Pakula praises Jewish input
CABINET minister Martin Pakula said Victoria has benefited from having three Jewish MPs in Government over the past few years.
CABINET minister Martin Pakula said Victoria has benefited from having three Jewish MPs in Government over the past few years.
Speaking to The AJN from the election trail, the Minister for Transport and Industrial Relations predicted this campaign would be extremely close, admitting it had been hard to cut through voter “tune out”.
“One of the great things about the state Labor caucus is we have three Jewish MPs — myself, Marsha Thomson and Jennifer Huppert — I know at the times when there were [racial] attacks we spoke out. I spoke to the Attorney-General and I’m sure the others did as well.”
Actions, such as the amendments that now see judges take into account the motivation of the crime when sentencing, and the Government’s Respect Agenda, emerged out of that strong representation, he said.
“There is no magic bullet,” he admitted. “You’re not going to change community attitudes through a piece of legislation, but if you’ve got a proper Respect Agenda that says to young people, in particular, you’ve got to respect yourself, others and the community, you overlay that with tougher liquor licensing and then you overlay that with giving judges the ability to pass harsher sentences on people that target a religious or racial minority, all of those things help to turn the tide and I think we’ve seen the tide start to turn.”
In a state like Victoria, where public transport is at the top of many people’s list of gripes, being handed responsibility for the ministry could be seen as a poisoned chalice. And this Jewish son of Polish and Russian migrants said when he was asked by Premier John Brumby to take over the portfolio, “I knew instantly it was going to be a challenge”.
With more and more passengers on Melbourne’s already stretched trains, the Myki ticketing debacle and new public transport operators, Pakula had his work cut out.
“I took it as a compliment,” he said of his promotion from the trade and industry portfolio. “I’m grateful to John for showing confidence
in me.”
But the father of two remained restrained when discussing his achievements.
“Having the opportunity to deal with issues as fundamental to the way Melbourne and Victoria functions is just something I never expected to do in my first term in Parliament,” he said.
“I do my job as best as I can, I leave other people to rate me. I think, through 2010, it is not as if every issue with transport has gone away, but I think people have seen gradual improvement.
The Member for Western Metropolitan Region predicted the upcoming election would be the closest fought in Victoria “for a long time”.
“The Government is at risk from both the Liberal Party on the right and The Greens on the left,” he said.¬† “There is always a degree of [voter] tune out, but I think it has probably been exacerbated this year by the fact we had a federal election so recently. There is a bit of election fatigue,” he said. “Frankly, I think a lot of people are thoroughly sick of politics.”
NAOMI LEVIN
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