By Kath Gannaway
CAMERON Caine looked very much in his element going kick-to-kick with young sons Harry and Angus on the Warburton football oval on Sunday.
In the half-time break between the Kinglake and Alexandra-Thornton elimination final it’s some sort of return to normal, whatever that is post-bushfire, for the Kinglake copper and, until last month, president up of the Kinglake ‘Lakers’ Football Club.
Overnight, a 5.6 per cent swing saw Caine as a first-time Liberal candidate almost certainly relinquish McEwen to Labor’s career politician Rob Mitchell.
“Bad luck mate” is an anthem as he makes his way with wife Laura towards the boundary fence to see the Lakers grab a handy first-quarter lead.
Round after round of handshakes speaks volumes of the bi-partisan support of the football fraternity, not necessarily for his politics, but unreservedly for his commitment to giving it a go.
He has no regrets, but laughs off the thought of having to do it all again if the speculative chatter in the media about another election comes about.
‘It’s been a huge experience … you couldn’t buy the experience I have had in the last four weeks,” he says.
“I hope that I have raised the profile of what people are going through (in the bushfire areas) a little bit more and got it across that it’s not all going smoothly.”
If there’s one thing he has learned about the world of politics he says it’s that … “it’s cut-throat”.
In answer to whether he believed he was enough of a political animal to make it work, he said he believed he had a contribution to make.
“To be honest, people who have been a long time in politics have done a great job, but you can tell after this election that the average person has had enough of the way things have always been.
“I think it needs fresh blood every so often so when you’re sitting in the party room there’s someone to say ‘hang on a minute, the average Joe Blow doesn’t think that way … the average Joe Blow is struggling a bit’.”
He won’t be that person in Canberra, but has no plans to walk away from the issues that largely saw him put up his hand in the first place.
Foremost is men’s mental health. “I would like to keep going with men’s mental health, keep doing the talk scene with my friend Ross Buchanan.”
Mr Buchanan lost two children on Black Saturday.
He said a proposal by then prime minister Kevin Rudd to pour money into a one to five year study of suicide concerned him.
“Between those five years, it’s not just the people affected by the fires (who are at risk), but parents who lose kids, farmers affected by drought, husbands of wives with post-traumatic stress …”
“The days of beating around the bush (on suicide) are gone,” he said.
“You have to be frank and straight down the line in dealing with this. The statistics of suicide outweigh road fatalities, and that’s alarming.”
Getting men to speak openly to other men of their own experience with mental health is one approach Caine has seen work when others fail.
“We had this comedian come and speak who said ‘I was manic depressive … tried to commit suicide three times’.
“There are comedians, footballers, actors, so many people who have amazing personal stories to tell. Once a guy hears that, hears that person say ‘I know how you guys are feeling because I’ve been through it myself, it’s better than going to a men’s mental health night where no-one turns up and those who do say ‘yeah, I’ve heard that before’,” he said.
Caine will return to the beat, hopefully in Kinglake, and his connection with the Lakers is also part of being a ‘local’.
Irrespective of politics, he is determined to make a difference outside of anything he could have imagined before 7 February, 2009.
