In the sleepless hours before dawn on a midwinter’s morning in July 2021, a brooding John Spender dashed off a heartfelt email to his then 43-year-old daughter, Allegra. “Darling,” he began. “I finished this at 4 o’clock this morning.
Some points for you to think about before we next speak. Please, call me today. Lots of love, Dad.
” What followed were more than 30 reasons why she shouldn’t run as an independent candidate in the seat of Wentworth at the next federal election. Topping the list was his concern that her “obvious wealth and privilege” would make her a target, that her work-life balance would become unmanageable, and that by “identifying as a planet change political activist” she’d lose any chance of a political career with a major party. “Those who crash always burn,” he warned darkly.
“Yeah, he was very negative,” she says now, laughing. “He was worried about the impact on me, the family and, you know, politics is a brutal game.” John Spender was familiar with the sometimes crushing nature of political life, as the son of the formidable Sir Percy Spender, a federal Liberal minister credited as one of the prime negotiators of the 1951 ANZUS treaty.
John later followed his father into parliament, holding the federal seat of North Sydney for a decade before being toppled in 1990 – ironically by an independent, Ted Mack. But even without her father’s advice, Spender was having qualms of her own. A fortnight or so earlier, she�.