totalisator Agency Board raised $609 million. Between 1995 and 1998, $29 billion of state assets in gas and electricity alone were sold to private enterprise (for statistics, see Parkinson, Jeff, 1999).http://www.dtf.vic.au/CA25713E0002EF43/WebObj/BP4Final/$File/BPFinal.pdf In the wake of these changes, investment and population growth slowly resumed, though unemployment was to remain above the national average for the duration of Kennett's premiership. While the benefits to the State budget figures were indisputable in the short term, the social and longer-term economic cost of the Kennett reforms have been questioned by many commentators, academics and those who suffered economically through the period of reform. This campaign of privatisations and cutbacks led to governmental acts of privatisation by splitting up Melbourne's rail (Hillside, Bayside, V/Line and West Coast Rail) and tramways (Yarra and Swanston) or budget-cutting becoming popularly known as being "Jeffed". He also cut back many regional rail services including The Vinelander (ran to Mildura, services later restored to Maryborough as a regular V/Line service in 2011) and services to Leongatha, Bairnsdale (returned in 2003), Dimboola (services later returned to Ararat in 2004).
The largest public protest in Melbourne since the Vietnam War Moratorium occurred on 10 November 1992, with an estimated 100,000 people marching in opposition to the retrenchment of many workers and the large State budget cutbacks. Kennett was undeterred by this protest, and famously commented that though there were 100,000 outside his office at Parliament that day, there were 4.5 million who stayed at home or at work.
High-profile capital works projects