SO Steve Bracks will not be able to take up his appointment as Australia's Consul General in New York.
Why is he surprised? Once the appointment was announced by his good mate Julia Gillard, after the later had identified September 14th as the election date, the Coalition said the appointment would not be ratified by them if they won government.
Mr Bracks was aware of that position. His was a highly political appointment, as was his appointment to head an inquiry into the administration of the Labor Party and separately to head an inquiry into the motor vehicle industry - the latter in which he continued the old Labor theme of providing more public money to companies which produced products that were not purchased in sufficient numbers to ensure the companies remained financially viable.
So Mr Bracks was warned that his appointment made by Ms Gillard after she had nominated the election date, without appropriate consultation with the Opposition, would not be endorsed.
Federally, Labor, through Minister Tanya Plibersek, is crying foul and has called the decision petty. What rubbish. Clearly Labor has learnt nothing from its recent mauling at the hands of the Australian public. It still expect its mates to be given plum jobs regardless of the abuse of process it employed at the time of Mr Bracks' appointment.
Labor has mentioned how it continued with the process of Coalition appointments to overseas posts when it was elected in 2007. But so will the new government. I have not heard that Kim Beazley is under threat in his position as Ambassador in Washington, or Mike Rann as High Commissioner in the United Kingdom.
All appointments where incumbents are in office can be expected to run their normal course.
Mr Bracks had not taken up his posting and had received plenty of advice that should the Coalition win government, the appointment would not be ratified. He certainly spoke with some of my conservative colleagues in the past few months seeking to change the position of the Minister elect, Julie Bishop. But he failed.
But who is Steve Bracks to complain? He did exactly the same thing when he won Government in 1999.
My Government had appointed an eminent jurist, Sir James Gobbo, to the position of Governor of Victoria in 1997; an appointment by tradition that ran for five years. But because of the debate and referendum as to whether Australia would become a Republic in 2000, Sir James's actual appointment was only confirmed to 2000, the date a Republic would have come into being had the referendum been successful.
Once the referendum was lost, I expected Sir James would continue to his full term and we might even have extended his term because of his outstanding performance.
Mr Bracks intervened, sacked Sir James and said he wanted to appoint his own person.
Not only was Sir James a leading jurist but a highly involved and respected person in our multicultural community. It was for that reason in the main that I secured his appointment, to continue Victoria's leadership in advancing the tolerant society we had developed over the years. Sir James's appointment was overwhelmingly supported across the community and he and his wife Shirley discharged their responsibilities with dignity and energy. In fact Sir James had been knighted in 1982 for his services to the community.
Mr Bracks' act in sacking the Governor was worse than what he is complaining about now - the withdrawal of his appointment. Sir James was appointed on outstanding merit, was already in office and had been for two and a half years. He was discharging his responsibilities in a highly professional manner.
Mr Bracks was a political appointment, not merit-based, he had not taken up his appointment and his appointment was not made using appropriate processes.
Ms Plibersek says this first act by the Government elect is petty, but given Mr Bracks was about to get on a plane to travel to New York, is it not fairer that the decision, which had been consistently adhered to, was conveyed to him before he travelled to New York, therefore sparing him having to board a return flight?
All this is much ado about nothing, except to again illustrate how the Labor Party believes it is entitled to be treated differently from others, how it believes it is entitled, having breached the courtesies of protocol, to still be able to have its mates showered with favours.
Often in life it happens that how you treat people on the way up comes into play when you are on the way down.
Mr Bracks was not singled out personally, but for a failure of his mates, who have kept him employed since 2007, to adhere to process.
That said, there will be many in the community who will welcome this decision for what Mr Bracks did to Sir James. And the old adage "do unto others as you would have done to you" seems to have come back and bitten Steve Bracks on the bum.
