A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away there were purposeful, progressive and committed Labor Governments.

The recent biography of Race Mathews, A Life in Politics, by his wife Iola Mathews, describes a career long commitment to trying to ensure Labor would recapture that moment.

Race Mathews was a municipal councillor, educator, community activist, John Menadue’s successor in 1967 as Gough Whitlam’s Principal Private Secretary, backbench Federal MP, Victorian Opposition Leader’s Chief of Staff, holder of a number of Victorian Cabinet posts and an indefatigable campaigner for reform of Labour’s faction-ridden structure.

The above Star Wars sci-fi reference in Race’s case is particularly apt given that he has dozens of index references in the first volume of Leigh Edmonds’ book, Proud and Lonely, a history of science fiction fandom in Australia.

The A Life in Politics biography is in two parts. The first comprises an edited version of four chapters of memoir on Race’s family and childhood written when he was 81. The rest is written by his wife Iola Mathews.

He grew up in Hampton and went to Croydon after he married – a Melbourne suburb with the unmade roads and lack of sewerage which were typical of the day and which the Whitlam Government transformed when it came into power. He attended Melbourne Grammar School where he was a member of the school’s Parliamentary Society in which students were propagandised about the need for compulsory military training, White Australia, opposition to nationalisation and increasing the numbers of security police to check on places of ill-repute.

Race responded by advocating lower prices and the breaking up of large private monopolies, rehousing slum dwellers, putting railways under Commonwealth control and introducing free university education. He was told by his parents, after a failed attempt join the Communist Party, that such attitudes would bring him to the attention of the security agencies.

He left school at 17, worked briefly at Shell and then transferred to Toorak Teachers College where he met his first wife, Jill, and then went to the Latrobe Valley where they taught.

Initially his political awareness was a romanticized view of Communism and the Soviet Union although that was soon replaced under the influence of David Bennett, whom he met in the Valley, and by the inspiration of Ben Chifley’s Light on The Hill speech.  Returning to Melbourne he, Jill and David became active in the Labor Party and the Fabian Society.

Race took over the Society when it was in a state of collapse with only about 30 members. In the decades to come it grew and its active members included people like John Button and Moss Cass who later became Cabinet Ministers. The Fabian policy work also had a profound impact on the policies Whitlam took to the 1972 election.

It was also when he met Gough Whitlam and heard from John Menadue of the network of policy advisers who were developing the policies that helped propel Whitlam into power in 1972. Menadue, Whitlam and Race were also committed to the reform of the Victorian Labor branch – intransigent, insular and more concerned with ideological and organisational issues than winning elections. The Junta controlling the branch finally lost power through Federal intervention. Sadly, it was all too little too late and the Junta’s rear guard defence probably contributed significantly to the Labor loss in the 1969 election.

In 1972 Race stood for election in the seat of Casey and won, introducing campaign techniques drawn from the experience of the US Kennedy campaigns described in Theodore White’s books. But it all ended with the 1975 Dismissal after which Race took what was effectively a sabbatical immersing himself in university study and writing. This was interrupted by a call to become Clyde Holding’s and then Frank Wilkes’ Principal Private Secretary and was the beginning of a career in State politics which took him from advisor to Cabinet Minister with Arts, Police and Emergency Services portfolios.

It is difficult to underestimate the impact Race had on the office. It was streamlined, professionalised and inspired. His work – plus the policy work of new younger MPs such as David White and Rob Jolly – improved Labor chances in the forthcoming election but the party fell just short of forcing the Liberals into Coalition.

Race then became the candidate for Oakleigh and after Labor won government a Cabinet Minister – with the unlikely portfolios of Police and Emergency Services and Arts. The Age dubbed him the Minister for Pigs and Prigs.

Dick Hamer had been the first champion of the arts in Victorian politics, but Race was the most outstanding Arts Minister the State has yet had. He brought deep knowledge, commitment and passion to the job. His – and the Government’s generosity of spirit – were illustrated by the opening of the new Victorian Arts Centre complex when they invited Dick Hamer, who had initiated the project, to officially open the complex and then named the concert hall after him.

Race’s career as a Cabinet Minister ended when John Cain was forced to change his Cabinet to appease various factional figures, but it also provided a new aspect of his career with his campaign from the backbench to reform legislation controlling co-operatives and his promotion of workers cooperatives such as Spain’s Mondragon cooperatives. It was blocked by the then Attorney-General.

The Cain Government was dying a slow death accelerated by the financial crisis, the collapse of the State Bank and massive problems at a sort of merchant bank – Tricontinental.

Sadly, the Labor Treasurer Rob Jolly and others had swallowed the neoliberal Kool Aid and refused to recognise what was happening.

Attending a Budget breakfast fund-raiser I had arranged to sit at Rob Jolly’s table to pass on messages from others about the Tricontinental problems. I was told I couldn’t understand how finance worked.

As usual Labor turned to a woman, Joan Kirner, to solve the political mess it was in, but it was too late, and an admirable and intelligent woman was subjected to predictably ugly sexist commentary.

Race Mathews, post his Parliamentary career, continued on with his indefatigable campaigns to reform the ALP and re-invigorate internal democracy.  He also continued his campaigns around co-operative societies and devoted much time and intellectual commitment to the Fabian Society.

The book is available at https://publishing.monash.edu/product/race-mathews/