After a year as Deputy PM, Geelong’s Richard Marles reflects on diplomacy, overseeing humanity’s “most complex machines” and how he hopes to reshape the nation.
Richard Marles’ favourite song is a useful metaphor for how the federal Labor government wants to be viewed.
Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water speaks to easing the burden of life, support in times of distress and working for the greater good.
Speak to Mr Marles and it goes some way to understand how the government is working for Australians.
He and his colleagues are confronted by a nation where the cost of living is smashing families and wages struggle to keep pace with inflation.
Data out this week shows the average Victorian electricity bill will rise about 25 per cent or about $352 in the next year.
Mr Marles argues that would be higher if not for federal intervention.
The government is investing heavily in renewables, while the opposition argues more gas is needed to power the nation.
Under Labor, wages have risen in some sectors, including aged care. The minimum wage was increased by 5.2 per cent last year.
But with inflation at 7 per cent, the most vulnerable workers are behind in net terms.
Mr Marles wouldn’t comment on the Reserve Bank’s fixation with banging down inflation to 2-3 per cent.
About 339,000 jobs were created in the government’s first year and Victorian regional unemployment is at a low point. About 12,400 regional Victorians started a new job in April, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
In its first year, Labor has increased the JobSeeker rate, given single mums more government assistance and tripled GPs’ bulk-billing incentive.
Speaking from his Geelong office, Mr Marles said: “Obviously everyone wants to do more but we live within a set of fiscal boundaries. It’s really important that we get the budget into shape (and) … give rise to a budget which doesn’t contribute to inflation.”
The Albanese government, in its first year, has focused on improving the way Australia is viewed on the world stage.
Multiple ministers, Mr Marles included, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese have made frequent trips overseas to engage the world’s superpowers on trade, manufacturing, defence and economic issues.
Mr Marles at the Pentagon in Washington DC in December before meeting United States Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin.
Mr Albanese has met Indian PM Narendra Modi six times, including an almost rock-star reception in Sydney this week. The result was progress on migration and green hydrogen.
Trade Minister Don Farrell went to China, and a tariff on Australian timber imports to China has now lifted but other Chinese tariffs on Australian exports remain.
Concerns still circle about China’s military build-up and its unpredictability.
This year, Mr Marles, now a six-term MP, and Foreign Minister Penny Wong went to Paris to ease tensions with the French government after the Morrison government tore up a submarine contract.
Richard Marles with China’s Minister of National Defense, General Wei Fenghe at the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
Mr Marles has met China’s Defence Minister General Wei Fenghe multiple times to ease tensions.
“I think the front line of our engagement with the world is diplomacy. That’s where you create pathways for peace and prosperity. That’s where you build space for trade, which again, builds a whole lot of opportunity,” Mr Marles said.
“How we engage with the world is completely central to the kind of lives that people are living in Geelong.
“When you go around speaking to people, you get the sense that there is relief that there is an adult government in charge and that the debate is more considered. This is a government that people can, I hope, feel proud of. We get that feedback a lot. I certainly do around Geelong.”
Richard Marles running in Paris
Richard Marles brings the AFL Premiership Cup 2022 to Question Time at Parliament House in Canberra in November. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman
Feedback may be coming from some Geelong residents waiting for a second section of the Barwon Heads Rd to be duplicated, the delivery of a bulk-billed urgent care centre in Geelong or a redevelopment at the Wathaurong co-operative in North Geelong. All were funded as part of Labor’s election pitch.
Mr Marles has been Acting PM more than six times when Mr Albanese has been out of the country or on leave.
Affable in public, those close to Mr Marles say he’s got a vociferous side. In all roles, the job is hectic.
Filling in last weekend, Mr Marles started Friday doing a TV interview from Queensland. On Saturday night in Melbourne, he spoke at the Long Walk Indigenous recognition event and by Sunday morning was in Lorne running a half marathon, flanked by federal police.
Richard Marles, as Acting Prime Minister, with Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff, left, and AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan, middle, at the launch of the Tasmanian AFL team. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones
While Acting PM, Mr Marles has overseen a steady stream of decision making.
With the government days old, and Mr Albanese at the Quad leaders’ meeting in Japan, Mr Marles signed off on a rocket launch in Arnhem Land to be conducted on behalf of NASA. That saw three rockets launched 250km into the sky to collect data on the physics of the sun and its relationship with the Earth.
As Defence Minister, Mr Marles has overseen the most significant re-tasking of the defence force in decades and started a pathway towards manufacturing nuclear-powered submarines in Australia.
“The Defence Strategic Review … really is the first re-tasking of the Australian Defence Force in 35 years; we’ve really restated why we have a defence force and what it’s for. A whole lot flows from that in terms of how the defence force is structured.
“Landing that was really important, (now it’s about) making sure now the government’s response to it gives rise to the momentum which will see this happen.”
Richard Marles, centre, talking to army personnel that went to help in Vanuatu
During defence talks and other meetings, Mr Marles has visited Singapore, Japan and the US twice, India, Rwanda, France, the UK, Germany, Fiji, Tonga, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand and New Zealand.
Asked to reconcile the government spending billions on submarines with representing an electorate where some of the country’s most disadvantaged lived, Mr Marles said it was easily done.
He said the government was delivering for the vulnerable but also setting Australia up for the future.
“When we are talking about building a nuclear-powered submarine in Australia; they are the single most complex machines humanity has ever built.
“In doing that, we will place Australian industry at the very cutting edge of technology that is going to create 1000s of hi-tech well-paid jobs right across the country.
“The one thing that I hope people see in me is that while I’m involved in the making of national decisions, which apply across the country, everything I do I bring to it a Geelong sensibility.
“When I think about any given policy we are looking at putting in place … I think about it through the lens of how this would impact the community in which I live, and the community that I represent, being the Geelong community.
“It is very much the town in which I live and raise my family.
“It’s the place I want to come back to as soon as I can.
“I take the last flight out of here and I take the first flight back; my world still orbits around Geelong.”
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