I sometimes wonder about my colleagues issuing the big stories from the Canberra gallery - do they realise that yes, there is a life outside politics, and it starts with a little clever marketing?
Take this week's hand-wringing over the resignation of Mark Arbib. He's a powerful force in Parliament, one of the "faceless men" due for his rewards, probably a Cabinet seat. Why should he leave the levers of power and return to Sydney?
Well I'm sorry, this is where I'm a heartless cynic. You see for years I have been watching how the smart folk time their exit from politics. Think about it.
You don't want to go after an electoral defeat, when the market is awash with unemployed ministers and parliamentarians. The smart ones get out a year or two before there's the risk of it happening.
While your party is still in power, the important people take your calls and you get lots of appearances on Lateline.
Remember John Dawkins? Federal Treasurer for Paul Keating who resigned and quit Parliament two years before Howard's comeback. He ended up as a lobbyist for Government Relations Australia, and a director for the likes of Elders Rural Bank, Fortunes Fund Management and Genetic Technologies.
So yes there is a life after political death - better paid, too.
On the Liberal side there are even more waiting arms. When Peter Reith quit in 2001 he took up work with warship builder Tennix, neatly splicing his two previous jobs as Minister for Workplace Relations and Minister for Defence.
Peter Costello donned his "greatest treasurer" sash and joined some of Goldman Sachs' heaviest weights, forming corporate and government consultancy BKK Partners. As Managing Partner. Then last year he joined two former staffers in setting up ECG Advisory Solutions, a lobbyist with clients like Wesfarmers and Fortescue Metals.
Lindsay Tanner has only recently departed and is greatly missed within the ALP, we are told. However he won't feel lonely. As a senior adviser with Lazard, one of the world's great merchant banks advising corporations and treasuries around the world, he has the company of chairman Paul Keating.
Showing true bipartisanship, when Alexander Downer quit in 2008 he joined ex Labor senator Nick Bolkus and Natasha Stott Despoja's husband Ian Smith in lobby consultancy Bespoke Approach. He also warms a seat in a global merchant bank, Cappello Capital Corporation.
Now are you beginning to see that our departing ministers will not have to sit in draughty Centrelink corridors for months? This is quite apart from the very generous superannuation scheme that covers our politicians.
Of course retired pollies are invaluable to a corporation or institution. They intimately know their way around the corridors of power, they know where the bodies are buried. (Some they planted themselves.)
They understand the bureaucracies and have the private numbers of the departmental chiefs. Besides, a famous name looks good on the letterhead, especially as it is usually followed by a string of honours.
You need shed no tears for departing Senator Arbib. He has a reputation proclaimed throughout the media as a brilliant planner and plotter, a mover and shaker. Just what a major corporation wants in its leadership team. He exits applauded by the Prime Minister from the floor of Parliament. What better recommendation for the CV?
Before him he has a highly-paid new career, working nine to five with no sleepwalking early morning divisions. And he gets to spend time with his beautiful kids. If that's political death, we might see more leaping from the ramparts of Parliament House in the coming year.
ray@ebeatty.com
Blog: themarketeer-raybeatty.blogspot.com
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