A DYNASTY in Scullin will end next year when former Speaker Harry Jenkins leaves his seat.
The Labor MP has been in government with former prime ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, in opposition against John Howard, supported Kevin Rudd and now as a backbencher in the Gillard government.
He announced he would not stand at the 2013 federal election and would continue to represent Scullin until then.
Mr Jenkins was re-elected in 2010 with a 22.25 per cent majority, a rise of 1.4 per cent on his 2007 result.
Mr Jenkins was elected in a 1986 byelection after his father Harry Jenkins Senior stepped down. Mr Jenkins Snr was also a speaker in the House of Representatives and served from 1969 as an opposition MP with Gough Whitlam as leader, before being swept to power in 1972.
Ms Jenkins’ announcement took many Labor members in the northern suburbs by surprise.
Whittlesea councillor Frank Merlino recalls serving on the Whittlesea Shire in the 1980s where Mr Jenkins – who eventually became shire president – “cut his teeth”. But being preselected was a close victory, and Cr Merlino said he played his part.
“I think my greatest contribution was voting for him when he decided to run,” he said. “There were a number of candidates, and the planets were aligned.”
Mill Park Labor branch president Maureen Corrigan said all Scullin branches will select the next candidate within the month – lawyer Andrew Giles was tipped last week.
She said Mr Jenkins was behind many funding wins and recalled how he took a stand when a Mill Park mother, Ranjini Perinparasa, and her children were taken into immigration detention at Villawood in Sydney. “Harry speaks from the heart,” she said.
Mr Jenkins declined to comment.
