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Ron's ready for battle

Ron Boswell was braced for a grim Senate struggle before coaxing Flo Bjelke-Petersen out of retirement. The senator was facing increasing pressure over his place as the Nationals' number one representative from Queensland. He was aged 65, had spent close to 25 years in the Senate and his homely appearance was being compared unfavourably with ambitious younger National rivals. But Ron Boswell had helped Joh Bjelke-Petersen's government steal the National Party's first city seat at Wynnum back in the 1970s. The Boswell version is that it was the blind leading the blind. But when Flo Bjelke-Petersen first stood for the Senate, Ron Boswell proved the Nats' polling-day mastermind around Brisbane. `Aunty Flo' became the Boswell mentor in Canberra after he scraped home as Queensland's third NP senator in 1983. Even then the new senator had few tickets on himself. Just as well because there soon was a sobering pep talk from deputy prime minister and NP leader Doug Anthony. "You made it here on Flo's petticoat tails. You won't stay unless you learn how to work the system," Anthony warned. The ageing, but ever-loyal Flo had offered her proxy for the Nationals' latest preselection. It would not be enough. "She had a bad back but I persuaded her to come down from Kingaroy and speak on my behalf. It did me a lot of good," said Boswell. As it is Ron Boswell finds himself back where he started – number three on the ticket. For the first time in 30 years, the Coalition is running a joint Senate team. The Coalition decision to run a joint ticket meant the Boswell name would be third behind Liberal senators Macdonald and Boyce instead of first on the Nationals ticket. Penance, some would say, for the Nats' lack of city success. But the stone-cold Liberal senators would be lucky to warm up on a Boswell campfire. Bag of peanuts to anyone who ever has heard of them. Decked out in those famous dark braces, Ronnie Boswell is straight from Nationals central casting. Recognised everywhere from Tattersall's Club in Brisbane to Bogantungan in the Central Highlands, he talks straight without Canberra's mealy-mouthed discretion. Hair often askew above a gaudy tie from the Russ Hinze collection, Boswell's bellow rumbles down the corridors of his high-rise office in Brisbane. lf you find it hard to imagine John Howard or Kevin Rudd in braces then what about dressed up in feathers as Chief Sitting Bull for a Nats Christmas party at Parliament House. Senator Boswell obliged and was slightly embarrassed when he could not find the picture for publication in The Gold Coast Bulletin. The Nationals may be the last politicians in Australia to have some fun. One Budget eve, Ron Boswell led a tribe including deputy prime minister John Anderson to a Canberra trattoria popular with Bulletin scribes. By our observations from the table next door, it was thirsty political work. Even the deputy had to shout to maintain the beer flow. Kevin Rudd and the pole dancers? Haw haw. When Senator Boswell's career was under a Pauline Hanson attack in the 2001 election, he organised billboards along major highways. "He's not pretty. But pretty effective," they declared. Wife Leita Boswell gritted her teeth and declared her husband handsome all the same. But behind the campaign scenes Ron Boswell stuck to his guns on policy issues close to the Nationals' heart. He went toe-to-toe with the lunatics in the League of Rights. The Nats found scientific backing to block banana imports, they hounded the Prime Minister to guarantee a better Telstra policy for bush service and a single wheat-selling centre will be retained. Senator Boswell also led a campaign for a tax rebate for parents of sporting children. The Nationals may not have recovered in Queensland from the caustic Fitzgerald Inquiry, but somehow Ron Boswell is closing on the Senate leadership record held by forerunner Sir Walter Cooper, who served unbroken between 1935 and 1968. Ironically, both senators had roots in Wynnum. Senator Boswell is regarded as persuasive behind his crocodile smile. The senator and Acting Prime Minister Mark Vaile were keen to counsel rebel National Barnaby Joyce the night he fled to a Canberra hospital under a bodgie name in the middle of a Telstra debate. “We couldn't get to him," Senator Boswell told The Bulletin. Leita Boswell, exasperated with former prime minister Gough Whitlam, volunteered to work for the Nationals when the family lived at Wynnum in the '70s. Ron literally founded the local branch over a keg in his back yard one election night. His worry this time may be that the quirky Nationals' campaigning brand will be lost in the cuff and collar Liberal dominated Coalition election advertising. "Queensland has always elected three conservative senators," Sen Boswell insisted. Prime Minister John Howard, sensing the Labor firestorm, knows the value of incumbency and a well-known, if rumpled, face to protect his Senate majority with a winning quota. 'Auntie Flo' was not the only one tugging hearts and strings for Ron Boswell at the Nats' pre-selection.

The wisdom of appearing in the flesh - Sub article SENATOR Boswell will be stumping for the election in Ingham tonight. He was in Townsville last night and will be bending the bananas in Innisfail tomorrow before some measured words with fishermen in Cairns. Radio interviews will be squeezed in en route. Senator Boswell will drive himself. The canny senator started his own federal election campaign as soon as the Budget was delivered in Canberra in May. "People in provincial towns and the bush use politicians a lot more than voters in major cities such as the Gold Coast," he said. The price of tomatoes and growers' concerns with wholesaling etc means more up there than talking about the Kyoto agreement or reinforcements for Iraq. The presidential-style contest between PM Howard and Kevin Rudd and their drayloads of opinion polls do not always register on shire radars. "When you're a senator with a state-wide electorate you have to cover the countryside using light aircraft, whatever," he said. "It's no good sending emails when the locals expect to see you at the cattleyards or the local hall." Boswell lived at Arthur Street, Mermaid Beach, when he was selling insurance in the struggling '60s. "I was married with a baby and it was before I branched into business as a manufacturers' agent in 1966." The sudden death of solicitor son Stephen, aged 30, in 1999 could have ended Boswell's colourful years in politics. "Things can make people change. I had faith." Plus two grandsons audit granddaughter. But Stephen Boswell left some indelible political wisdom for his dad in the early 1990s when youth unemployment was 30-odd per cent. "When you go to a 21st birthday party, never ask anyone what they do. They are well-educated but if they do not have a job you will embarrass them," Stephen advised. Ron Boswell: "I haven't forgotten it."