IN MEMORIAM / John Kerin, politician, November 21, 1937- March 29, 2023

“John Kerin wanted to improve lives, not for glory, ego, income nor his name on a plaque. Like the greatest leaders, he lived to serve. To serve those he’d never met.” ANTONIO DI DIO fondly remembers a friend, a patient and a hero.

JOHN Kerin passed away a couple of weeks ago – he was my patient, my friend and one of my heroes. He was 85.

Eulogies will be given at Friday’s (April 14) state funeral by our Prime Minister, in various publications by pundits and political historians, and in more personal journals. 

As a political warrior, and a self-made economist, you’d think such a combination would not promote kindness – but you’d be wrong.

John was one of the finest minds we’ve had in Aussie politics, starting out in a party that had 23 years in the wilderness, as an autodidact farmer who spent evenings like the young Abe Lincoln educating himself, and meticulously applying what he’d learned, with good humour, gentleness, humility and drive, to making his patch of Australia a better place. 

He rose through the Whitlam and the Hawke and Keating governments to become one of our most successful and authentic agriculture ministers, our federal treasurer, with a distinguished later career in other portfolios. 

To all roles he brought relentless decency that made not just his patch, but all of our nation, a better place. I have no interest in political sides, only that he did good. I have no interest in party point scoring, only that his entire career was a gigantic plus in the invisible ledger counted on by those who measure these things.

I’m fascinated by how many of my heroes end up being incredibly fallible and mortal when you get to know them, and for me it always ends up about three things. The ethical underpinnings that determine their progress and pursuits after politics, the self view and perspective that comes with true humility, and the relationships that emerge from their perspective.

In these things, even when frail and dying, John was an even greater inspiration to me than when, in his pomp, he dismissed turgid opposition poultry arguments like Bradman smacking a long hop to the square leg fence. 

John’s career was incredible, but it is after politics that he becomes truly great. He wrote with passion into his eighties in the “Southern Highlands Branch Newsletter” (the most intelligent newsletter in the southern or any other hemisphere for purveyors of political history and cricket, and one in which the reader faces a lifetime ban should she stray into even the most accidental and mild criticisms of Virginia Woolf or Victor Trumper. And rightly so). 

John helped found the branch in 1969, literally the year of “Don’s Party”, the year Keating reached parliament and Armstrong kicked the moon, and a time where being a “True Believer” was hard. 

After his retirement, he had a hundred opportunities to translate his skills and connections into commerce, but instead returned to what he’d loved, agriculture, combined with a lifetime of pursuing education and advocacy for his people. He lived in Canberra and taught U3A, wrote volumes, essayed relentlessly and his 450,000 words on modern agriculture will be the greatest combination essay/doorstop in this humble house. 

John kept doing his job for decades after his retirement, because he loved it. His people were all people, and I loved that, too. In this, he remained my hero till the end.

Despite this pursuit, he could have fallen into shrillness, repetition, irrelevance and fading male rage. He never did. He articulated, never pontificated. He persuaded, never argued. He made points, but never sought to score them. He respected those he spoke to, and listened more than he spoke. 

Even at the end, as I tried with pitiful medical tools to alleviate suffering, he sought to discuss the wrongs done to the innocent, the settings that a true nerdy wonk would fiddle with, the broad stroke policy and the minutiae of execution. 

He wanted to improve lives, not for glory, ego, income nor his name on a plaque with letters at the end of it. He was there for us all, and like the greatest leaders, he lived to serve. To serve those he’d never met. His interest group was all of us. This was a politician a Captain Naivete like me would have designed.

Nothing happens in a vacuum. He spoke with pride and love of his family. He left behind Dr June (a proper one, not a stethoscoped fraud like me), the most fiercely intelligent and loving character you could find, who’d rally like some Welsh Boadicea to all his causes, while gently bringing him back down to earth when the ideological thought balloons threatened to float him away. 

John Kerin literally gave himself to public life, till his final day, to all Australians. Pretty kind, if you ask me. 

Antonio Di Dio is a local GP, medical leader, and nerd. There is more of his “Kindness” on citynews.com.au