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TUESDAY, JANUARY 19, 2010
Kosky exit sparks reshuffle
Family health problems
end a 14-year career
By DAVID ROOD
STATE POLITICAL REPORTER
PREMIER John Brumby will
reshuffle his cabinet today after
the shock resignation of trusted
senior minister Lynne Kosky.
The beleaguered minister for
public transport ended her
14-year state political career
yesterday, citing significant
health issues in her family.
The decision will force Mr
Brumby and Labor to plan for
an awkward February byelection, nine months before the
November state election.
Pushing back tears as she
announced her resignation, Ms
Kosky, who has two teenage
children, said it was not possible
to care for her family and pay
INSIDE
‘Embattled’ no more PAGE 4
Word from the Tweet PAGE 4
COMMENT & DEBATE
Editorial PAGE 8
Brumby loses loyal mate PAGE 9
FOCUS
End of the line PAGE 10
proper attention to the transport portfolio. ‘‘This is not a
decision I have taken lightly but
I know it is the right decision for
my family and me,’’ she said.
While the Opposition seized
on Ms Kosky’s departure as a
sign that the Government was in
crisis, the Premier is not expected to use her resignation as a
trigger for a major overhaul of
his cabinet.
Industry Minister Martin
Pakula and Roads Minister Tim
Pallas were among those
believed to be under consideration for the difficult transport
portfolio in a minor reshuffle.
Left MP and parliamentary
secretary for community development Lily D’Ambrosio was
the early front-runner to take
Ms Kosky’s cabinet spot, ahead
of lower house MP Liz Beattie.
A byelection for Mr Kosky’s
seat of Altona, which she
retained by more than 20 per
cent at the last election, will be
held on February 13.
The Premier is believed to
favour a woman replacing Ms
Kosky on the frontbench,
keeping the number of female
cabinet members at five.
Ms Kosky, 51, was first elected to the Victorian Parliament
in 1996 and entered the ministry
in 1999, following the election of
the Bracks government.
After a lengthy stint as
education minister, she became
public transport minister following the 2006 election. She
quickly became plagued by
problems in the job, including
the delays and cost blow-outs of
the $1.3 billion myki ticketing
system, as well as overcrowding
on the transport system.
Yesterday she defended her
record as public transport minister and denied that problems
during her time in the job —
culminating in last week’s meltdown of the rail network in
extreme hot weather — forced
her decision to quit.
She said a week off work this
month helped her arrive at the
decision to put her family first,
and telephoned Mr Brumby to
break the news on Sunday.
Asked about the nature of the
health issues, Ms Kosky said it
was not in the family’s interests
to provide the details. ‘‘I’m a
public figure, I’m on public display and I can be publicly questioned, but the family is private,
that’s off limits,’’ she said.
Ms Kosky described herself
as a ‘‘reformist’’ minister. ‘‘I have
been very focused on reforms in
education, in public transport
and being involved in the game
of reform does mean you will
have your detractors and supporters,’’ she said.
Once touted as a future
premier, Ms Kosky nominated
the Government’s transport plan
— which includes more than $5
billion for new trains, train lines
and infrastructure work — as her
Continued PAGE 4
CHRIS
JOHNSTON
AT THE OPEN
Lynne Kosky and Premier John Brumby at the announcement of her resignation from the ministry and Parliament yesterday.
PICTURE: ANGELA WYLIE
A plus for Brumby as a liability touches off
LYNNE Kosky has done the right
thing — for her family and her
party.
For once, ‘‘family reasons’’ is
not a euphemism. Kosky is
confronting a long-term health
crisis affecting a member of her
family, and all who know her
will wish her well as she tries to
get through this distressing
period of her life.
But Kosky’s resignation is
also a political plus for Premier
John Brumby and Labor as they
prepare for November’s state
election. The harsh truth about
Kosky is that she had become a
liability for the Government.
PAUL
AUSTIN
ANALYSIS
Her resignation means Brumby
gets the political circuit-breaker
he needed, without the pain
that sacking his long-time
colleague would have caused.
This 10-year-old Government has a long list of electionyear vulnerabilities, including
street violence, water, child
protection and hospital waiting
lists. But public transport is
among the most damaging.
Kosky had passed the tipping
point in this blighted portfolio.
She was the public face of the
problems — notably myki but
also excessive cancellations and
chronic overcrowding — and it
had become impossible to
conceive of her being able to be
portrayed as part of the solution
in the lead-up to this year’s
election.
Now, Brumby gets to replace
her as public transport minister,
without getting blood on his
hands. Whoever gets the job will
not be able to make the trains
run on time nor stop myki from
further embarrassing the
Government, but Kosky’s
successor will come to the
inevitable crises in public
transport without the baggage
she carried.
It’s been a long and hard fall
for Kosky. For much of her
decade in cabinet she was seen
as a potential Labor premier.
She was an important and
reformist education minister.
But her star started to dim after
the 2006 election, when she
took on the public transport job,
which had weighed down her
colleague Peter Batchelor.
When then premier Steve
Bracks and his deputy John
Thwaites resigned on the same
day in July 2007, the consensus
in cabinet and caucus was that
there was only one candidate for
the top job: Brumby.
Kosky toyed with standing
for deputy premier. But Brumby
preferred Rob Hulls, and the
new Premier got his man.
Less than three years later,
Kosky leaves cabinet and
Parliament a substantial but
diminished figure.
The public good wishes for
Kosky from Labor insiders are
heartfelt. But so are the private
sighs of relief at her departure.
Haiti on knife-edge as hunger drives violence, looting
By LUCY COCKCROFT
PORT-AU-PRINCE
Haitians fight for goods from a damaged business.
PICTURE: NEW YORK TIMES
VIOLENCE and looting has
gripped Port-au-Prince, while
desperate survivors continue to
wait for food, water and medicine, five days after the earthquake.
Local police opened fire on
hundreds of rioters, killing at
least one, as they ransacked a
supermarket. Another man
snatched the rucksack off the
victim’s back.
Witnesses said a looter shot a
fruit vendor in the head while
robbing him. About 12 men
WEATHER
frogmarched the robber, beat
him, threw him on the street,
covered him with a pyre of rubbish, and burned him to death,
encircled by a tyre on fire.
‘‘It’s not good justice, but if
they don’t do it nobody else
will,’’ chuckled a witness,
Antoine Miguel.
The thief was thought to be
one of 3000 inmates who broke
out of the National Penitentiary.
On their way out they burned
most of the prison records, making it harder to track them
down.
So far, warnings that Port-auPrince would descend into
WATER
MELBOURNE Partly cloudy. Isolated showers
until afternoon. South to south-westerly winds
averaging up to 25 km/h.
TOMORROW Becoming cloudy
THURSDAY Becoming cloudy
FRIDAY Morning shower
SATURDAY Partly cloudy
Min 13 Max 23
Viva
Maria,
farewell
Maria
Min 15 Max 28
Min 16 Max 32
Min 20 Max 30
Min 16 Max 23
Details PAGE 15
MELBOURNE DAMS:
anarchy have not materialised.
Lawlessness has been localised
and confined largely to the
night. But the few incidents
have been brutal.
More than 10,000 American
soldiers were due to arrive in
Haiti yesterday to restore order
to the capital.
Residents in the Delmas area
caught two suspected looters,
tied them together, beat them
and dragged them through the
streets.
Gangs of men on Boulevard
Jean-Jacques Dessalines, their
faces covered with bandannas
to mask their identity and the
ODD SPOT
36.7%
THIS TIME LAST YEAR: 34.1%
The world’s most expensive ham — a seven-kilogram leg of
Iberico ham — has gone on sale in London for £1800
($A3170). The ham is salted and cured for three years
before going on sale in a hand-made wooden box wrapped
in an apron made by one of Spain’s most exclusive tailors.
smell of decaying bodies, brandished machetes and sharpened
planks of wood as they ran from
shop to shop stealing shoes,
rolls of carpet and pots.
Two aid workers from the
Dominican Republic were shot
and seriously wounded as they
handed out food. Carlos Gatas
and Milton Matos struggled
back to their embassy.
There were also reports of
hungry people fighting with
machetes over small packages
of food that were dropped into a
stadium from a helicopter.
Only trickles of aid were getting through as much of the
relief effort was hampered by
the problem of transporting
supplies from the small and
damaged airport into the city.
Vast queues formed at points
where the UN World Food Program handed out high-energy
food. Florence Louis, 29, seven
months pregnant with two children, got four packages of biscuits. ‘‘It is enough because I
didn’t have anything at all,’’ she
said.
TELEGRAPH
Continued PAGE 2
More reports SPORT
WORLD
More reports PAGE 6
COMMENT & DEBATE
Tristan Clements PAGE 9
INDEX
CLASSIFIEDS
BUSINESSDAY 11
COMMENT & DEBATE
PAGE 9
EDITORIALS, LETTERS
PAGE 8
LAW LIST
BUSINESSDAY 13
THE ARTS
PAGE 11
IT WAS 11.14am yesterday when
the Australian Open began as
one blonde Russian Maria
tossed the ball up to serve to
another. The roof was shut at
Rod Laver Arena. Outside it was
raining or about to but inside
was alive with colour, the court
deep blue, the ball kids in pink
this year.
Maria Kirilenko, 22,
unseeded, who played good
tennis to the fourth round in
Melbourne two years ago, faced
her friend Maria Sharapova, also
22 but 14th seed, the winner in
2008, ostensibly the most glamorous tennis player on the
planet. She wore an oceangreen ruffled frocklet with tiny,
yellow waist ties. Girls’-bestfriend earrings dangled from
her lobes. She grunted and
screamed like a small animal
stuck.
Kirilenko was in neon yellow.
Bling sparkled in her hair. She
was svelte and pretty but
nervous and inconsistent; the
ball pinged off the edge of her
racquet in the first set, her three
allotted line challenges gone in
a flash.
Yet three hours, one epic tiebreaker and two match points
later, she had beaten the former
world number one in a marathon and that former world
number one was out of the tournament on day one with her
game, her serve and her confidence in tatters.
‘‘I’m leaving on the Monday
of the first week,’’ said Sharapova (below), ‘‘so that explains a
lot.’’
Tournament director Craig
Tiley said she would be disappointed, but it was an ‘‘impressive’’ win from the other Maria.
Sharapova’s absence did not
affect last year’s Open — she
missed that during 10 months
away from tennis after shoulder
surgery, dropping out of the top
100 women.
Kirilenko meanwhile was
agog and called it one of the
best wins of her career. She
revealed that she histrionically
pressed her fingers to her lips at
the climax as a way of calming
herself and the crowd. ‘‘It’s a
great win but it’s only the first
round I pass,’’ she said.
Her boyfriend, Russian
player Igor Andreev, ranked 37,
ISSN 0312-6307
MINDGAMES
PAGE 14
OBITUARIES
PAGE 13
SHARES
BUSINESSDAY 8-10
TV & WEATHER
PAGE 15
WORLD
PAGES 6, 7
B
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