By Geoff Robinson

Mr Bracks retires as Victoria's second-longest serving premier. (AFP: Anoek de Groot)

When Steve Bracks became Victorian Labor leader in February 1999, replacing the struggling John Brumby, he took over a party that despaired of the political ascendancy of Liberal premier Jeff Kennett.

Eight years later Mr Bracks retires as Victoria's second-longest serving premier and with a record of extraordinary political success. Kevin Rudd will hope that his eventual political obituary is comparable.

The young Bracks was one of the many who joined the ALP in 1975 in response to the dismissal of the Whitlam government. He did the hard yards as an ordinary branch member, country schoolteacher and three times unsuccessful Labor candidate. Not until 1989 did he leave his home town of Ballarat for a position with the state Labor government of John Cain. His experience of Victorian Labor's crisis-ridden final years in government confirmed his conviction that political success required caution and realism.

In the 1999 state election campaign Bracks set a template for future Labor campaigns; he built on the commitment to fiscal conservatism of his predecessor John Brumby, and focused not on Kennett's controversial personality but on key areas where the government was vulnerable: basic services and the neglect of country Victoria.

The election result stunned many observers. Suburban marginal seats stuck with Kennett but a backlash against the Government in provincial cities left three independents, two of whom were definitely not Labor sympathisers, with the balance of power.

In the days following the result, Mr Bracks demonstrated exceptional political skill to win over the independents, enabling Labor to take government. If Kevin Rudd wins the upcoming federal election he will face a similar challenge in negotiations with conservatives such as Barnaby Joyce and Stephen Fielding in the Senate.

Ordinary populism

When Labor took office in October 1999 it induced relief rather than euphoria among the Victorian labour movement which was battered by the Kennett experience. This sense of relief gave Mr Bracks room to manoeuvre just as Mr Rudd will have if elected prime minister.

The Bracks government's fiscal conservatism annoyed some of the left but reassured business and would win over the suburban voters that stuck with Kennett in 1999.

Mr Bracks came to exemplify 'ordinary populism', like the Victorian Bob Hawke, rather the divisive and dynamic style of Jeff Kennett, Paul Keating or Mark Latham.

Mr Bracks carefully followed public opinion. His defence of heavy-handed police tactics during the September 2000 protests against the World Economic Forum annoyed many in the broader left, just as Mr Rudd's recent reluctance to criticise the Federal Government over the Haneef case has been unpopular with civil libertarians.

Overall however Mr Bracks, like Mr Rudd recently, was able to dominate the Labor Party. The governments of John Cain and Joan Kirner had had frequently found themselves at odds with Labor Party conferences but the ALP left was now splintered and divided, with many former members in the Greens.

Conservative control of the Legislative council was a useful alibi for the Government against its party critics, as the Senate may be for Kevin Rudd. Unlike Tony Blair or Kevin Rudd, Mr Bracks was conciliatory towards the broader labour movement; even militant unions were pleased with his resistance to the Howard Government's industrial relations policies.

Transparency promised

In 2002 Labor swept to a landslide victory and secured control of the Legislative Council. In opposition, Mr Bracks and Labor had denounced Mr Kennett's dictatorial style and promised a new order of accountability, equity and transparency.

But in office Labor had lagged on these commitments, government secrecy remained excessive and gambling revenues continued to prop up state coffers.

Yet Labor's post-2002 constitutional reforms kept faith with its promises. In 2003 the Legislative Council was dramatically reformed, its power to block supply was removed and proportional representation introduced.

Like Tony Blair, Mr Bracks was a constitutional radical. For many on the broader left the reforms offered the prospect of the Greens holding the balance of power and pulling Labor to the left, but these hopes were dashed by the 2006 election. Labor was returned with only a slightly reduced majority and in the Council controversial Labor preference deals deprived the Greens of the balance of power.

If Mr Kennett and Mr Keating sought to spur on social changes and John Howard to resist them, Mr Bracks's approach has been to go with the flow of events whilst cautiously steering policy towards the left.

In his last two years as premier he showed a more reformist streak. Voters had now forgotten the budgetary crises of the early 1990s and Labor's recent budgets have been bolder, a state bill of rights came in 2006 and abortion law reform seems likely.

Mr Bracks was not always able to escape the arrogance that comes with successful political leadership and for a long time his government dwelt in the shadows of its predecessors. But in many aspects he has pioneered the contemporary model of Labor leadership, which both John Brumby as his apparent likely successor, and Kevin Rudd, if elected PM later this year, will follow in his surprisingly large political footsteps.

Geoff Robinson is a lecturer in politics at Deakin University.