Hockey: Not Your Average Joe by Madonna King

Author:Madonna King [King, Madonna]
Language: ara
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Publisher: University of Queensland Press
Published: 2014-08-01T07:00:00+00:00

The birth of his first child in 2005 also pulled Joe back to his Armenian roots, clearly illustrated during a trip that year to Yerevan, the capital city of Armenia. There, at 3 a.m, Whithear remembers his phone ringing – and knew immediately what the subject of the call would be. Patricia Scott, in another room but on the same overseas trip with her minister Joe Hockey, had just received a similar call. The pair had flown into Zvartnots, 12 kilometres west of Yerevan, just before midnight, to be met by representatives of both the Australian Embassy and the Armenian government. An official from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade advised Joe that the ‘g’ word should not be raised. According to one of those present, that advice was like a red rag to a bull. Joe raised his eyebrows, turned to the Armenian foreign minister and asked: ‘When can we go to the genocide museum?’

Three hours later, Whithear and Scott were fielding calls from bureaucrats in Australia, lecturing them about the diplomatic risk that lay in Joe’s comments. Up to 1.5 million Armenians are thought to have been killed at the hands of the Turks during World War 1, and Australia’s Armenian community, which numbers 50,000, is well represented in Joe’s North Sydney electorate. The next morning, to mark the 90th anniversary of the massacre, Joe visited Tsitsernakaberd, the Armenian genocide memorial, to lay a wreath, and his electorate newsletter later carried photographs of their local MP being led by ceremonial guards from the Armenian Army and a group including the director of the genocide museum.

Almost a decade later, Australia’s Armenian community continues to hope Joe will drive a formal recognition of the genocide. Vache Kahramanian, from the Armenian National Committee of Australia, says Joe’s visit to Armenia rocked established views, and showed the now-treasurer was onside. ‘Joe has been a long-time advocate of recognition of the Armenian genocide,’ he says. ‘It’s now a matter of the Australian government passing a motion to formally put on record its recognition of the events of 1915 and clearly and accurately describing it as a genocide.’

Joe supports their argument, and says he has lobbied the foreign minister, but translating it to formal recognition, in the face of both Gallipoli and the G20, makes it a tall order. Vache Kahramanian doesn’t flinch. ‘It’s as difficult as they want it to be. The community has very high hopes and very high expectations that Joe, now as treasurer of Australia and the third-highest ranking member in Cabinet, will actually deliver on his promise.’

There is no doubt that the human services portfolio saw Joe return to favour, especially in the eyes of John Howard. It could have been a poisoned chalice. In fact, a colleague early on told Whithear that some of the Party’s conservative MPs had seen Joe’s performance here as a win-win. If he’d done a good job, there would have been good money savings and the government would benefit. If he’d failed, and some hoped he did, it would take out a leading moderate in NSW.

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