The flights were within the rules but not, as Burke said, in line with community expectations and, as a former staffer notes, “that was the closest he has come to a near-death experience in politics”.
After 25 years in public life and close to 20 years in parliament, Burke has matured from a young minister who hosted after-work drinks and had a mirror ball in his office to someone who quit drinking when parliament was sitting once he became manager of opposition business. As far as outlets go, it’s a healthy one – as one member notes, it’s better than heading down to Kingston Hotel for a beer.
Colleagues relate that Burke was gutted when Shorten gave the arts portfolio to Mark Dreyfus when Labor moved into opposition in 2013, but now he’s arts minister again.High arts and the bruising rounds of the IR portfolio might look like an uneasy mix, but for Burke the arts not only help define Australia but teach people to set standards without settling for less.
‘If it’s a day of fire there’ll be some Nirvana coming on the guitar. If there’s about to be some fun in question time, I’ll sit at the piano and play Come On Eileen.’“And they’re all sort of, ‘What are you on about?’, and Paul says, ‘It means we have to do better. You can’t hear work that’s perfect and walk off and say how do we find a compromise?’.
“They connect on multiple levels, they represent similar constituencies, they have a real passion for those who are disempowered. And Burkey’s desire for a better country surpasses his ambition for himself.”“So election night 2019, I rang Anthony encouraging him to run ... I said to him ‘if you’re not running, I am’,” he recalls.
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