His number was in the book

People, Parliament and Politics
by Walter Jona
(Tertiary Press, 2006, 228 pages)

There has been little reflective writing about State politics in Australia, and so the publication of the memoirs of Walter Jona (Victorian Liberal MLA 1964-85) is a welcome event.

Jona was always an unusual politician in one regard -- he only ever wanted to represent one electorate (Hawthorn), not use any available seat as a springboard to a parliamentary career.  In the earlier part of his career, the seat actually spanned the geographic and demographic divide of the Yarra, taking in a solid chunk of working class Richmond and he has some interesting stories to tell about how Labor politics was conducted in that suburb's notorious local council.

In providing an insight into his own work practices as an MP, Jona performs the important service of highlighting how much the profession of politics has changed.  Only in 1973 were electorate offices introduced for Victorian MPs, prior to which they either provided an electorate office out of their own pocket, or did their constituency work at home.  In Jona's view, current politicians are generally less accessible as he notes that these days they "exclude their home addresses and phone numbers from the telephone directory".

Moving beyond local politics, Jona provides a detailed account of his role in one of the key policy changes at a State level in Australia in the second half of the twentieth century.  As Chair of the Parliamentary Road Safety Committee, he was instrumental in pushing the Bolte Government into world-leading road safety measures, in particular, the compulsory wearing of seat belts.

Jona comments that there was opposition to these changes, but he ascribes this to conservatism rather than to genuine concern about whether it is the role of the state to protect people who choose not to protect themselves.  For Jona, the decline in the road toll, of itself, seems sufficient to answer any philosophical arguments.

The other political issue to which Jona devotes the most space is his role as Minister for Community Services in the building of the Jika Jika section of Pentridge Prison.  The campaign against the new facility saw "Jail Jona" posters plastered all over Melbourne for quite some time.  He presents a strong case that the critics of what was being built were generally acting from mischievous motives, rather than genuine concern, as the new wing was clearly an improvement upon what it was replacing.

Beyond road safety and prisons, and his role as Australia's first ethnic affairs minister, Jona spreads himself far and wide across political issues, persuasively on some topics (for example, preferential voting) and less so on others (for instance, compulsory voting).  The book begins with a well-argued and topical chapter on the dangers of federal incursions into traditional areas of State responsibility that got him quite a run in The Age on the day the book was launched.

As well as politics, Jona addresses other important aspects of his life.  His description of the persecution suffered by his Jewish forebears in nineteenth-century Europe is all the more powerful for its understated tone;  his recollections of the Hawthorn Football Club in the 1930s and 1940s are evocative of the era and benefit from his understanding that his father's position as club President gave young Walter privileges that were not available to others.

While Jona has been a member of the Hawthorn Football Club for 74 unbroken years and of the Liberal Party for 60, it should also appeal to a broader audience, as it is a very genuine account of an important politician's life.