WILL Hodgman may be born to rule — his father and grandfather, not to mention an uncle or two, were Liberal MPs — but neither he nor his party is taking any chances.
The Tasmanian Opposition Leader’s campaign to become the island state’s premier after March 20 is decidedly small target and his words and deeds closely guarded.
While promising a new government of openness and honesty, he is as slippery as an eel if you try to drag him off script, on to tricky, controversial subjects.
It was not always so for the 40-year-old moderate. The lad with a political pedigree once sported hot pink hair to gain notoriety for his punk band, Cactus, in the Hobart pub music scene of the late 1980s-early 90s.
The lyrics were often as blue as the blood in his veins but the methods met with some success. Cactus won a battle of the bands, recorded a CD and even supported Ratcat, one of the era’s most loved, and hated, bands.
His dad, Michael Hodgman, is retiring from politics at the same election his son hopes will finally see a Hodgman elected to the state’s top office. The two are very different men.
Hodgman Sr was a Rumpolean QC with a penchant for turning parliament into a court room, cross examining the premier of the day as if he were a common criminal. Will finds it harder to work up a convincing outrage in the House of Assembly. Michael is a gregarious figurehead of the monarchist movement; Will an ardent but quiet republican.
Both are blessed with pleasant and friendly dispositions and the careful listener will notice that Will, who followed Michael into the law once he rinsed out that pink dye, occasionally adopts the vocal mannerisms of his old man.
Will Hodgman has more experience in parliament than his adversary, Labor Premier David Bartlett: eight years to Bartlett’s six. However, his relatively lean frame — no sign of middle-age spread — has never slumped into a ministerial chair.
It’s clear by the way his minder, Brad Stansfield, former staff member to right-wing Liberal powerbroker senator Eric Abetz, interrupts at key junctures of our interview that the party is unwilling to remove the training wheels.
The stakes are high, after all, and not just for the Tasmanian Liberals, hoping a steady hand from Hodgman can lead it out of a 12-year political wilderness. A win at the March 20 state election also would give Tony Abbott and the party a significant momentum boost ahead of a federal poll.
