Wedge driver

As it happens, that's quite a lot. Which is not surprising. You don't decide to take on Malcolm Turnbull in the upcoming fight for the seat of Wentworth, as the preselected Labor candidate at the age of 30, unless you have a few thoughts on how the world can be improved, plus the cockiness to think you can play a hand in improving it.

Hughes has both, in spades. He wants to wedge Turnbull on the issues their wealthy electorate could be presumed to care about – same-sex marriage, quality public education and healthcare, housing affordability, the environment, an Australian republic. His job appears to be to play up the difference between Turnbull's private views on such matters, which probably aren't that different to his own, and the more conservative policy positions of the party he leads.

"The problem with the Turnbull government is it has lacked leadership," Hughes says with all the swagger of a seasoned commentator. "And the reason it's lacked leadership is because everyone seems to understand and accept that Malcolm's not allowed to actually be the leader until maybe he gets a moderate Liberal party in there, which is no guarantee."

Canvassing the workers

We're sitting at a corner table, and Hughes has kindly left me the seat with the view. I look over a patch of green and down to Woolloomooloo, to the finger wharf with its fancy restaurants and boats bobbing in the blue Sydney Harbour. On a day like today, it's pretty idyllic.

Evan's father, Ray Hughes, with David Rowe's exhibition at the Hughes Gallery in Surry Hills in August, 2013. Louise Kennerley

As the oysters and tartare arrive, the conversation veers away from sunny Sydney and towards dour Melbourne, as depicted in John Brack's most famous painting, Collins St., 5pm. Hughes makes a point of popping into the National Gallery of Victoria to see the painting every time he's in town, including wagging some of last July's Labor Party National Conference to do so.


"It reminds me of my grandfather, that determination of Australians in grim times after the war, but also that proud optimism," Hughes says of the 1955 painting, which depicts workers on the homeward trudge. "It says a lot to me about Australian business and opportunity and all those sorts of things."

Hughes has been visiting his own state gallery from as young as he can remember. He speaks about the AGNSW with such a fierce love that it takes me by surprise. Australians don't talk like that about their public art institutions, preferring by and large to bitch and moan about what's wrong and how it could be done better. And Hughes, it has to be said, is by nature more bomb thrower than bouquet giver.

But I needn't have worried; his praise is quickly followed by criticism, in this case of those complaining that a proposed $450 million extension of the AGNSW would be a waste of money, and of the wealthy Sydneysiders he reckons should have publicly announced multimillion-dollar donations to the project by now.

The Hughes were famous for their monthly long lunches held at their Surry Hills gallery, originally the Ray Hughes Gallery, and then, just the Hughes Gallery. Damian Bennett

Outside chance

A glass or two of wine has been imbibed and the conversation rolls on. We agree that if the AGNSW redevelopment doesn't get up in this year's state budget, it's going to have a tough time getting up at all.

"And the reason is that the NSW state budget will never look better than it does," he says. "The land tax boom we've had from the property boom has put the state finances in such a good position that they can afford cultural largesse. And I don't think it's cultural largesse, I think it's important cultural infrastructure."

Did someone say arts minister? Hughes has clearly thought a lot about cultural policy. He might be gearing up to contest the 2016 federal election but NSW state politics seems just as, if not of greater interest.


But first, his Canberra tilt. Hughes readily concedes he's an outside chance. There's the big experience differential between the Prime Minister and himself, not to mention the blue-ribbon nature of Wentworth, which takes in Point Piper, where Turnbull lives, Paddington, where Hughes lives, and much in between.

Evan Hughes: "When I moved into finance someone said to me, 'it's pretty weird because there's a hell of a lot of funds managers who are art dealers on the inside, but you've got to be the only disgruntled art dealer wanting to go into finance'." Daniel Munoz

Whetted appetite for debate

If success is not likely then – although remember newcomer Maxine McKew, who knocked off John Howard in 2007 – Hughes could be viewed as a wild card, someone trying on the political coat to see if it fits while helping out the Labor Party and showing its leaders his chops. Truth is he's been trying the coat on for years, during debating at school and university, at the Thursday lunches his father used to hold at his Surry Hills gallery, and on his own Facebook page.

Social media delivered him a wake-up call about the need for those seeking office to do more than throw bombs. "A mate wrote on my Facebook page that he was really sick of reading my negative comments in his feed, said that we're sick of negativity in this country. I took that on board."

Which brings us to the art of compromise, and whether Hughes has what it takes to strike deals, to get people with disparate views to vote for him, to accept something unpalatable in order to push something more important over the line. Polemicists don't tend to survive in politics.

"I think Australians are fundamentally sick and tired of the pragmatics of politics," is his reply. "Of course there's pragmatism, at the end of the day there's also pragmatism in business, in any form of society you engage in … but you must stay true to some form of moral compass, and I don't believe politicians succeed when they err away from their moral compass."

Defending the republican


Our main courses arrive – fish for me, sirloin and a glass of red for Hughes, and a salad and big bowl of chips to share – and it's time to get into the family history.

The only child of an art dealer father and a literary agent mother, Annette, Hughes grew up surrounded by art and artists, books and ideas. His parents split up when he was in primary school, a time that was difficult but seminal in terms of his political awakening, chief among it the importance of education. He had been attending International Grammar School in Ultimo but was pulled out due to the recession of the early 1990s, which nearly forced his father into bankruptcy, and sent to Woollahra Public School.

"I've never been shy or short of a few words but at this period I was very sad and I didn't have any confidence," Hughes says. "A teacher called Mr Jones knew that I was doing it tough. He identified that I might like debating and encouraged me to do that. You could talk to him about anything, history, politics."

Mr Jones also encouraged Hughes to do his homework, which led to the school captaincy and a scholarship to the posh Cranbrook School in Bellevue Hill, where his political instincts were further aroused thanks to one Malcolm Turnbull, who at the time was leading the battle for an Australian republic.

"I can remember standing up in Latin class and defending Malcolm Turnbull against my then Latin teacher, Mr Johnson, who I loved dearly, but who said Australians couldn't imagine a country where Malcolm Turnbull was president," Hughes says with a laugh, before delivering the point of the story. "Isn't it interesting, the republic is no longer an important issue for him."

Hughes wanted to study law at Sydney University but missed out, so went to Cambridge in Britain to study art history instead. He was working at London's The Mayor Gallery and preparing to transfer into law at Cambridge when the global financial crisis hit. As the art market was going to the dogs his father's health was also deteriorating, so he decided to return home, running the gallery with his father until the end of last year, when they closed it.

From fine art to finance

The prospect of running the gallery for another decade just to please his father had been making him miserable. At the start of this year, Hughes began working for a boutique funds management distribution firm, a transition that amused some.


"When I moved into finance someone said to me, 'it's pretty weird because there's a hell of a lot of funds managers who are art dealers on the inside, but you've got to be the only disgruntled art dealer wanting to go into finance'."

Hughes appears to have found his path early but then he always seemed to know what he wanted. He married his entertainment lawyer wife Kate when he was 26 and they already have two children, two-and-a-half-year-old Harry and 12-week-old Teddy. A serious health issue with Harry, who ended up in the Turnbull wing of a Sydney hospital, superbly cared for on the public purse, reinforced his views on the importance of a healthcare safety net. The inability of himself and Kate to buy their first house without help from their parents drove home the need for Australia to do something about housing affordability.

As we move onto coffee and rhubarb crumble, Hughes muses on the difficult but rewarding decision to step away from his father's dream to pursue his own.

"Dad's passion was bringing images out of people that didn't know they were in there. My passion was different – it was in this game, the public policy area," he says. "I have a 12-week-old baby and I'm running around trying to talk to people in the eastern suburbs about free healthcare and education. Not because I want to be prime minister, and not because I haven't got anything else to do – but because sometimes it burns inside your heart. One thing dad taught me is no matter what, you can't break away from your own passion."

CHISWICK AT THE GALLERY

Oysters 6 @ $4 each $24

Tuna tartare $20

Barramundi $34


Sirloin $36

Hand-cut chips $9

Salad $10

Rhubarb crumble $24

Espresso $5

Piccolo $5

Sparkling water $7

Stella Bella Chardonnay 2008 $69

TOTAL $243, including GST of $22.09