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Busy Governor Kim Beazley’s first allegiance is to democracy

Daniel MercerThe West Australian
Kim Beazley at Government House.
Camera IconKim Beazley at Government House. Credit: Iain Gillespie

He is referred to in such lofty terms as His Excellency and Vice Regal.

But Kim Beazley, WA’s 33rd governor, still prefers to be called by his first name.

“Kim is good,” Mr Beazley says, chortling, when asked how he likes to be addressed.

Like many of the 70-year-old’s years, 2018 has been an eventful one for the Queen’s representative in WA, a man who came within an inch of becoming prime minister in 1998.

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To the surprise of some, although no one who knows Premier Mark McGowan well, Mr Beazley was appointed to succeed Kerry Sanderson in Government House in May.

The appointment got tongues wagging for its apparent contrast with the former Labor leader’s well-known views in favour of Australia becoming republic.

The Governor himself was more phlegmatic, saying that while he had his pro-republican views he was a democrat first and tried to serve in whatever fashion would advance the interests of Australia and, more pointedly, WA.

“The simple fact of the matter is in many things I have been committed to the view of a republic but I’m also committed to being a democrat,” he told The West Australian.

“And there is a process.

“If the Australian people say ‘you might have that view, sport, but it’s not ours’, it means you respect that view and function accordingly.

“I swear allegiance regularly whenever I’ve been a minister and I understand that we exist within a constitutional mon-archy.

“In those circumstances I’m prepared to work with any end of it and to do as much as I can to make the job worthwhile for the public.”

With six months in the job under his belt, Mr Beazley said the biggest impression he had drawn was the pace involved.

“Very busy is how I’ve found it,” he said.

To illustrate his point, he rattles off the numbers of engagements he’s attended.

There have been 117 “breakfasts, lunches, dinners, receptions, morning-afternoon teas, working lunches, buffet dinners and light refreshments”.

Additionally, there have been 11 judicial swearings-in, two investiture ceremonies, 16 community groups and patronage organisations visits, and 26 “government-diplomatic” dele-gations.

To top it all off, Mr Beazley has had 121 engagements outside Government House, delivering speeches at 73 of them.

He said it was an unrelenting tempo but not an unwelcome one for a man who spent almost three decades in Federal politics, six years as US ambassador and is used to a full diary.

Next to the life of a WA-based Federal MP, he said, the role of Governor had many blessings.

“One thing which is totally different and good is I don’t have to get on that blasted plane any more and haul myself every week across the continent,” he said.

“After 27 years that just knocks you about.”

Not that he has necessarily made himself comfortable in the official Governor’s residence on St Georges Terrace.

When he spoke to The West Australian last week, Mr Beazley admitted he had only just spent his first night staying at the address.

Works to upgrade and change the configuration of the 154-year-old mansion had stood in the way, albeit temporarily, he said.

Those works now complete, Mr Beazley laughed that he would have to have the family over for Christmas to make up for the lost time.

And looking ahead to 2019, he said his agenda was simple — to work on the “charter” given to him when he was offered the job by Mr McGowan this year.

“I’m lucky because I got a bit of a leg-up from the Premier on that front when he said ‘you do the normal things a Governor does ... but you’ve got to do something more, you’ve got to work out ways of being an advocate’,” he says.

“That’s a great charge, I’m really very happy with that.”

Among the causes Mr Beazley will be advocating are how to attract more international students to WA, something he hopes to further by hosting an annual reception for students and their parents at Government House.

He says he also has his sights fixed on helping WA exploit its position as a “minerals producer of not only the old economy but the minerals producer of the fourth industrial revolution”.

“People will talk to me,” he says.

“That’s one of the good things about being Governor.

“You can build up a bank of knowledge and then you can have that knowledge utilised in discussion with ministers or advocacy to folk who might decide whether they want to invest here and how they view WA as not simply an element of Australia but as a global player.

“We’re known for our iron ore and gold and gas, but the next generation of lithium and cobalt and nickel and rare earths, that’s the future.”

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