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She inherited the seat from her father Bob Brown in 1998 and since then has been on a backbencher's salary which recently hit $120,000 a year.Further, if she again seeks preselection for the seat, to show he wanted to continue in Parliament, she could be entitled to a pension of $60,000 a year, indexed for inflation for life.
Still, the mother of two, who hasn't made a big splash during her nine years in Parliament, wasn't keen to face the future.
"It will put us in a very difficult position. I'm the sole breadwinner," said Ms Hoare, who lives with her husand, a daughter going to university, and a son completing an aprecticeship.
Ummm, what does the "average" Australian earn? A quick search finds this article:
Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show women earn an average A$34,580 a year compared with men's average salary of A$52,728.
So Kelly Hoare was doing pretty good on her backbencher salery compared to the average. You can find similar numbers here, looking at median salary. Men are at $54,729 while women are at $42,788.
More info from the ABS itself Figures of mean and median incomes are in the 2007 yearbook. For all Australia, the mean income is $1,218 per week (or $63,336 pery year) and the median is $915 per week (or $47,580 per year). None of these match any of the above articles so you can see that a range of estimates are available (also you can see the quality of Newspaper statistics). Note that the figures direct from the ABS show the means higher than the median which is always what you would expect when you think that there are large numbers of low-paid workers and a relatively small number of well-paid workers. I'm 100% sure that none of these stats include the million-plus CEO saleries because even a handful of those will pump the mean way above the median.
Getting back to the point, the residual pension (i.e. half salery) that Hoare is likely to end up on for the rest of her life (drinking beer on the porch money) is higher than nearly all the estimates of typical Australian income. How are we supposed to feel the pangs of guilt for such harsh treatment? And sole breadwinner too, that's dreadful, makes me wonder how many households would dream of being able to afford to operate on a sole breadwinner but both parents work because financially they have no choice.
Kelly Hoare says she was doing a good job and the voters supported her. If that's what she honestly believes then she should run as an independent (we have a preferential voting system so running as an independent does not in any way reduce the chances for the actual Labor candidate, it is not possible to "split the vote" in Australia like Ralph Nader did in the USA). On the other hand, maybe the voters were actually just loyal party supporters in which case Kelly Hoare would get ignored as an independent candidate and the Labor Party would win. It's an easy thing to put to the test isn't it?
"If you knew that you were doing a bad job or that you could somehow be sacked, you'd have that financial consideration in mind," she said."But when you're doing a good job and you don't anticipate it...there has never been that consideration."
Let's see what google says... how newsworthy was Kelly Hoare before getting passed over for preselection -- well Google News finds nothing when searching for Kelly Hoare except discussion of her being replaced.
What else can we find about her... here is her APH homepage and it does look pretty lean. I kind of hate to be harsh but there simply isn't much of note on her biography at all. There is her first speech which is packed with thank you statements, mutual congratulations, back slapping and the like. There is a little bit of content about the nature of Australian democracy:
The scrutiny and debate that the opposition will bring to these issues in this parliament are what Australians were entitled to over the course of the election campaign. Scrutiny and debate of these issues were denied them because the Prime Minister chose to call the federal election on a long weekend in most of the country, during the school holidays in most of the country and surrounded by the Commonwealth Games and sporting grand finals, which took priority over a federal election in most of the country.
People get the government that they deserve. If they would prefer to go to a sporting carnival than put the hard yards into doing a bit of research about the world they live in, then John Howard can't be blamed for that. To be sure, there are many things that we can blame John Howard for... getting involved in a war in the Middle East might be top of my list. The apathy of Australian citizens can only be blamed on themselves.
On the other hand, part of our Democratic system is the need for a vocal, strong and active opposition to present an alternative view to the government of the day. Can the Labor party claim to have earnestly fulfilled this role for the past 10 years?
Firstly to the GST. This is a tax that places an increased burden on low and middle income earners and reduces that burden on high income earners. This is a tax which is grossly unfair whichever way it is packaged. We on this side of the House, and the opposition in the Senate, will oppose it all the way. It is interesting to note that a recent report by five of Australia's leading economists has recommended to the Prime Minister that tax credits, similar to those that were promised by the Labor Party were we to win government, be introduced to help reduce unemployment. I will be very interested to see whether the Prime Minister accepts and implements this advice or whether he pursues his narrow agenda of a GST, which 60 per cent of Australians clearly do not want.
The GST is a tax which is easy to administer, simple to describe and a lot easier to comply with than earlier Sales Tax systems. It may be unfair, but so are many things and one man's fair is totally unreasonable to another man, so "fair" is a very subjective measurement. The GST is also a way of taxing people without making their income dwindle and thus diminishing their inventive to work. The GST has also been a powerful tax-enforcement tool because it puts pressure on the cash economy by paying one side of the transaction (the side that pays the money) a fee (in the form of being able to claim back GST) for being a tax-enforcer on the other side of the transaction (the person getting the money). The labor party gave up trying to kill off the GST when they realised that Australians were happy to live with it (and it was Paul Keating who suggested it anyhow).
Second, there is the proposed 100 per cent sale of Telstra. Telstra is our national telecommunications carrier. Prior to this government selling one-third of it, Telstra -- a large and hugely profitable organisation -- was 100 per cent owned by all Australians. Now it is only two-thirds owned by all Australians. And this Prime Minister wants to sell it all, putting it in the hands of an elite few who can afford to buy and then maintain their share investment. For what? The government states that the money will go towards rehabilitating and protecting our natural environment. I believe that our natural environment is our greatest resource, which we hold in trust for our children and our grandchildren and for many more generations. It should not be held to ransom or be used as a pawn in the debate about Telstra.Telstra is a communications carrier. Communications and the environment are poles apart on the legislative agenda, which is highlighted by the fact that this government and previous governments have seen fit to have them as two distinctly different areas of responsibility within cabinet. They are not linked in this way, and nor should they be. The idea is absurd and preposterous, and it should be abandoned now.
Yeah, it would be interesting in retrospect to see a detailed breakdown of where the money made from the Telstra sale actually went. Certainly, the Australian environment didn't get much. Does anyone still believe a John Howard promise? But the Federal Opposition has the job of calling him up on his promises and holding the government accountable. Anyhow, as much Telstra was sold as anyone is willing to buy, nothing is going to change that now.
It's unfair to say that there was a strong "elite few" who had access to Telstra shares. A lot of "mum and dad" investors bought into it (and a lot of them got burnt).
I conclude by making a brief statement about this parliament and its role. Too often this parliament has directed an inappropriate share of its time, effort and legislative resources to the interests and concerns of the rich and powerful, those interests and people within the community who are already at the top of the pile doing very well from the system and are capable of looking after themselves. An inadequate share -- as significant as it often is -- of the effort and time of this institution is applied to the interests and problems of the people in the community who need to be defended, who are unable to advance their own interests, who are in need of assistance and protection, and who are often pushed aside and left behind.
How principled. So here she is presenting her story to the newspaper. Is she laying down her policy (as against Greg Combet's policy) and showing that she can do a better job? Is she going to line up her track history of an advocate of the working class against Greg Combet's history doing the same? Hmmm, first time she gets her name in print for years and all she can say is "I'm the breadwinner so I deserve to get my money". I'm so glad she is thinking about all those little people who can't look after themselves.
She gets a very brief rundown on Emily's list which is mostly cut and paste from the APH and the ALP biographies of her.
She has contributed significantly to policy development particularly in the areas of women, peace and overseas aid.
Vaguely feelgood waffle. Which war did she prevent?
By the way, the tagline at the top of Emily's List is "When women support women, women win" which makes me think about the reaction that we would get from: "When men support men, men win" or even "When Jews support Jews, Jews win" or any other self-interested group you care to name. I don't care if people want call it "affirmative", this is wedge politics by any other name, just as ugly when the feminists partake as when John Howard does it, or any religious group. Politics is full of this sort of behaviour and it is time that we stand up and wholeheartedly reject it.
Kelly Hoare also turns up in various women's affairs meetings like this one:
The first meeting of the Standing Committee on Women was also held during the same conference on the evening of the first day. This meeting was attended by women parliamentarians from 14 countries, and was chaired by Ms. Kelly Hoare, MP (Australia). It was agreed that the role of the committee was to promote gender issues in AFPPD and to recommend gender-related programmes and activities to the AFPPD Executive Committee. The meeting included a briefing on AFPPD's work on gender empowerment and the efforts that have been made to encourage participation of women in all AFPPD events. Gender as an issue is included in all AFPPD events. Currently, the AFPPD Executive Committee has 4 women parliamentarians from Australia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand, out of a total membership of 15.
Good work but pretty low-impact when you get down to it.
Here's the same sort of thing happening with Annette Hurley.
Hands up anyone who can remember anything Annette Hurley has ever said or done in the Federal Parliament or shadow ministry? Can anyone guess what her portfolio was? I don't see any hands ... well, thats no surprise. I think she's the only woman in the shadow ministry that I can't recall hearing anything about. All the others (Wong, Macklin, Plibersek, Roxon, Gillard, Lundy and McLucas) have done and said quite a lot.
Which so totally applies to Kelly Hoare. In fact, the whole "sit on your hands and be ineffective and go unnoticed" approach was what Kim Beasley's government stood for and why John Howard found so little real opposition to his transformation of Australian society. Come to think of it, Kim Beasley and Kelly Hoare both inherited both their political connections and their political affiliations, and both of them are basically good people who stand up for what they believe in but they are also somehow both unexceptional and unadventurous people without the power to provide inspiration as leaders of their communities.
Having women in parliament is nice... but being a woman is not, in and of itself, enough to make someone into a worthwhile member of parliament. I've got a lot of respect for Kate Lundy (who is also a woman in Federal Parliament) but Kate actually gets out and does stuff. Even so, Kate Lundy hasn't had quite the impact that she used to have -- as Shadow Minister for Sport and Recreation you would expect a lot of opportunities to get seen at sporting events (even obscure sporting events can be a boon because she can be seen to be taking an interest in developing new areas of sport in Australia while obscure sports get benefit from any publicity at all). Somehow I don't think that Kate's heart is deeply into her sporting portfolio. I see articles like this one and it looks like she is really more involved in industrial issues.
Of course, Kevin Rudd has just slightly different ideas to Kate Lundy regarding the future directions of Australian Industry, and no doubt that explains why she has been pushed out to handling sport and health promotion. I guess that's a wrestling match that might be set for quite a few years in the future.
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