by Madonna King
Outside history, Joe wasn’t near the top of the class. But it was the regime that the Jesuits built around their boys that helped him to grow. Others withered under the strict rule, but it suited Joe. After school, his parents’ Northbridge home would become the meeting place for a stack of noisy teenagers, as French, English and Arabic banter flew back and forth. A grassy knoll sat in the middle of the street, home to a few sprawling trees, hiding natural cubby houses where adults seemed content not to visit. There, on weekends and on school holidays, the boys would talk for hours, taking to the street to play cricket or football, rarely interrupted by local traffic. Friday afternoon was touch footy in Northbridge, and local lads from different schools and of different ages would head down to Northbridge oval for the game.
With Jeremy Melloy, Joe spent lazy afternoons mucking around in the bush near the golf course, too. Occasionally the pair would enjoy a free round of holes after sneaking on at the second and going for as long as they could before getting caught. Jeremy has always been one of those friends who is able to tell his mate when to pull his head in. Sometimes Joe could carry on ‘like a pork chop’, agitating to get a response. And on the rare occasion, Jeremy says, they’d get into a scrap. ‘If he didn’t listen, I’d have a swing at him,’ Jeremy says. ‘Once a year we’d have a fight. He would just be frustrating. He can niggle and niggle and if you can’t get the better of him verbally, we’d have a stoush.’ It was never over girls, though, despite the inordinate amount of time they spent discussing them.
Joe’s parents were strict, especially Richard, and Joe was given very little opportunity to stray too far. Indeed, he was rarely allowed to join his friends for the $5 all-you-can-eat plate at the local Chinese restaurant. His father probably knew that they’d end up prowling the streets looking for innocent mischief. But on those occasions when Joe was allowed out and their confidence was riding high, the boys would go to a phone box and use 20 cents to call one of the girls from the 772 bus they caught to school. More often than not their confidence vanished as fast as the coin, and they’d hang up before words were spoken. But despite Richard’s firm hand, Joe managed his own teenage folly, usually involving Southern Comfort, cigarettes and an overwhelming feeling of illness in his back garden. It was inside the gates of St Aloysius’ where Joe felt he really belonged. It delivered him both sport and friends, as well as a platform where he could be heard. It gave him the structure to pursue goals and understand the importance of rules and responsibilities.
As part of the Aloysius’ Cadets Unit, Joe worked his way through the ranks of private, corporal, sergeant, and (eventually) to cadet under officer, snagging a blue lanyard along the way. At the May bivouac one year he was sent into thickened scrub in Springwood in the Blue Mountains. He and three junior cadets were tasked with providing dinner for themselves with only a few ingredients – a live chook, some potatoes, string and three matches. They had to cook the chicken for dinner. ‘We’re looking at this chicken, thinking we’ve got to kill it,’ Joe says now, ‘and we tried and couldn’t kill the bloody thing.’
Eventually they did, but it took several attempts, partly because of the agility showed by the chicken, but also because of the squeamish stomachs of those responsible for its death. They then set about heating stones in the fire, before putting them into a pair of cadet pants tied at the bottom. Water was poured into the pants, allowing the water to heat. That was crucial, so that they could then pluck the feathers out of the chicken. None of the boys enjoyed the task; some even considered it barbaric. But cadet Joe Hockey knew this task was the exception to the rule. Cadets was a place where they could bond over bushwalks, campfire chats and cheap jokes at each other’s expense. Camps away from their parents, shooting M16s at Singleton, climbing in and out of Iroquois helicopters or risking the wrath of their superiors by throwing concentrated butter packs into the fire to watch them explode: these were special treats, providing an adventure and an independence weekends at home couldn’t deliver.
Joe’s friends were unsure whether his parents dragged him overseas on exotic holidays because it was good for him or because they didn’t want to leave him under any peer spell back home, but as a consequence Joe’s eyes were widened as he travelled with his parents to places like China and Israel. His first overseas trip was to New Zealand, as a seven-year-old, but by the age of 11 he had travelled to China, too; one of the first tour groups to ever travel there. ‘I remember people coming up and squeezing my cheek,’ Joe says. ‘They’d never seen white people before.’
China was a different country then; no buildings loomed higher than four storeys, everyone rode bikes and wore grey. Neon didn’t exist. It was China that first made Joe think beyond Sydney’s north shore. ‘I realised there was something beyond Australia, something beyond my street. All of a sudden, I realised that the playing field was much bigger.’ It was in Egypt that his mother, Beverley, got an inkling that her teenage son might be destined for politics. Richard had taken Joe down to the Australian Embassy, where talk centred on the unfolding diplomatic crisis between Iran and the United States. More than 50 American hostages were being held. Joe became fixated on the drama. ‘I’ve got to fix that,’ he told his parents. Richard took him back to the hotel but Joe was incensed. He wanted to return to the Embassy and see if he could help. ‘You write a letter and I’ll pass it on,’ Richard told him. ‘We didn’t want to get involved in politics in Egypt,’ Beverley says, ‘but Joseph wouldn’t let up.’ Eventually he was encouraged to sit down and write a letter, trusting his parents would pass it on to the authorities.
While this incident provided his parents with a clue to their son’s future, it was back in his neighbourhood that he took the first real steps towards political office. Sure, he’d mouthed off at school about being prime minister one day, but it was a day when Joe was just 14 that his father knew the career his son would pursue single-mindedly. Joe was down at the local cricket nets at Northbridge Public School. Anthony Hoffman was there. So was a group of other boys. Joe bowled a ball. It reared up, narrowly missing Anthony’s head. ‘I was really upset and went home and told Dad about it,’ Joe says. Richard listened and told Joe he should do something about it. He should go to the Northbridge Progress Association and demand the pitch be fixed to ensure it didn’t happen again.
Joe loved the idea, and his father drove him to the next meeting of the association, held in a tiny hall in Northbridge. They sat together, down the back, and when it came to general business, his father prodded him. ‘Stand up and say something,’ his father urged him.
‘Excuse me,’ Joe said in his most adult voice, ‘but the kids of Northbridge need some new cricket nets.’ Margaret Greaves was the local councillor and asked him for more details. He told her he could have killed his friend because the nets were torn and dangerous. The pitch was shabby and the concrete fractured and broken. Margaret Greaves listened, and then she nodded and asked whether Joe would be prepared to work with her on a solution. His smile spread from ear to ear.
‘That’s the day,’ Richard says, ‘I knew he would be a politician. I put him on the track and he followed it properly.’ To Joe, it had all been so easy. He had fixed something, simply by speaking up and telling someone about it. Isn’t that the job of politicians?
By the time Joe was in his final year at school he had a new outlook on the world, where sometimes he won and sometimes he lost. He was desperate to play in the Rugby First XV, but just missed out. He wanted to be the head cadet, and didn’t get that either. It was the same story with cricket – he captained the Second XI – and the position of school captain escaped him, too. These were all jobs he aspired to, worked to win. But he never showed ill-feeling towards those who beat him to the best jobs, and never quibbled over a ruling given by someone more senior. In fact, even now, he focuses on sitting up straight in the chair, recounting the tale of a teacher from his Aloysius’ school days who called him up during the 2010 election. ‘I picked up the phone,’ Joe says, �
��and in this thick Irish accent she says, “Mr Hockey, it’s Sister Vincent Murphy here … I just watched you on TV. For goodness sake, don’t slouch in those couches.” ’
It was after climbing through the ranks in cadets that Joe got the idea of applying to Duntroon. He loved the team spirit of cadets in the same way he loved the sporting field. Cadets, sport and speaking filled his weeks, and his ardour for history – helped by those trips overseas with his parents – continued to see him bring home good grades in that subject. He worked as hard as he had to, not as hard as he could. No-one from either side of his family had ever been to university, so Duntroon seemed like a sensible course of action. On the day Australia won the America’s Cup in 1983, Joe sat the entrance exam in an office in Sydney. During the morning, someone raised the idea that the Americans might not hand the cup over. A debate broke out when one of the people running the exam spoke up. ‘He said if we’ve got to invade that place we will. He was even wearing an army uniform,’ Joe says. Half-bemused and half-shocked, Joe finished the test, underwent a physical at Victoria Barracks, and then packed his bags and headed off to Greece with his parents.
It was only a couple of weeks later that a message was passed on to them there. He should hurry home, it said. Joseph Benedict Hockey, whose father had served in the British Army and who had routinely told his friends he would be prime minister one day, looked set to join the army. He was headed for Duntroon.
THREE
THE FIRST OF his siblings to make it to university, Joe walked into class on day one, drunk. He’d arrived at The University of Sydney ready to take on an Arts degree but his heart was never really in it. He’d declined the offer of a spot at Duntroon, having re-examined his options and wanting to try university instead. The problem was that Joe wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. The pull of politics remained but he was still a teenager, and he didn’t quite understand the path to power or even what Party he would join. Life was stress-free, but aimless. His Arts degree didn’t give a clue to where he might end up and, on his first day, the vast Sydney University campus seemed intimidating in comparison with the grounds of St Aloysius’, which had been his second home for ten years. He wandered around before stumbling upon a couple of people he had met previously. Together, they sat in the sun and drank beer. ‘I walked into my first lecture and fell asleep,’ Joe says. The focus of the lecture that day had been on the role played by Australian legal institutions.
It was a year before Joe found his feet, and it was a move out of home that made that possible. After a year of mostly socialising, with little direction and even less study, his father took him aside and suggested he apply to live at St John’s College on campus. ‘He knew me better than I did,’ Joe says.
While it didn’t stop Joe drinking or partying, it did provide him with parameters and a new sense of direction. His grades improved and, a year later, he transferred to the law faculty. Law, like Arts, didn’t capture Joe’s imagination, but it was a stepping stone to something else. It also filled in time. His best friend, Jeremy Melloy, says he knew Joe wouldn’t be a lawyer. So did others who sat in class with him; they couldn’t picture their colleague sitting at a desk and rifling through legal documents for the rest of his life. ‘It’s just not him,’ one says. ‘It never was.’
St John’s soon felt like home and Joe would wander the corridors looking for a chat, joining any party going, and frequently teetering back to his room after three Kahlua and milks, his tipple of choice. He only needed a couple of drinks before alcohol took a toll, and without his heavy sport schedule his weight would have ballooned further. Joe also joined the college debating team, and represented St John’s in shot put and rugby. Being part of a team gave him a sense of fellowship, but it was also a poignant reminder of the responsibilities that came with membership. On one occasion, as a second-year student at St John’s, he skipped a crucial rugby training session to go skiing. His team-mates were irate, but in a pointer to the negotiating skills that would later emerge, he managed to quickly talk his way back onto the paddock.
David Kearney was another resident at St John’s, having been schooled at St Joseph’s at Hunters Hill. Both he and Joe moved to St John’s in second year, studied law together, and developed an easy friendship. David would also later become Joe’s rugby captain, and vividly remembers the role Joe played in the 1985 Rawson Cup rugby match against St Paul’s College, the champions of the 1984 season. It’s a story that says so much about Joe – both his desire to be centre of attention and to be on the winning side. On this day, the bell had sounded, but St Paul’s College had a final shot at goal. If they won, they would be declared premiership winners again. If they missed, St John’s would take home the Rawson Cup for rugby.
It was a cold, wet afternoon, but 1500 students had poured out of the college dorms to watch the match on university grounds. St Paul’s kicker moved in, striking the ball. It hit the post. Thinking the play through in your head, you’d want one of the quick backs to catch the ball and get it over the line. But this time, the ball dropped off the post, directly to Joe Hockey. ‘All he has to do is get it over the sideline somehow and we’re all shouting at him to kick it,’ Kearney says. Joe had other ideas and decided to run the ball. To David, the next ten seconds felt like an hour. Joe was a big burly prop, and it wasn’t usual back then for props to run with the ball. He tucked the ball under one arm and began charging towards the sideline. St John’s supporters were screaming at him to kick the ball across the line. ‘He finally did, via a wild pass, but it took a long time to do it,’ Kearney says. ‘It was almost like, I’ve finally got the ball in my hand and I’m going to make the most of it.’
Joe’s manoeuvre helped St John’s win the Rugby Rawson Cup. ‘Joe’s always had a way – whether it’s through good luck or good management – of finding himself at the right spot at the right time,’ Kearney says. ‘I suspect it’s more through good management.’
Neither of those qualities was present on the day he was decked by one of his coaches, future prime minister Tony Abbott. The story has been told hundreds of times with slightly different emphases, depending on the storyteller. But those like Kearney and others (not including either of the protagonists) tell it this way. Joe was a third-grade prop, with Abbott, usually captain-coach of second grade, filling in as his coach.
‘Tony was just packing down, as his second-grade prop was injured. Joe kept popping him, or lifting him up,’ one of the players says. ‘It was driving Tony nuts.’
Tony got the ball and lay over it in the ruck. Joe aimed his shoulder and charged at Abbott’s kidneys. Abbott got up and smacked Joe. Joe remembers it hurting. Tony Abbott says: ‘My recollection is that his head made more of an impact on my fist than my fist did on his head!’
It was no big deal at the time. No-one watching would have thought that one day Abbott would be the nation’s prime minister and that the target of his punch would be his treasurer. But the slap-down didn’t surprise any of Joe’s classmates. They knew how Joe could push buttons when he wanted to, and he liked to bait friends to the point where they retaliated. On that day, Joe’s response was to throw a punch back – and that didn’t surprise anyone either. When you prodded Joe Hockey the right way, he’d fight back twice as hard, and he played to win. On another occasion, on the same football field, Joe leant in and kissed one of his opponents. It was a tactic that worked.
‘He wanted to get a reaction from me,’ the player says. ‘He wanted me to swing a punch and get a penalty in front of the posts. That gives you an insight into his competitiveness.’
Joe found the same sense of chumminess on St John’s College senior debating team, racing through the year, with team-mates Phillip Kelly and Peter Jones, undefeated and winning the championship with the proposition: ‘That we would always prefer power to glory’.
‘Joe Hockey, the Russell Hinze of student politics, rose to the occasion,’ St John’s College magazine, The Johnsonian, recorded. �
�Despite his ignorance of the difference between the respective sexual functions of Bulls and Cows, he spoke well. Victory was ours, but few doubted the invincibility of the team.’
Joe lived the life thousands of college students across Australia continue to do each day. Allowed to escape adulthood for a few extra years, life lacked real responsibility, and sometimes motivation. Money usually served as the main brake on too many good times, but Joe worked hard earning cash – scalping tickets (including to Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA tour), working at the annual Sydney Royal Easter Show, and doing odd jobs for money. He spent it as fast as he earned it, on skiing holidays, roadtrips to South Australia and a boys’ trip to Fiji. Joe’s parents had a holiday house in the Blue Mountains, with the Jamison Valley as a backdrop, and his girlfriend Paula Jones’s parents had one at Blueys Beach on the mid north coast.
