The eyes have it. Photos (clockwise, from top left): Scanlens, ABC, Supplied, Angela Pippos.
To those who know her, have worked with her or taken in her work, the name Zoe Daniel sits apposite such terms as “accomplished”, “a natural” and “mind like a steel trap”.
The aspiring Member for Goldstein in Melbourne’s leafy south, former journalist, author, public speaker and ABC Washington bureau chief – who at one point in a busy life juggled life as a Bangkok-based foreign correspondent with raising a young family – has handled each challenge in her path with aplomb, the world seemingly her oyster.
But it wasn’t all seminars, book signings and audiences with Aung San Suu Kyi for Zoe, whose father, former Essendon 100-gamer Peter Daniel, also juggled parenthood and professional obligations (not to mention a footy career). Like Zoe, Peter spent a chunk of his formative years raised by a single parent in the late 1940s and ‘50s (try imagining that) in less-than-perfect circumstances.
“My mother, who was in the military, was very self-reliant and refused any help from Legacy,” Peter said. “She would say, ‘Dare to be a Daniel’, and that’s about determination, honesty, being driven and focused.”
Peter Daniel juggled his career as an educator (top right) with Saturday commitments defending such champions as Peter Hudson (inset). Photos (left to right): Football Record, Launceston Examiner, Supplied, Scanlens.
Not all children of single parents go on to lead full and productive lives, but Peter took his mother’s advice to heart, carving out a career as a teacher and principal while doubling as a player at VFL level, and later a captain-coach and coach at clubs in Tasmania and WA.
As a teen one afternoon playing at Woori Yallock, Peter recalls being asked by an Essendon recruiter in a pork pie hat: “Do you get nervous before games, son?”
Upon answering in the affirmative, he was told, “Good, it means you care”, and with that he was off to Windy Hill. Despite 32 goals (including two bags of six) as a forward in his first sustained senior stint in 1969, coach Jack Clarke saw fit to move Peter onto the backline (often at full-back) for 1970, a season when no fewer than three opposition full-forwards booted 100 goals each.
“It was a nightmare; if it wasn’t Hudson or (Peter) McKenna (at full-forward) it was (Doug) Wade or (Alex) Jesaulenko,” he ruefully recalled. Despite the punishing circumstances, Peter stood up in Essendon’s backline, showing leadership qualities and tactical nous which held him in good stead as a captain and coach in later years.
In 1975, Peter moved to North Launceston as captain-coach, leading the club to five premierships in seven seasons as Zoe cheered him on from her vantage point in trees behind one goal (North Launceston played at what is now an AFL venue, York Park). Statewide and interstate appointments followed, after which Peter became an inaugural member of the Football Tasmania board.
Throughout all this, and in a teaching career spanning more than 40 years, Peter imparted a consistent set of values to his students, his players and his children: determination, honesty, focus, “practice until it’s second nature” (a value most applicable in football) and, importantly, “study it, then make up your own mind”. They were lessons Zoe applied with vigour.
Young Zoe Daniel with her father, Peter. Photo: Supplied.
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What happens when you mix values like “determination, drive and focus” with the “mind of a steel trap”? You get a high achiever like Zoe Daniel, that’s what.
From early in life, it was clear Zoe had enormous raw potential, with a ‘leg up’, academically-speaking, from her educator father. Ascribed a reading age of 15 when she was just six, Zoe was encouraged by school staff to pursue a career in the humanities, eventually settling on journalism as her preferred vocation.
As she moved through the ranks at the ABC, from regional radio producer to Country Hour presenter to foreign correspondent in Africa and Asia to, finally, Washington DC bureau chief, Zoe clearly took seriously both ‘Aunty’s demands for objectivity and one value, in particular, imparted by Peter: “study it, then make up your own mind”.
This helps explain her patient, all-angles assessment of Trump supporters as being motivated at least as much by economic anxieties and a reaction to globalism (as discussed in her book, Greetings from Trumpland) as they are by what jumps out at you first: the deep-seated prejudices often proudly displayed.
It’s the easiest thing in the world (requiring the least amount of mental energy) to pigeonhole people without a closer look, but Zoe’s in the habit, forged over decades in journalism, of going the extra analytical yard. That patient, all-angles objectivity could be a crucial asset if Zoe winds up juggling the cacophony of constituent concerns she would face as the Independent Member for Goldstein.
Awkward: Zoe Daniel’s opponent, Goldstein MP Tim Wilson (above) tried to have her signs deemed illegal. Image: The New Daily.
Far from a pipe dream, it turns out Zoe could indeed be “juggling constituent concerns” as an MP in the very near future. Early poll numbers in the hitherto Blue Ribbon Liberal seat of Goldstein look promising, while the sheer number of “If not us, who?” yard signs popping up all over Beaumaris and Bentleigh (above) seems to have panicked sitting MP Tim Wilson into an ill-fated attempt to have them declared illegal by the local council.
So how would she balance her core priorities as a climate-oriented independent with other local concerns? I put that to Zoe, whose response, for an aspiring politician, was refreshingly clear:
1. Her policies on core issues like carbon emissions, a Federal ICAC, equality and safety, economic policy and media diversity are pretty well non-negotiable.
2. Her positions on other, often-important, issues facing both Goldstein and Australia will be informed both by her own experience and knowledge base and those of her electors, to whom she is ultimately answerable and responsible.
Zoe will, in essence, be applying that same patient, all-angles, objective assessment she used as a journalist over the years, mindful of the fact her own proclivities will sometimes have to take a back seat to those of an historically Liberal electorate.
Someone with the “mind of a steel trap” is smart enough to be both clear about her non-negotiables, and responsive on everything else. That’s about as close to a true local member as you’re likely to get in a Westminster democracy; if she’s half as good a pollie as she was a journo, Goldstein voters likely will go on electing her for years to come.
Zoe Daniel hopes for a political career of consequence from the cross benches, an outcome which may hinge on whether or not we wind up with a minority Federal Government, and she and her independent colleagues gain the balance of power. Whatever happens, it’s fair to say Zoe’s come a long way from the trees behind the York Park goal.
*Views expressed in the above article do not reflect those of Footyology or its staff.
