A former teacher from Ballarat?, a small city in central Victoria, he became Victorian leader of the Australian Labor Party, and thus Victorian Opposition Leader, in 1996 (??). Despite being widely regarded as having no chance of defeating the seemingly hugely popular Liberal incumbent [Jeff Kennett]?, Bracks and his senior cabinet members (many also from provincial backgrounds), campigned heavily in regional areas of Victoria on themes that the Kennett government governed only for Melbourne and was ignoring the problems in "the bush". Voters in regional areas, despite almost unbroken majority support for the coalition in the past, deserted the Kennett government in droves, and left the parliament delicately balanced, with three regional independents holding the balance of power. Through a combination of ideological leanings, personal bitterness over perceived mistreatment from Kennett, and deals negotiated on hot-button issues, the independents agreed to support Labour in a minority government.
Despite Bracks' tortuous path to the job, his likeable public persona and consensus-based approach to the leadership have made him extremely personally popular with the electorate, and the partnership of Labor and the indpendents has thus far provided stable, reasonably fiscally prudent (though aided by general economic conditions) governance. The major criticism of Bracks and his government has tended to be that their penchant for consultation and review has gotten in the way of proactive government, thus losing the excitement and constant change that were characteristic of the Kennett years.
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