Kim Beazley was a political actor who constantly had to battle his stage fright. Behind the apparently calm and confident man who lectured us with long words in lengthy sentences was a nervous Nellie quite lacking in confidence.

This characteristic of his personality was especially evident at election times. During all the campaigns of the Hawke years he was constantly fearful of defeat even when the portents were good. Phone calls to party headquarters from Kim were always tinged with panic.

Not that Kim Beazley was without reason to be on the nervous side. For a man so steeped in the traditions of the Party from an early age he was never much good at winning the ballots that really mattered. He did even manage to win pre-selection for his father’s old safe seat of Fremantle and it was not until quite late in his political life that he found an electorate that was not marginal.

His rise to the leadership of the Labor Party came after the early retirement of a Paul Keating who had no stomach for being an opposition leader and was pushed along by Keating’s predecessor Bob Hawke who treated the West Australian a little like the son he wished he had. The encouragement of Hawke was an important ingredient in his early success as party leader.

I call it success because Kim Beazley had the rare distinction of winning more than 51% of the two party preferred vote and not winning in his first confrontation with John Howard. He never performed as well again at elections.

Perhaps it was that private nervousness which prevented him taking the bold decisions needed by a successful political leader. In his last attempt at leadership which ended with the challenge by Kevin Rudd he did not seem capable of convincing anyone that he could be a winner.

As Kim Beazley ended his political career, another of Labor’s big men bowed out —  Bob Collins. Collins, like Beazley, had his leadership ambitions thwarted. While he was Labor Leader in the Northern Territory the Country Liberal Party reigned supreme.

Collins retreated to Canberra a beaten politician but his easy going common sense enabled him to resurrect his reputation as a public figure by serving as a valued minister in the Hawke Government. As to his reputation as a private citizen we will probably never really know as his death puts an end to the legal proceedings which would have shed some light on the allegations of s-xual impropriety that hung over him when he succumbed to the ravages of cancer.