Moments after securing a landslide victory on the 2018 state election, a triumphant Daniel Andrews showered reward on his younger marketing campaign director, Sam Rae, who has now been fast-tracked to develop into a federal minister at simply 38 years previous.
Rae stays an unknown determine to many outdoors Victoria, the place he wielded political affect and cultivated highly effective allies lengthy earlier than coming into federal parliament in 2022 because the member for Hawke, on Melbourne’s north-western fringe.
His elevation to minister for aged care and seniors, similar to his preselection in Hawke, got here after a bruising factional struggle. Rae, together with fellow Victorian rightwinger Daniel Mulino, was promoted after frontbenchers Ed Husic and Mark Dreyfus were dumped. Labor insiders concede the demotions had been brutal.
Rae’s promotion has raised some eyebrows inside Labor, together with from former prime minister Paul Keating, who described Rae’s Victorian right faction as “demonstrably devoid of creativity and capability”. Victorian Labor sources insist this criticism is unfair and fails to replicate Rae’s expertise.
Rae labored as a manufacturing facility labourer, a name centre operator and a childcare employee earlier than turning into an voters officer and adviser to former communications minister and Victorian right-faction energy dealer Stephen Conroy in 2015.
In his first speech to parliament, Rae listed Conroy as a mentor together with Labor energy dealer Don Farrell and the deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, who leads the Victorian proper faction. On Sunday, Husic accused Marles of being a “factional assassin” who had orchestrated his demise.
After six years with Conroy, Rae moved to Victorian Labor and ran its analysis and techniques unit. He then grew to become the state celebration’s secretary and ran the 2018 Labor marketing campaign, which secured Daniel Andrews a second time period. Rae labored alongside pollster Kos Samaras, who was not stunned by his promotion.
“He grew up in a single mother or father family with two different brothers and labored in factories to get himself by college,” Samaras mentioned. “It’s not precisely been a blessed life. That is the type of individual you positively need within the cupboard.”
Samaras mentioned Rae had proven “an unbelievable means to know enormous advanced logistical issues” in the course of the 2018 state election, which he described as the very best marketing campaign he had labored on.
Months after the 2018 election, Rae grew to become a accomplice at PwC Australia. Throughout this era, Rae labored with James MacKenzie, who’s the chair of regulation agency Slater & Gordon and a board member of the Suburban Rail Loop Authority. MacKenzie is a Labor stalwart who overhauled the Victorian ALP headquarters within the late Nineteen Seventies.
Rae is “positively not a political hack,” mentioned MacKenzie, who labored with him on non-government initiatives. “The factions don’t give out MBAs. The type of work I engaged with whereas he was a accomplice at PwC was akin to severe coverage work; that’s what he brings to the desk.
“I used to be impressed by his understanding of what’s a well-formulated and well-structured coverage and his broad enterprise understanding. It’s not fairly often you come throughout a ‘political hack’ who understands what the price of capital is.”
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Rae left PwC Australia after being preselected to run within the seat of Hawke, which additionally unleashed factional divisions. Some members aligned to former chief Invoice Shorten needed a lady chosen. However Rae was chosen by Labor’s nationwide government, not department members, as a result of state department being positioned into administration after branch-stacking allegations.
A number of unions argued there ought to have been a poll, and unsuccessfully launched court docket motion to overturn the nationwide government’s intervention.
As an MP, Rae lists campaigning to ship pressing care clinics to Sunbury and Melton amongst his best achievements. He instructed Guardian Australia he “was an enormous ache within the arse” inside the celebration to make sure the cash was allotted.
One former senior Victorian Labor staffer, who labored with Rae however declined to be named so they might converse freely, mentioned criticism of him as an unknown factional participant was “unfair”.
“He’s a member of Labor’s nationwide government, for one,” the supply mentioned. “He’s a deep thinker and also you don’t lead a landslide victory at a state election with out having an understanding of each coverage and politics.”
In a press release, Rae mentioned he was “deeply honoured to have been requested to function minister for aged care and seniors”.
“It’s a difficult portfolio and I’m proud to take it alongside Labor’s gifted workforce,” Rae mentioned. “There’s lots of work to do and we’re able to get began.”
