Despite often treating sportspeople uncritically as celebrities for their on-field achievements, Australians are ambivalent about their place in public life.
The reaction of former Howard government minister Peter Reith to the defection from the Palmer United Party (PUP) of Senator Glenn Lazarus, the former champion Canberra Raiders rugby league forward, provides a good example of such ambivalence.
Reith launched an unfair personal attack on Lazarus as a 'dud from the start' and someone unsuited to and unworthy of political life, going on to say that:
The broader lesson from the saga is that a candidate for Parliament should not be promoted simply because he or she was good at sport, like Lazarus, a former rugby league player. It happens, but, fortunately, not too often.
Reith's broader lesson is meaningless because it applies to any occupation, even if, couched in such a simplistic way, he may have a point. No one should be promoted to Parliament simply because of professional success. Every occupation has something to offer; it is the whole person which should be judged for their suitability.
Sporting people, amateur and professional, have a long history in political life in Australia. In A Federal Legislature, Professor Joan Rydon showed how there were many well-known sporting identities in the early Commonwealth Parliament, including the boxer, Sir Granville Ryrie and the rugby league player, Senator Albert Gardiner. That has continued at the rate of close to 10% of all federal MPs since, including the Menzies era minister, Sir Hubert Opperman, who was a champion cyclist and Melbourne AFL player, Ray Groom (later Tasmanian Premier).
A sporting background may be a political asset because a public profile can be translated into votes. Some sports people may even be attracted to politics just because it is another type of public limelight. But it is a diminishing asset and should be treated cautiously. Just as Opperman didn’t 'cycle into Parliament', nor do today’s sporting MPs, like tennis player John Alexander in Bennelong, play their way into parliament. What they do after their sporting career, like coaching, commentating or running sporting clubs, or a totally different career, may be more important.
Whatever their attractiveness to political parties and whatever their motivation there have been many politicians with substantial sporting backgrounds. PUP also stood former Western Bulldogs star, Doug Hawkins, and former Australian boxing champion, Barry Michael, as candidates. Sporting champions who entered Parliament have included champion swimmer Dawn Fraser as an Independent in NSW, St Kilda AFL wizard Darrell Baldock in Tasmania, and hockey player and cricketer, Ric Charlesworth, in federal politics.
The current federal parliament also includes hockey player and athlete, Senator Nova Peris, and the international-standard rower Senator Cory Bernardi.
Professional sport is a perfectly acceptable occupational background for politicians. The characteristics needed to succeed in high-level sport, including determination, endurance, physical and mental courage, hard work and performing on the public stage are transferable. Success in team sports brings the additional skill of co-operative team work.
Some well-known, former professional sports people would make a valuable contribution to public life as politicians; some already do in the non-government and corporate sphere. But some others are unsuitable of because of their other personal characteristics. Like prospective politicians from any background they should be assessed individually.
The general lesson from the example of Glenn Lazarus, who is actually quietly capable, is that he is as well suited as if he had come from another background, like his fellow cross-bench senators, who have been lawyers, blacksmiths, builders, business and army people. It is not only their other personal characteristics that matter, but also their political environment.
The experience of these cross-benchers is that they are thrust into the lime-light even before they are sworn in and forced to adjudicate on a decidedly unsporting contest between the Liberals and Nationals on the one hand and Labor and the Greens on the other. The issues at stake are complex and you can never please everyone.
So don’t let your prejudices, for or against, about sportspeople get in the way of a fair judgement about the job they do when they get into politics.
John Warhurst is an Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the Australian National University and a Canberra Times columnist.