His name is not on the ballot, and he won’t be continuing as president after next Tuesday, but the Hawthorn Football Club’s election is largely about the legacy and personality of one man: Jeff Kennett.
The influence of Kennett in this election dwarfs the not inconsiderable shadow that the former premier has cast over his other team, the Victorian Liberal Party, who haven’t been on the winning side much since Kennett’s defeat in 1999.
Jeff Kennett’s presence has towered over Hawthorn’s board election.Credit:Getty Images
The fans who pushed Andy Gowers, a 1991 premiership player and ex-board member, to stand against Kennett’s more sedate successor, Peter Nankivell, did so in large part because of antipathy to Kennett.
If not for Kennett and his outspoken and forceful leadership – which served Hawthorn well when navigating certain issues, less so with others – the activist fan group driving the election, “Hawks For Change”, would never have formed.
If not for Kennett, it is doubtful that James Merlino, the former deputy premier, would be standing for a Hawthorn board seat so soon after his exit from politics.
Hawks for Change is a diverse collection of fans with different agendas, gripes and interests. There’s some who believe in club democracy, some who felt the shoving and payout of Alastair Clarkson was botched, some, such as ex-premiership player James Morrissey who wanted the club out of pokies (a change that happened), some who worry about the on-field direction.
Many complained, too, that Kennett’s frequent criticisms of Daniel Andrews and his government had delayed Hawthorn receiving funding – $15m the standard for Victorian clubs – for the club’s new Dingley headquarters. Kennett, to his credit, recently acknowledged that his anti-Dan tweets hadn’t helped Hawthorn on the facilities funding front, albeit they will get the $15m soon after he leaves.
The only unifying factor between these disparate members is that they have had enough of the outsized personality of Jeffrey Gibb Kennett, who knows full well that the opposition to Nankivell is really opposition to him.
None of this is particularly fair to Nankivell, a well-connected lawyer who was on the board when Kennett was invited to return in 2017, Jeff handing himself carte blanche to throw out the board if he wished. The Gowers supporters’ critique of Nankivell and other incumbent board members is that they did not resist Kennett’s “my way or highway” leadership and that the club has suffered consequently.
Hawthorn’s election, with voting to close at 5pm on Friday, differs from nearly every other AFL club in that the members vote directly for the president, rather than having the members elect the board, who then decide which of them is president.
Thus, we have three board spots being contested, plus the presidency. The board and Kennett are backing Nankivell and two incumbent women, Katie Hudson and Anne-Maree Pellizzer, plus Maria Lui, who is standing for the first time with backing of both board and Hawks for Change.
Hawks for Change are backing Gowers, Merlino (who isn’t part of that group), Box Hill president Ed Sill and Lui.
Legends Don Scott and Peter Hudson are endorsing Nankivell, as is generous club benefactor and Flight Centre founder Geoff Harris, while Gowers has public support from his distinguished ex-teammates and Hawk heroes Chris Langford, Gary Ayres and Peter Schwab. Jason Dunstall, a massive influence on Hawthorn’s success, has stayed away from the election squabble.
Gowers is viewed by most Hawthorn people as favourite to win the ballot because a) he wore the jumper in a successful era, b) he has Hawks for Change – who had even hired ALP operative Stephen Donnelly to do campaigning – pushing his cause, and c) because he has the anti-Jeff vote.
Peter Nankivell hopes to be Hawthorn’s next club president.
Nankivell’s greatest obstacle is that he has been handcuffed to Kennett, even though his conciliatory and measured style is the antithesis of Jeff. Kennett’s willingness to criticise the Gowers push and support Nankivell serves only to highlight in some members’ minds that the presidential candidate is Kennett’s man.
Nankivell’s campaign tried to create some separation from Kennett, but it would have been easier if Kennett – whose greatest and most grateful constituency is the Melbourne media – removed himself from the campaign.
The impact on this election of the AFL investigation into Hawthorn’s cultural safety review and allegations by First Nations players and their families against Clarkson and his former lieutenants Chris Fagan and Jason Burt, who all deny the allegations, is a great unknown. Nankivell, as a senior partner at Thomson Geer, has been steering the board’s legal response to the review.
Could members think the club has mishandled this review, hurt the club’s reputation and thrown Clarkson and Fagan to the wolves? Or believe it a painful, but necessary and commendable audit of Hawthorn’s problematic relations with Indigenous/First Nations people? It’s hard to say.
Hawthorn presidential candidate Andy Gowers.Credit:Getty Images
Kennett’s second stint as Hawthorn president, the result of a bungled board appointment of CEO Tracey Gaudry, has been less successful than his first incarnation, which saw the club become financially powerful, consolidated the Tasmanian deal and take the 2008 premiership, while setting a platform for his successor Andrew Newbold to preside over the premiership three-peat.
Whether Gowers or Nankivell prevails, whether Merlino joins the board and what happens next in Hawthorn’s bold rebuild under Sam Mitchell, we can be sure that while Jeff Kennett is exiting Hawthorn, Hawthorn haven’t heard the last of him.
