Paul Mercurio: dancing into politics

Most Australians would have encountered Paul Mercurio in one of his many guises: dancer, actor, movie star, TV chef, TV judge, beer brewer, all-round entertainer and nice guy. His face pops up frequently on our screens. Nonetheless, it was probably still a surprise to many when it popped up in his latest role: Member of Parliament for the Victorian electorate of Hastings.

I met up with Mercurio MP at his new office, in a shopping square in Somerville on the Mornington Peninsula. I wanted to ask him the obvious question: what brought about his move into politics?

We went to a nearby cafe, where he opted for a peppermint tea, perhaps a dietary response to the atrial fibrillation he suffered during the recent election campaign. Typically for Mercurio, that health crisis was all over the news, with photos of him in his hospital bed, and his own frank descriptions of his condition.

It turned out it was another earlier intimation of mortality that triggered the decision.

“Three years ago I caught pneumonia," he explained. "I was lying in hospital, quite sick, I was 56/57 years old, and really thinking I just can't go on with this way of life, it's not sustainable. I have a family to support. As you get older as an actor/entertainer it's even worse. It's a young person's sport.”

Mercurio’s very varied and successful career has been no guarantee of a secure livelihood. He might be famous as the gorgeous, sexy Scott Hastings in Strictly Ballroom, he might have an AM for his "contributions to the performing arts", but, like most artists in Australia, he has had to scratch out a living, grabbing at any opportunity that comes his way, and adapting to circumstances to make ends meet. "The entertainment game is feast and famine, especially in your later years," he remarked.

So, lying in hospital, his thoughts turned to a job in politics. It seemed a good fit: he could take advantage of his public popularity and ease with the spotlight to make “a positive difference” in the community. "I can talk (he chuckles), I like people, and I want to help people."

He was also angered by what he saw as people getting a "rough deal" in his local area. He decided to stop writing letters of complaint to his local council and instead run for a seat himself. "I'm the sort of person who, if I'm annoyed about something, will go and change it."

He was elected. After a year-and-half spell on the Mornington Shire Council, he stepped up for the State Government spot at last year’s election. “Labor was really the only choice because state Labor is really the only government that funds the arts. The career I've had is thanks to Labor government funding the arts. So I accepted the offer."

"But if I go right back to why I've decided to do this," he went on, "a long time ago I did an acting workshop where we had to develop a creative mission statement in life, and mine was along the lines of nourishing, and I kind of realised that as a performer/storyteller my drive has always been to tell stories and to nourish people, emotionally, spiritually, physically, mentally. And I can do that through a ballet or a dish I've cooked, and now I plan to do it through my role as the Member for this electorate. Sustain, nourish people, help them, give them hope. So in some ways it's not that far-fetched - and in other ways it's completely far-fetched!”

When he was little, he tells me, he wanted to be a motorcycle policeman. He grew up in council housing in Western Australia. He was the child of a broken marriage; his father was mostly absent. The young Paul was bullied for wanting to dance. He imagined riding in on his “white motorcycle, helping people. It was a hard life, and I wanted someone to save me, so I wanted to save people".

Instead he took up a scholarship to the West Australian Ballet, after which he moved to Melbourne to train at the Australian Ballet School, travelling over with a cohort of fellow West Australians who all went on to make their marks: Stephen Heathcote, David McAllister and Darren Spowart. After only a year at the School he joined Sydney Dance Company in 1982 at the age of 19, and was a vital member of the troupe during what he calls its "golden years" under the directorship of Graeme Murphy. He stayed for a decade, garnering acclaim in roles such as Tadzio in After Venice. He also choreographed his own works. 

His tough upbringing seems to have left him with a lasting sympathy for the battler: in fact he was removed from the judging panel of Dancing with the Stars because he was deemed “too nice”. Running for politics, he says, is the hardest thing he’s ever done, because of the nasty on-line trolling. At least it is unlikely that his opponents will dig up any dirt: his life has been laid out for public viewing: his grandfather's Mafia connections, his brother's suicide, his own health problems. “I’m an oversharer,” he admits. 

As a performing artist by profession, Mercurio will bring a unique, desperately needed perspective to Australian politics. Already he has shown his priorities: he was the first councillor in the history of the Mornington Shire Council to create a performing arts fund, of half a million dollars. “There’s nothing here [for artists]," he says, of his electorate. Even though he is proud of that achievement, “it is only 2% of the total sports budget. Yet, for every child that does sport, there’s another that does art of some kind.” He has also succeeded in establishing a half million dollar feasibility study to have a theatre built in the area. He would like to see every local council have an arts budget, and points out the resultant benefits: "job opportunities, health and mental wellbeing, the creative growth of our country."

He has experienced for himself the frustrations of limited government arts funding and philistine attitudes. When he joined SDC in 1982, the company was on the brink of financial collapse through lack of government funding, and had to be rescued by the Sydney Opera House Trust. Later, when he ran his own company, the Australian Choreographic Ensemble (1992-5), he couldn't get the funding he wanted, despite its artistic and financial success. “My conclusion was that they didn’t want to fund success,” he says, "because then they would be locked into funding you into the future.” Perhaps that's a cynical view, he adds, but there's no question "we [the arts] certainly need a lot more support".

I quote to him Graeme Murphy and Janet Vernon's statement made on their resignation from SDC in 2006: "How can the arts flourish in a society where war and sport take centre stage?"  "Well, not much has changed really [since then]," he responds.

Could Paul Mercurio be Victoria's next arts minister? Watch this space. 

– KAREN VAN ULZEN

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