Larrikins, Rebels and Journalistic Freedom in Australia 3030618552, 9783030618551

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Larrikins, Rebels and Journalistic Freedom in Australia

Josie Vine

Larrikins, Rebels and Journalistic Freedom in Australia

Josie Vine

Larrikins, Rebels and Journalistic Freedom in Australia

Josie Vine RMIT University Melbourne, VIC, Australia

ISBN 978-3-030-61855-1    ISBN 978-3-030-61856-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61856-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © Alex Linch shutterstock.com This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

This book is about history. And journalism. Journalism is often said to be the first draft of history. But sometimes, history is the first draft of journalism. It’s this history, and the journalism it has drafted, with which this book is concerned. Dedicated to all journalists who have drafted, and have been drafted by, history. And to the most elegant Larrikin of all: Jay Edith.

Preface

In 2002 I was a young sessional teacher, working into one of the highest-­ profile journalism courses in Australia. I had worked as a journalist on regional radio and newspapers, and was still dabbling but, with a small and rapidly growing cluster of children, I was looking for something with hours that were a bit more family friendly. I was still absolutely committed to journalism and its objectives, so teaching the trade to young up-and-­ comers seemed to be an ideal alternative. It was the year that Natalie Larkins dominated the news, both in the mainstream and in the journalism-specific media. Natalie was an ABC journalist, who had been arrested out in the dust-bowl of Woomera, ostensibly for ‘Failing to Leave Commonwealth Land as Directed by a Commonwealth Officer.’ But really it was for being a pain-in-the-arse when Australian Protective Services (APS) officers told the swelling media contingent to move 200 meters outside a recently erected steel chain-link fence around the Woomera refugee detention centre, where up to 70 of this world’s most vulnerable people had gone on hunger strike and, as a symbol of voicelessness, had literally sewn their lips together. The whole contingent of local, national, and international journalists camping outside the center wanted to know who had made the order for them to move and why. According to Larkins, when the APS could not provide a clear answer, “all” journalists made a unanimous decision to remain inside the fence. “In the middle of a dust storm, frantic calls were made, but each government department and minister responsible denied making the order,” reported Larkins. “Throughout the entire confrontation between the APS vii

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and the media, journalists continued to question on whose authority the officer was asking us to leave. He told us he didn’t know” (Larkins 2002: 8). An ultimatum was made: journalists had until 10  a.m. the following morning to leave the area. In the meantime, however, the APS was gathering names and contact details to issue summons. No one explained for what the summons were. Larkins was about to leave the disputed area, when an officer spoke. She didn’t hear him and asked him to repeat the comment. At that point she was arrested and taken to Woomera police station. She was freed on bail three hours later but was obliged to leave the town immediately. Despite the fact that at least a dozen other journalists refused to move from the camp’s perimeter, Larkins was the sole arrest that day. This narrative of journalism’s defiance and rebellion in an effort to gain access to people whose voice was being silenced inspired me—almost—to tears, and I felt pangs of slightly guilty envy that I had missed out on being among those camped in the heat and the swirling dust, waiting to get ‘the story.’ But when I asked my students, 18-year-olds sitting in the comfortable confines of a university tutorial room, if they too would refuse orders to decamp, I was shocked and a little dismayed. The answer was unanimous: no, they wouldn’t defy an order from authority. I was about to explain that, as journalists, defying authority would be part of their job, when I realized that I couldn’t. How do you explain to well-educated, generally morally upstanding professionals (potential journalists) that, as part of their job, they may be required to openly defy the law. This then took me to a further thought: how do I tell them that to be good journalists, among the best professionals, they’ll have to build affiliation with sources that could include criminals, crooked law enforcers, drug addicts, or any number of downtrodden, dubious, and possibly dislikable characters. In a tertiary education environment, it can be a little uncomfortable explaining why it’s so important to read that leaked document, or listen to that anonymous source, despite the fact that it could, quite conceivably, land them in dangerous legal waters. How do you say, when everybody else is running away from that car accident/bushfire/tsunami/bomb blast, it is their job to be running toward it. But if journalism education—which has, for a long time, filled the void left by the deconstruction of the cadetship system—cannot teach this quite vital professional sensibility, then where does it come from? Where

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did it come from in the past, and where will it come from in the future? It must be cultural! And this is when I started thinking about professional journalism culture, and the power of industry-specific narratives, and the link between history, tradition, and ideology. And then I undertook a PhD on journalism’s specific history and traditions. Then I undertook a book. And through this process I discovered the Larrikin, personified in Australian journalism’s most historically significant individuals, perpetuating a professional sensibility across generations. And I fell in love with my Larrikin, his fortitude, purpose, and a wicked delight in sticking a two-fingered salute up at authority—characteristics that have helped maintain journalistic independence in the only Western liberal democracy that does not offically recognise the function of a free news media. This is his story (and he is a he, despite the fact that many female journalists have taken on his masculine persona). This book is written in the hope that future budding young journalists will fall in love with the Larrikin’s charm, foibles, and fallibilities too. Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Josie Vine

References Larkins, N. (2002). Report No Evil. The Walkley Magazine, Issue 16, Autumn 2002, 8.

Acknowledgments

As a member of RMIT University, I would like to acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nations as the Traditional Owners of the land on which the university stands, and where this book was written. I respectfully recognise Elders past, present and future.

When I first set out on this journey, I looked at the number of acknowledgments in other, similar, publications, and I was overwhelmed. How on earth could I ever achieve similar numbers of people and organizations to acknowledge? The amount of work ahead of me made me feel like I was drowning. But people were happy to help, people did give their time, and many went way beyond the call of duty to ensure this book reached publication stage. There are so many, and if I have accidentally missed someone, please accept my apologies and my shout for a coffee/beer/wine once we are out of COVID isolation! First, thank you to the Walkley Foundation, and its CEO, Louisa Graham, who was the lynchpin in putting me in touch with others whose help proved instrumental. Thank you to the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, who allowed me into their Sydney offices to access editions  of The Journalist published  between  1945 to 1989. A particular shout out to Jennifer O’Brien and Jack Walton, who hurriedly photocopied editions from the entire 1980s’ decade and couriered them to me in Melbourne when COVID meant the Sydney office was closed. Similarly, thank you to the Walkley Foundation’s librarian Barbara Blackman, who spent hours on the phone with me, selecting the sections of the 1995, 1996, and 1997 Walkley Year Books that I needed, scanning them, and xi

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emailing them to me because at the time, here in Victoria, we were under a fairly strict lockdown. Thank you to the archivists at Melbourne University, where the earliest editions of The Journalist (1923–1945) are held. And thank you to State Library of Victoria archivists for helping me track down those first articles that defied the D-Notice system. Thank you to Daniella Hutchings from RMIT Library, whose skill with legal databases is second to none! And the amazing RMIT Document Delivery department, whose manager, Alison Bates, organized for me to gain access to editions of The Walkley Magazine from 1999 to 2010. Myself and my hubby took a lightening trip to the Bundoora archival storage unit to retrieve these copies and brought them home for analysis— something that just wouldn’t have happened without Alison’s willingness to make a special case for this book. Thank you to the Melbourne Press Club’s David Fisher, who contacted many journalists for me, inviting them to be interviewed. I’m sure when he saw yet another email from me appear in his inbox, his little heart sank, but he always cheerfully agreed to send out my many invitations. This brings me to my deep gratitude to all my interviewees, many of whom are still working journalists and all far too busy to talk to some strange academic, but were more than happy to make time for me and share their thoughts and memories. These are Andrew Rule, Brian Toohey, Richard Baker, Russell Skelton, Russell Robinson, Justin Quill, Chris Masters, Peter Greste, John Tidey, Richard Walsh, Peter Manning, Mike Smith, Wendy Bacon, Mungo MacCallum, Liam Lander, Ranald Macdonald, Dr. Jennifer Martin, Peter Bartlett, Nick McKenzie, Marcus Strom, Annika Smethurst, Louise Milligan, and Bill Birnbauer. Thank you to the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, who helped me with research into the Max Stuart case, and Casey Millward from the AIATSIS library, who checked sections of text to ensure my writing was culturally sensitive and accurate. Thank you to the Oral History Department of the National Library of Australia, the Australian War Memorial, Working Dog Productions, News Corp, Richard Walsh, Michael Leunig, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and Patricia Mitchell for giving me permission to use their copyrighted material. Finally, thank you to my long-suffering hubby, Gus Geyer, who kept the house running while I wrote this book, and my three little—well, not so little these days—Larrikins: Jeremy, Ethan, and Benji. And to my Dad, who has  supported me—financially and emotionally—throughout my very rocky education.

Contents

1 Larrikins, Rebels, and Journalistic Freedom in Australia  1 2 Colonial Larrikins 25 3 Larrikin-Journalists: Federation to Appeasement (1901–1939) 51 4 Larrikin-Journalists: WWII (1939–1950) 75 5 Larrikin-Journalists: Conservatism and Communism (1950s) 99 6 Larrikin-Journalists: The Swinging Students (1960–1975)119 7 Larrikin-Journalists: Post-Whitlam (1975–1985)143 8 Larrikin-Journalists and the Media Moguls (1986–2001)167 9 Larrikinism.com: 2001 Onward187 10 The Larrikin-Journalist: Past, Present, and Future211 Index

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List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Fig. 2.2 Fig. 2.3 Fig. 2.4 Fig. 3.1 Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2 Fig. 5.1 Fig. 6.1 Fig. 6.2 Fig. 6.3

The Monitor’s masthead (The Monitor, January 29, 1830: 2) 30 ‘The Press’ (The Australian, February 24, 1830: 2) 31 The Monitor, January 29, 1830: 2 32 Smith Hall’s portrayal of Joseph Sudds and Patrick Thompson. (https://dictionaryofsydney.org/media/1518)36 ‘The Age’s statue of Mercury’. (Source: Author) 56 The Sunday Telegraph, ‘A Free Press?’ April 16, 1944: 1 77 Members of D Company, 39th Battalion, returning to their base camp after a battle at Isurava (https://www.awm.gov.au/ collection/C32744)81 Adelaide News cartoonist Norman Mitchell’s take on the Stuart trial. (Courtesy of Mitchell Estate and AIATSIS) 114 Oz front page that was found obscene (Courtesy of Richard Walsh)123 Nation Review’s ferret (Courtesy of Michael Leunig) 125 Nation Review’s first anniversary front page (Courtesy of Michael Leunig) 126

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CHAPTER 1

Larrikins, Rebels, and Journalistic Freedom in Australia

Introduction Robin Hood, Britain’s heroic outlaw who stole from the rich to give to the poor while the Sherriff of Nottingham taxed the people into poverty. Bonnie and Clyde, the American gun-slingin’, cigar-smokin’ couple who evaded police authorities while on their crime-spree during the Great Depression. Ned Kelly, the Australian bushranger who wore an improvised suit of armor made out of an old plough during his final shootout with police. Son Goku (or ‘Monkey’) who, according to the cult TV series Monkey Magic and the traditional sixteenth-century Chinese folktale, Journey to the West, strips the Peach Garden of Immortality of its fruit and is expelled from heaven. Don’t we just love a rebel hero! Every culture has at least one. Usually it’s a somewhat cavalier, impish character, who skirts the periphery of respectability and makes fools of those in authority. He (or she!) may be vicious and volatile, but the public admires the rebellious spirit and swaggering style anyway. It is an archetypal character, whose story gets told over and over again throughout generations, taking a place in a society’s historical and cultural narrative, and functioning to say something about expected social norms and practices. In Australia, the rebel hero is often described as a ‘Larrikin’. Larrikins can be found in all walks of Australian life—from national politics (former © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Vine, Larrikins, Rebels and Journalistic Freedom in Australia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61856-8_1

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Prime Minister Bob Hawke) and the high-profile business world (Elders IXL Chairman, John Elliott), through to art (painter Brett Whiteley), sport (champion swimmer Dawn Fraser), and your local pub, where the guy pouring your beer could just as easily be a Larrikin hero as anyone else. Although each one will probably be very different from the other in many ways, all will have similar characteristics that define them as ‘Larrikin’: rebelliousness, humour, and a distinct disrespect for authority. This book’s particular concern is with Larrikins that have informed journalism’s professional micro-culture in Australia—or the values and beliefs that are specific to journalism, existing in the wider macro-cultures of ‘the media’ and society in general. To question what Larrikin characteristics could possibly have to do with the journalism profession is legitimate: after all, isn’t the ‘professional’ persona all about achieving some sort of respectability? The Larrikin may be many things, but respectable— at least, outside his own community—is not one of them. The ‘professional’ (or otherwise) status of journalism is dealt with elsewhere in this book. But for now it’s important to discuss how Larrikin-journalists are particularly important in the Australian context. In a liberal democratic system, it is journalism, and to a lesser extent the cultural industries in general, that have responsibility to keep the public sphere running the way it is intended. This means protecting its integrity by ensuring equality of access, diversity of opinion, and transparency of authority in it. In order to do this, journalists need to be confident that they will be unfettered in their professional activities. By acting as the public sphere’s champion, journalists contribute to the protection of democratic liberty against authority. However, Australia is the only liberal Western democracy that does not provide overt legal protection for journalistic activity (Pearson and Polden 2019: 33). The US and Canada have a constitutionally guaranteed free speech and free press, and the European Convention on Human Rights has shaped the laws in that continent, including the UK’s Human Rights Act 1998, which can function to protect journalistic freedom  (United Kingdom: Human Rights Act, 1998). Similarly, New Zealand enshrined free expression in Section 14 of its Bill of Rights Act 1990 (Pearson and Polden 2019: 34). Although such legislation does not mean journalists overseas are above the law—they are still subject to legitimate restrictions—it does mean that they can have some confidence in that they will be protected in doing, what journalism academic Margaret Simons calls, their “dirty, vital work” (Simons 2007: 17). Although Australian journalism has no similar overarching protection, Australian society still expects its journalists to fulfill its democratic

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responsibility, fearlessly and without favour. This expectation was given substance in 1992, when the Australian High Court interpreted an implied right of freedom of speech within the Constitution in the cases Australian Capital Territory Pty Ltd v. Commonwealth (1992 177 CLR 106) and Nationwide News Pty Ltd v. Wills (1992 CLR 1), and expanded upon in 1993  in the Theophanous v. Herald and Weekly Times (Unrept, HC, 12/10/94). The problem is, although Australian legal authority may agree with freedom of the news media in principle, this agreement does not necessarily translate into practice. Because public scrutiny and criticism can cause hazards for authority, it is compelled to place limits on journalism’s ability to engage in such activity. This may be done overtly, such as Section 79 (3) of the Crimes Act, used to raid the home of an award-winning journalist and the newsroom of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 2019. Or it may be done covertly, as in the increasing time delay and cost (and widening exempt document categories) for those accessing information under the 1982 Freedom of Information Act (Lidberg 2019). Such boundaries limit journalism’s capacity to scrutinize and criticize authority on behalf of the public. Without overt protection, journalism is hindered in its ability to fulfill its democratic responsibility. So one wonders how Australia, apparently one of the world’s most stable democracies, has managed to maintain this status with no recognized protection for journalistic freedom. At least part of the answer can be found in the 2005 comment made by the then Federal Secretary of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, Christopher Warren, in Australia’s inaugural ‘Freedom of the Media Report’. A free media “never emerges as a gift,” he said: It needs to be fought for. It never attains a state of perfection, but rather sits on that fault line of power between government’s desire for control and continuing pressure from society. Above all, it depends on the preparedness of the media, itself, to push back that line away from governmental regulation and towards a freer media. (Warren et al. 2005: 3)

This book is a journey through Australian journalism history, to examine how journalists have internalized the wider Australian culture’s Larrikin ethos to ‘push back that line’ toward a freer news media. It goes back to the nation’s first journalists, and traces resistance against authorized methods of covering up legitimate public information through generations, to

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the present day. This book uses the Larrikin ethos to link up the stories that Australian journalists tell each other over generations to communicate the most fundamental of the profession’s ideological commitments—that of freedom of the news media. Collectively, these individual stories demonstrate how Larrikin-journalists have been central to the maintenance of freedom of the news media in Australia, and how the Larrikin has become an essential archetype to the Australian journalism micro-culture today. The Larrikin journalist sounds like a somewhat romantic hero. But this book recognizes there is also a dark side to the Larrikin. After all, the Murdoch empire—often accused of being the epitome of everything wrong with freedom of the news media—has a Chairman who can indeed be defined as a Larrikin. Rupert Murdoch’s business style can be interpreted as aggressive and rebellious. Yet these Larrikin characteristics have facilitated building the most successful media company in the world, paradoxically creating a further threat to freedom of the news media. In Australia in the 1980s and 1990s, there were several, what are termed as, media barons with very similar Larrikin characteristics—members of the Packer and Fairfax dynasties for example—who used their power to control, rather than free, journalists working in the news media. Paradoxically, freedom of the news media was then vulnerable to the very people who owned it, and its responsibility for its maintenance was left, to a large extent, to the Larrikin-journalists who were brave (naive?) enough to defy their employers. Proprietors espousing freedom of the news media for commercial and political gains is nothing new. As we shall see in the next chapter, Australia’s unique colonial circumstances mean there is a long tradition of aggressive businessmen owning the nation’s media as a money-making and power-­ building activity. What was worrying, particularly during the 1990s, was how their aggressive, commercially and politically driven Larrikin ethos appeared to pervade journalism micro-culture. There were some journalists, particularly in commercial current affairs, who appeared to take on the Larrikin characteristics and use them to drive a somewhat Machiavellian value and belief system, where the overt ‘freedom of the news media’ principle was arguably  masking a commercially and politically motivated agenda on behalf of proprietors. The end result appeared to be a widespread type of journalistic activity that abused, consciously or otherwise, the very principles it purported to protect.

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The Larrikin So this book strives to avoid putting the Larrikin-journalist on a pedestal, and will, along the way, recognize the contradictions that are inherent to the archetype. In doing this, when we go on to now define the Larrikin, we recognize he (and the Larrikin is a he despite the fact women can, and do, take on his masculine persona) originated in thoroughly dislikable characters. As social historian Melissa Bellanta (2012) points out, the original Larrikins were poverty-stricken youths who turned their hands to crime and violence in the bigger Australian cities sometime around 1870. The moniker soon became a source of self-satisfied pride, and youths of both sexes used it to dare the law and society in general to control their delinquency (Bellanta 2012: xxi). Ned Kelly, one of Australia’s most romanticized outlaw heroes, could be described as one of these early Larrikins. Although he was celebrated among the poorer social classes, he was, according to others, nothing but a thief, murderer, and violent thug. Yet he has also been—and still is today—revered as a heroic republican (despite the contradiction that Australia, in general, venerates the British monarchy) and a cultural icon. So defining the Larrikin is complex, because he is such an ambiguous character. He is riddled with conflicting elements and resists any reduction to ‘hero’ or ‘villain’. Because the Larrikin is a paradoxical figure, identifying both general and specific characteristics for him, as a concept, is difficult. The Larrikin started detaching itself from connotations associated with violent racism, and revenge attacks during WWI, when Australian soldiers branded themselves ‘diggers’, which they associated with the Larrikin (Bellanta 2012: xv). Indeed, historian Manning Clark argues Larrikinism was “epitomized” in the WWI battle at Gallipoli, when Australian soldiers refused to salute British officers  (in Gorman 1990: 39). This anti-­ authoritarian sentiment was enshrined in pop culture in Peter Weir’s 1981 cinematic version of the events at what is now known as ANZAC Cove. The characters in Gallipoli (1981) played by Mel Gibson and Mark Lee manifestly exhibit the Larrikin characteristics of anti-authoritarianism, mockery of pomposity, and exceeding limits. After WWII, the ‘Bodgies’ and ‘Widgies’ took to the streets wearing Larrikinism as a badge (Rickard 1998: 81). Thereafter, the Larrikin tradition continued in the Rockers, Surfies, Jazzers, and Mods (Baker 1966: 120). The Larrikin found his artistic expression in the Bohemian, which

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included journalists among its ranks of literary writers and artists (Baker 1966: 121). The Bohemian evolved into the Beatnik that, in Australia, included young radical intellectual exports such as Clive James, Robert Hughes, Germaine Greer, Les Murray, Bob Ellis, and Barry Humphries. So the historical Larrikin of violence and bullying seems to have been somewhat mitigated by the 1960s, to be replaced by a figure representing anti-authoritarianism, egalitarianism, and audacity. This was certainly true at least as far back as 1958, when Wild Men of Sydney author, Cyril Pearl said: The larrikin as a social and sartorial type has disappeared [but] many of his characteristics—cheeky aggressiveness, contempt for authority, strident masculinity—are still ingredients of the Australian make-up. (Pearl 1958: 8)

The Larrikin’s complex character is elusive. Larrikin biographer, Clem Gorman (1990), however, starts to make meaning out of this complexity when he defines what the Larrikin is not, rather than what he is. Gorman says the Larrikin is “certainly not” an eccentric; “eccentrics are vague, unfocussed and expect to be indulged.” Nor is the Larrikin a rat-bag; “Rat-bags lack the cunning calculation that distinguishes the true larrikin.” Gorman goes onto argue that while Bohemians use iconoclasm as a “badge,” the Larrikin uses it as a “tool.” Gorman also dismisses delinquents, no-hopers, lairs, yahoos, ockers, bodgies, and galahs. However: Soaring over them all is the larrikin; almost archly self-conscious, too smart for his or her own good, witty, rather than humorous, exceeding limits, bending rules and sailing close to the wind, avoiding rather than evading responsibility, playing up to an audience, mocking pomposity and smugness, taking the piss out of people, cutting down tall poppies, born on a Wednesday, looking both ways for Sunday, larger than life, skeptical, iconoclastic, egalitarian, yet suffering fools badly, insouciant, and, above all, defiant. (Gorman 1990: ix–x)

John Rickard’s 1998 analysis of the Larrikin is useful to make sense of this web of conflicting positive and negative connotations. It is as though there is something incomplete about the larrikin. Even as we are drawn to the performance, we are wondering at the risks he is taking—from alcoholism to suburban domestication. For the larrikin defies domesticity even while surrendering to it. He is a masculinity whose strength and charisma masks a core of inner uncertainties. (Rickard 1998: 85)

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Here, Rickard’s description of the Larrikin as an “emotional innocent” with a “core of inner uncertainties” appears incompatible with his or her “aggression” and “criminality.” However, when looking at the very brief assessment of Larrikinism Kevin Childs (2006) provides in his collection of profiles of colonial “rebels, rogues and ratbags,” Rickard’s category of “emotional innocence” becomes clearer. Although Childs does not use the term Larrikin, his protagonists, collectively, display a typology remarkably similar to the Larrikin. According to Childs, several of the “rogues” appearing in his book rebelled “only because society made life intolerable,” implying a natural steadfast belief in humanity underneath an externality made tough under mitigating socially constructed circumstances. “Like everyone,” Childs says, “they have human failings,” but achieve the epitaph of “rebel” for their “immense courage” and “great foolishness or zeal” (Childs 2006: ix). The characters in Childs’ collection are “hailed by admirers of the national spirit” because of their “self-belief” and “refusal to be broken by harsh circumstances” (Childs 2006: ix). In other words, the Larrikin refuses to renounce his or her ideals, despite a contrary social reality. Using the combination of: Childs (2006), Rickard (1998), and Gorman (1990), we can start to develop a conceptual framework through which to explore Larrikinism’s history within Australian journalism micro-culture. Defiance, particularly against authority and convention, apparently shapes all other Larrikinisms. As Rickard points out, Larrikinism, by definition, holds “little regard” for those in authority (Rickard 1998: 78), while Gorman insists that Larrikinism is, “above all” defiant (Gorman 1990: x). This defiance is not silent; it is overt and, more often than not, aggressive. When conceptualizing Larrikinism, defiance can be seen as pivotal, from which all other characteristics cascade. If the Larrikin exists to defy those who are in authority, then s/he will also tend to hold affiliation with those who are not. Rickard makes this suggestion with his criterion, emotional attachment to working class origins (Rickard 1998: 84), although the ‘working class’ is not necessarily devoid of political or social authority. Gorman comes closer to interpreting these affiliations when he describes the Larrikin as egalitarian yet “suffering fools badly” (Gorman 1990: x), implying intolerance of any behavior indicating pomposity. For the Larrikin cannot stomach pomposity, and will, according to both Rickard and Gorman, express his, or her, disdain through mockery. Rickard drives this point when he describes the

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Larrikin’s ability to both “take the piss” as well as to “stand in judgment” (Rickard 1998: 83). Mocking pomposity is an expression of both defiance and the Larrikin’s tendency to exceed limits. The Larrikin will exceed both legislated limits (“criminality”), as well as unwritten limits of social convention, such as exceeding the limits of alcohol consumption (Rickard 1998: 85). Although the Larrikin is aware of the consequences of his actions, a steadfast belief in his ability to render change in what Childs describes as life made “intolerable” by society (Childs 2006: ix) compels the continuation of risk-taking. In this way, the Larrikin self-legitimizes his own, often dubious, actions (even Breaker Morant claimed murdering Boer prisoners of war and a German missionary was ‘just’). As Rickard says, this self-­ justification, and belief the rest of the world should concur, renders the Larrikin an emotional innocent (Rickard 1998: 85). As Childs says, the Larrikin is identified by “immense courage” that borders on “foolish zeal” (Childs 2006: ix). With such a resolute sense of personal idealism, the Larrikin is determined to continue defying authority and exceeding limits and, apparently, willingly accepts the penalties as some sort of secular martyrdom. Historian Manning Clark articulates the salience of Larrikinism for the broader Australian macro-culture succinctly. These Larrikin qualities, he says, may not describe all, or even any, Australians. However: Despite the fact that larrikinism no longer depicts us as we truly are, every tribe must have a myth by which it defines and justifies itself. Larrikinism, no doubt, is ours. (in Gorman 1990: 39)

Clark is referring to the Australian macro-culture in general. However, the same can be said for Australian journalism micro-culture specifically. Indeed, Australian journalism’s need for Larrikin values and beliefs is perhaps even more profound, given its public responsibility to protect freedom from authority. Because this freedom is in a constant state of vulnerability, Australian journalism micro-culture has—theoretically— always drawn on the Larrikin tradition’s inherent ‘anti-authoritarianism’, ‘egalitarianism’, and ‘exceeding of limits’, to animate its responsibility and ‘push back that line’ toward a freer media.

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The Larrikin: An Australian Journalism ‘Memorial Narrative’ Distilling such Larrikin characteristics from the wider Australian macro-­ culture allows us to examine the Larrikin-journalist as, what historian Eric Hobsbawm describes, an industry-specific “memorial narrative” (Hobsbawm 1998: 354) within the Australian journalism micro-culture. In other words, it is now possible to examine whether Larrikinism is a recurring theme in the stories that are constructed by the journalism community around a shared professional experience from existing verifiable facts, the telling of which, over generations, affirms values and meaning (Hobsbawm 1998: 354–355). The ‘memorial narrative’ can be expanded upon using the concept of “a priori imagination,” noted by renowned historian, Robin George Collingwood (1946/1993: 240–249). As Collingwood notes, the historian begins with “mere theory,” albeit a theory informed by “indications” and capable of being tested: The historian’s picture of his subject, whether that subject be a sequence of events or a past state of things, thus appears as a web of imaginative construction stretched between certain fixed points provided by the statements of his authorities; and if these points are frequent enough and the threads spun from each to the next are constructed with due care, always by the ‘a priori imagination’ and never by merely arbitrary fancy, the whole picture is constantly verified by appeal to these data, and runs little risk of losing touch with the reality it represents. (Collingwood 1946/1993: 242)

In this book, the ‘authorities’ (as noted by Collingwood) are the historical narratives about culturally significant Australian journalists, each one spinning a ‘thread’ to the next, to test the cogency of the Larrikin ‘a priori’ theory on Australian journalism, Larrikinism, and their relationship with freedom of the news media. Each source of these ‘authorities’—biographical and autobiographical material, original industry-specific micro-­ cultural products and, where possible, interviews with still-alive Larrikin-journalists—are overtly analyzed in light of the theory of culture developed by British cultural studies scholars Stuart Hall (1978, 1980a, b) and Raymond Williams (1958, 1966, 1977). The theory of cultural studies is particularly valuable for showing how an understanding of micro-cultural forms (in this case, the Larrikin)

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develops from, and is shaped by, interpretations of historical evidence, to emerge as, what Williams (1977) would describe as powerful ideological “traditions.” Here we need to remember that Williams’ concept of ‘tradition’ does not necessarily equate to historical accuracy in a positivist sense, but is rather, the norms and practices that members of a micro-cultural community recollect and inherit—in other words, its ‘memorial narratives’. So, this book is about how the Australian journalism community has chosen to—either consciously or subconsciously—record and remember its Larrikin tradition, and how this has been—for better or for worse—perpetuated over time. We say ‘for better or for worse’, because it is possible to view journalism’s value and beliefs as nothing but a set of collective institutionalized myths, developed to mask a somewhat less admirable commercial ethos (see Young 2019; Winter 1997: 139–140). However, we can also think about how such culturally constructed ‘myths’ can function as the vital molecules that bind the journalism community together— in other words, journalism can be conceived as a set of professional micro-cultural practices (see Meadows 1998; Romano 2003; Simons 2007; Zelizer 1993, 2004), the values and beliefs of which are perpetuated through its historical narratives. Indeed, we can even hypothesize that these institutionalized ‘myths’ are foundational to journalism’s sense of responsibility in a Western liberal democracy—to facilitate protect freedom, equality, and diversity on the public sphere from those who wish to control it. And this is significant in democracy, where ‘professional’ (i.e., ‘reputable’) journalists may sometimes be required to challenge authority, including legal authority, in order to fulfill their democratic responsibility. However, when, and under what circumstances, the ‘professional’ journalist is expected to challenge authority is not entirely clear, particularly in the Australian context where legal frameworks do not overtly recognize journalism as a legitimate activity. It’s certainly too subtle to outline in a textbook, or any course content. But it is, theoretically, possible for such micro-cultural practices—in this case Larrikin practices—to be communicated more perceptively through the ‘memorial narratives’ that get passed from one generation to the next. Here it is useful to refer to the emerging body of work that conceptualizes journalism as a set of “micro-cultural practices” (Meadows 1998). Borrowing from the notion originally put forward by Gaye Tuchman (1978), Australian scholars such as Angela Romano (2003) and Margaret

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Simons (2007) perceive journalism as a micro-culture, with its own value and belief systems, separate from those of wider macro-cultures, such as the media and society itself. Journalists have a strong sense of social identity, so that there is commonly a uniformity of opinion among them about their role in society,” says Romano. “Such self-identity is based on their horizontal relationship with their colleagues who work at the same level, rather than from vertical management or pressure from editors, managers or other figures more senior to them within the newsroom’s chain of power. (Romano 2003: 9)

In the US, seminal journalism scholar, Barbie Zelizer, foregrounded the concept of journalism as a micro-culture when she developed her theory of journalism as an “interpretive community.” Zelizer demonstrated that reporters, in particular, absorb “rules and boundaries and a sense of appropriateness about their actions without ever being informed of them by their superiors” (Zelizer 1993: 221). But it is probably Australian traditional-journalist-turned-scholar, John Hurst, who describes the journalism micro-culture most accurately in his 1988 anthology of Walkley Award (the highest honor an Australian journalist can achieve from his or her peers) winners: They’re [journalists] an interesting tribe, with their own strange totems and taboos, a close fraternity apart from, yet part of the crowd. (Hurst 1988: 6)

There is an argument that, since Hurst was speaking in 1988, the digital revolution has changed journalism so dramatically that his comments are no longer relevant. However, as this book hypothesizes, journalism’s fundamental role—to ‘push back that line’ toward a freer media—cannot change as long as society expects journalism to contribute to a functioning democracy. This book studies the micro-cultural construction of Hurst’s ‘interesting tribe’, through an interpretation of one of its most neglected ‘strange totems’—the Larrikin—to reveal its significance as a democratic figure.

A Note on Methodology For ease of navigation, this book is structured in roughly chronological order, with periods of time grouped according to significant historical events in the wider Australian macro-culture:

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. Colonial Larrikins (1803–1901) 1 2. Larrikin-journalists: Federation to Appeasement (1901–1939) 3. Larrikin-journalists: WWII (1939–1950) 4. Larrikin-journalists: Conservatism and Communism (1950s) 5. Larrikin-journalists: the Swinging Students (1960–1975) 6. Larrikin-journalists: Post-Whitlam (1975–1985) 7. Larrikin-journalists and the Media Moguls (1986–2001) 8. Larrikinism.com (2001–2015) 9. The Larrikin-journalist: Past, present, and future To examine ebbs and flows in Australian micro-cultural consciousness, this book taps into the cultural conversations of Australian journalism in each generational context. However, because of its chronological nature, this book’s earlier chapters rely heavily on re-syntheses of already-existing biographical and autobiographical material (although, there is also some original newspaper publication on which to draw). It is only after 1910, when the union and professional association, the Australian Journalists Association, was formed, that we start to find primary source material to guide us through journalism’s micro-cultural conversations of the day. From 1923, we have the union’s trade magazine, The Journalist, although it’s not until the mid-1930s that this publication starts to function as a vehicle of collective professional values and beliefs, as opposed to an organ of industrial relations. Nevertheless, we can start relying on The Journalist (and its later incarnation, The Walkley Magazine), and the collective consciousness it expresses post 1933, as part of this book’s analysis. From 1954, we have the Walkley Awards, or what is today known to be the highest honor a journalist can achieve in Australia. Since founded by the somewhat Larrikin oil entrepreneur, William Walkley in 1954, each year a judging panel of journalistic peers examines entries in up to 30 categories. The whole process culminates in a gala event, for which journalists around the country dress up in their finery—or, at least, tune into Australia’s multicultural semi-public broadcasting service, SBS, or log onto the Walkley Foundation’s streaming function, wrapped in their dressing gowns in their lounge rooms—to find out who their professional community deems ‘best’ in its field. But for us, on our journey through the history of Australian journalism, the Walkleys are significant for perhaps a slightly different reason. As scholar, John Hurst, says in his 1988 anthology of award winners, what judges have always looked for is “special initiative” and “determination” to “expose corruption, incompetence, injustice or plain cruelty by people

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who do their damndest to stop nosey journalists getting anywhere near the facts” (1988: 13). In other words, Walkley winners will express at least one, or many, Larrikin characteristics. However, for us on our journey through Australian journalism history of insubordination in the face of restrictions on freedom of the news media, not all Walkley winners will be part of this particular ‘memorial narrative’ (here, we need to acknowledge the work of the determined and tireless inaugural winner, Eva Sommer, who, lamentably, does not appear in this book). But many have won for their subversion against restrictions, providing us with a definite trail of ‘threads’ that ‘weave a web’ about the relationship between journalism, Larrikinism, and freedom of the news media in Australia. We meet a similar conundrum with the Melbourne Press Club’s Quill Awards. Starting in 1995 with 10 categories, and at the time of writing, hosting 29 categories, the Quills are, in general, awarded for “originality, impact, relevance” and “quality.” Arguably, all Quill winners will exhibit at least one, or more Larrikin characteristics in order to be judged against these criteria by their peers. But it is only a few who will meet the measures by which this book assesses its ‘threads’ that make up the web we are weaving about the Larrikin’s tendency to skirt the inside  periphery of legality and its relationship to freedom of the news media. The chronological nature of this book also has implications for access to first-hand accounts of journalism culture in context. It is not until the 1960s that we start to hear the voices of Larrikin-journalists who were embroiled in the historically significant legal struggles of the time. However, from 1960 onward, we have first-hand recollections from journalists as significant as Oz Magazine’s Richard Walsh, Age Managing Director Ranald Macdonald and journalists Mike Smith and John Tidey, Four Corners’ Peter Manning and Chris Masters, National Times’ Brian Toohey, and the irrepressible journalist-activist Wendy Bacon. The final chapters speak to more recent journalists who have ended up against the legal system to ensure the revelation of information of public importance. The book concludes with the personal thoughts of those who are currently fighting for a freer news media to contemplate whether the Larrikin-­ journalist continues to hold relevance now, and in the future, for democratic Australia. This book is focused on those journalists who demonstrated a tendency torwards ‘pushing back that line’ towards a freer news media as part of their professional practice. This is different from the many works that tell

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the stories of micro-culturally significant journalists using a ‘public benefit’ framework. In other words, texts such as Pearce’s 1998 Shameless Scribblers, and Pilger’s 2004 Tell Me No Lies, document those journalists whose work is significant revealed corruption or abuse to change social policy. And many of these journalists are, indeed, Larrikins. This book, by contrast, uses a different framework as a selection methodology. It tells the stories of journalists who overtly courted the Larrikin concept or skirted the periphery of regulation to ‘push back that line’ toward a freer media in Australia, and whose so-called ‘risk-taking’ behavior is celebrated in journalism micro-culture to become embedded in professional consciousness over successive generations. What this means, however, is there are many micro-culturally significant Larrikin-journalists whose stories have had a major impact on the profession, but have, in this instance, hit the cutting room floor. It is with regret that this book does not document the stories of journalists such as Harry Gordon, who campaigned tirelessly for traffic reform and undoubtedly saved countless lives through the resulting legislation on seatbelts, and the ‘Prince of Press Adventurers’, war correspondent, Ronald Monson. This book is intensely Australian. This means there are several high-­ profile and laudable Larrikin-journalists who, although Australian, have battled for news media freedom under other countries’ legislative frameworks. The narratives of John Pilger, Neil Davis, and Julian Assange, therefore, have not been told in any depth. It is with great regret, and apology, that such journalists have not been discussed at length in this book, mainly because the selection methodology had to be tight enough to restrict the word count from tripling its required length. What readers will also note about this book is the lack of women represented. Again, this book recognizes that there are many female Larrikin-­ journalists over time, but most of them were not given opportunities to ‘push back that line’ from government regulation. As Louise North pointed out in The Gendered Newsroom (2009): In the mainstream print news media in Australia, content is determined by men. Men constitute the overwhelming proportion of editorial decision-makers in mainstream newspapers around the world, and Australia is no exception. (2009: 1)

So, although women have always been present in newsrooms, it is not until the 1970s they start making an appearance in this book. This is not

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to say that women journalists were not Larrikins prior to the 1970s—the feisty colonial feminist, Louisa Lawson, the elegant Charmian Clift whose grace and logic helped turn socially progressive ideas into mainstream. There are many impressive nonconformist female Larrikin-journalists who ‘pushed’ Australian consciousness into more liberal eras, or stood up for the underdog, or initiated important social and political change. They may have even engaged in insubordination to ‘push back that line’ toward a freer news media, but have not been ‘celebrated’ for it within the Australian journalism micro-culture, and thus their own ‘memorial narratives’ are somewhat different from that which this book is concerned. Although we do meet Ballarat Times’ editor Clara Seekamp during the Eureka rebellion, women don’t appear in any great numbers until the 1970s. From this era on, however, female Larrikins frequently spin ‘threads’ in the ‘memorial narrative’ that this book weaves. This book takes the position that freedom of the news media is different from journalistic freedom. Freedom of the news media encompasses freedom for proprietors to publish what they see fit in their news media outlets—advertising, opinion, editorial, and so on. Journalistic freedom is slightly different in that it is defined as independence from all influences, including that of an employer. The two are related; without proprietorial freedom, particularly from government, then journalistic freedom will, arguably, struggle. Even so, journalistic freedom is, essentially, the right of the people, not the privilege of proprietors. The problem, however, is when too few own too much in one market, allowing the most aggressive to dominate. In such an environment, there is not only a limited number of voices, but there is also a limited number of options for journalists. In Australia, with its relatively small market, the circumstances are fertile for media monopolies to thrive. It is this environment that has resulted in the World Press Freedom Index continuously rating Australia as so low in terms of journalistic freedom. Although this book does occasionally wander into the history of news media proprietorship (as we shall see in Chap. 2, when the early journalists were the proprietors, and in Chap. 9, when we examine Rupert Murdoch’s rise to dominance in the media ownership business) it is more concerned with the individual journalists who have actively ‘pushed back’ against restrictions on freedom of the news media. Therefore, this book does not traverse the well-worn history of media proprietors, whose Larrikin characteristics have been well documented, starting with Cyril Pearl’s 1958 biography of the “shameless rogues,” newspaper owners, John Norton, William Willis, and Paddy Crick, in Wild

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Men of Sydney. Since then, Colleen Ryan and Glen Burge (1992) have shown us how an obsession with power and money drove the aggressive taking over of what was once one of the biggest media empires in Australia, the Fairfax Group in Corporate Cannibals. Bridget Griffen-Foley (1999) took us through the piratical activities of the Packer dynasty in The House of Packer—including the infamous 1939 brawl at Randwick Racecourse when Frank Packer and Truth proprietor, Ezra Norton had to be physically separated by the crowd. Tom Roberts (2015) has examined the enigmatic Sir Keith Murdoch, who took no prisoners in building up the Herald and Weekly Times to be one of the most powerful companies in Australian history in Before Rupert. And Sally Young (2019) took the whole lot of them on, to reveal Australian media proprietorship history as a small, but tumultuous ecosystem of egos driven by a lust for power and political ambition. Although Australia’s media owners could easily be described as Larrikins, it is not with their history this book is primarily interested. Neither does this book deal with the general concept of ‘freedom of speech’. While ‘freedom of speech’ is a concern in Australia—as pointed out so powerfully in Robert Pullan’s 1984 Guilty Secrets—this book is more concerned with a journalism-specific micro-cultural construction of an ideological commitment to freedom of the news media. More recently, Pullan reinvigorated his interest in freedom of speech, as relates it to journalism history in Freedom Lost (2020). Pullan’s series of essays is a significant contribution to the historical documentation of censorship in the Australian media. By contrast, this book taps into the cultural conversations internal to the journalism community to trace from where the ideological construction of a professional commitment to journalistic independence came. The concern with loss of freedom is picked up in Brian Toohey’s Secret (2019). Again, Toohey’s publication is an important contribution to our understanding of the obstructions faced by journalists as viewed from the wider social and political context. Meanwhile, this book is more concerned with how journalists, have—consciously or subconsciously—‘pushed back’ against restrictions on freedom of the news media, and how the professional micro-culture has handed the commitment to resistance as a professional practice, from one generation to the next, through a received industry-specific history. As far back as 1993, Australian journalism scholarship was calling for such a history of practice. As historians Ann Curthoys, Julianne Schultz, and Paula Hamilton pointed out, the history of Australian journalism has

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too often been dealt with “obliquely,” as part of media history, rather than being “located centre stage” (Curthoys et al. 1993: 45–46). There is indeed a need for a history of Australian journalism, as opposed to a history of media companies, media barons, or media policy. (Curthoys et al. 1993: 45)

With the digital ‘revolution’ portending uncertainty in journalism’s raison d’être, the 1993 comments of Curthoys, Schultz, and Hamilton ring as true today as they did last century: The history of practice, news routines, and professional values is important for understanding what is currently done by journalists and media companies, and especially the way in which current structures, organizational practices and routines shape journalistic practice. (Curthoys et al. 1993: 45)

This book takes up the call for such a history, by tracing how journalists themselves have passed on, from generation to generation, the profession’s Larrikin antecedents as a means of ‘pushing back that line’ toward a freer news media in Australia.

The Enlightened Larrikin Before we start on our journey through Australian journalism history, it is useful to first think about the original architects of the profession, and examine how the Larrikin figure may have been embroiled in their ideology. Journalism historians generally agree that the blueprint for Australian journalism’s ideals can be traced back to Enlightenment thought (Cryle 1997: 12; Lloyd in Tanner 2002: 3–5). Even Sally Young’s somewhat cynical analysis of the beginnings of Australian journalism’s commercial ethos (2019) can be interpreted as conducted through an Enlightenment framework, albeit heavily focused on Locke’s belief in inherent rights to “health, liberty and possessions” (1640). At the time, however, it is unlikely that Australia’s colonial journalists (who were also Australia’s first media proprietors and entrepreneurs) could have foreseen the paradox in marrying ideological commitments to property ownership with editorial independence, and the eventual, and possibly inevitable, repercussions on the practical application of freedom of the news media.

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Young may not deal with Locke’s Enlightenment philosophy directly in her analysis of the beginnings of Australia in Paper Emperors (2019). Even so, Locke’s argument that the right to the pursuit of property is coupled with the right to freedom of opinion, places Young in the same camp as scholars of Australian colonial journalism, and their general thesis that Enlightenment-informed thinking underpinned the nation’s embryonic form of news media freedom. Australian colonial journalism historian, Denis Cryle (1997: 12), identifies particular Enlightenment texts as being seminal for Australian colonial journalism’s penchant for freedom of thought and the role of journalism in scrutinizing, censuring, and, in colonial media scholar, Clem Lloyd’s words, “even challenging” rulers and the state (in Tanner 2002: 3). According to Cryle, the main influential texts included John Milton’s Areopagitica and John Stuart Mill’s Freedom of the Press (1825). And it is in such texts that we can start to see the Larrikin spirit that would contribute to the embryonic development of Australian journalism’s values around protecting freedom of the news media. Just listen to the Larrikin outrage in Milton’s Areopagitica, over a presumption that authority had a right to direct or control freedom of individual thought, can be heard. Here we can discern an overtly Larrikinesque defiance of authority, including some mockery of its then theocratic pomposity: Many that be that complain of divine providence for suffered Adam to transgress. Foolish tongues! When God gave him reason, He gave him freedom to choose, for reason is but choosing; he had been else a mere artificial Adam, such an Adam as he is in the motions. (1644/1952: 394–395)

Milton can be seen as his own ‘transgressive Adam’. In his theocratic society, he was seen as a lecher, but was still determined to write pamphlets advocating divorce (in Knight and Wilding 1977: 123). These public assertions endangered Milton’s life—the Attorney General was instructed to institute proceedings against him and, in 1660, was arrested. Despite being granted official pardon a month later, several of his works were burned by the hangman. Yet official punishment did not quench Milton’s defiance. Seven years later, when he came to write Paradise Lost, he declared that he still “[sang] with mortal voice unchanged”:

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On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues;/ In darkness, and with dangers compassed all around. (1667/2001: 13)

It was in defiance of Parliament’s 1643 Licensing Order, making censorship official, that Milton published his Areopagitica in 1644. Here, Milton can be seen as a ‘transgressive’ Larrikin figure who continuously and compulsively strives toward a higher virtue, despite society’s conviction that his actions are delinquently criminal, and which punishes him accordingly. Arguing for equality and freedom of opinion, he declared: Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making. (1644/1952: 406)

So, according to Milton, freedom of opinion, and freedom to discuss it, leads to knowledge, understanding and ‘truth’. Milton’s conviction that truth is destined to emerge naturally through diversity of opinion, including, on an equitable basis, ‘wrong’ opinion, smacks of the Larrikin’s emotional innocence. Truth, says Milton “needs no policies, nor stratagems, nor licensing to make her victorious; those are the shifts and defenses that error uses against her power: give her but room and do not bind her where she sleeps” (1644/1952: 409). Indeed, in the strain of Enlightenment thought that underpinned colonial journalism’s ideology, the equitable and “free use of one’s reason” (Kant 1963/1784: 5) is regarded as so innate to the human condition that to disregard it would risk being somewhat oxymoronic. Milton argues that freedom-denying press laws are vulnerable to the charge of containing absurd implications; corollaries that would render them not only illogical, but unenforceable in practice: If we think to regulate printing, thereby to rectify matters, we must regulate all recreations and pastimes, all that is delightful to man. No music must be heard, no song be set to sung, but what is grave and Doric … And who shall license all the airs and madrigals that whisper softness in the chambers? The windows also, and the balconies, must be thought on; there are shrewd books, with dangerous front pieces, set to sale: who shall prohibit them, shall twenty licensors? (1644/1952: 394)

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Foreseeing the repression of all forms of expression, Milton calls for a mass—“all the lutes, violins and guitars”—and clandestine defiance of authorized censorship laws (1644/1952: 394). Such rebellion against authority would, however, appear to require the Larrikin’s preparedness to exceed legal and social limits. Indeed, in Milton, “rejoicing and praising” all opinion deemed as ‘wrong’ by authority, connotates a Larrikinesque defiance of authority, even a call for transgression. Throughout the Areopagitica, and his own life, Milton argued that the contemporary ‘transgressive Adam’ would ultimately be part of civilization’s utopian destiny, rather than setting it on a path of anarchy and dystopia. Such Enlightenment-informed thinking, related to the relationship between press freedom, questioning of authority, and individual freedom, would later manifest in Mill’s Liberty of the Press (1825) and On Liberty (1859). In the latter, Mill argued key ideas he had presented in the former. Calling for a critique of convention, Mill argued in On Liberty the “tyranny of the majority” could be “generally included” among the “evils against which society must be on its guard” (1859/1962: 68). Milton too projected dire warnings over unthinking adherence to conventional values, “fearing yet” the “iron yoke of outward conformity” that leaves a “slavish print upon our necks; the ghost of linen decency yet haunts us” (1644/1952: 410). Here, the concern of Milton, like Mill, is that ‘wrong’ opinions, at least those deemed as such by the majority, are open to suppression. Elsewhere in On Liberty, Mill is arguably Larrikinesque insofar as he mockingly defies the somewhat pompous mindset that so often marks government efforts at managing public opinion: To refuse a hearing to an opinion because they are sure that it is false is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility. Its condemnation may be allowed to rest on this common argument, not the worse for being common. (1859/1962: 79)

For Mill, it is not “enough” in a liberal democracy to merely defy the power of the “magistrate” (1859/1962: 68). Because power in a liberal democracy is bestowed upon those who represent the largest number of people, the system creates what Mill terms, an “ascendant class.” And it is this group who interprets and defines ‘acceptable’ norms and practices that are, in modern liberal democracy, perpetuated through the media.

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Wherever there is an “ascendant class,” according to Mill, a large proportion of the morality of the community emanates from its class interests and its feelings of “class superiority.” Therefore, as Mill argues, we “need protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them” (1859/1962: 68). Here, Mill’s emphasis on class difference, in relation to ideas and their public communication, is significant insofar as he—just like the Larrikin— defiantly identified with those not from the “ascendant class” in the name of a more widespread freedom. So we can see how Collingwood’s ‘threads’ and ‘indications’ suggest that seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Enlightenment texts, understood to contain the origins of Australian journalism’s micro-culture, are decidedly Larrikinesque in their arguments for a free news media. The question is now, how does the Enlightened Larrikin, and his resolve to ‘push back that line’ toward a free news media, translate in those who took up “the calling” (as Cryle describes the journalism profession) in the Colony of Australia.

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Romano, A. (2003). Politics and the Press in Indonesia: Understanding an Evolving Political Culture. London: Routledge Curzon. Ryan, C., & Burge, B. (1992). Corporate Cannibals: The Taking of Fairfax. Port Melbourne: William Heinemann. Simons, M. (2007). The Content Makers: Understanding the Media in Australia. Camberwell: Penguin Books. Tanner, S.  J. (Ed.). (2002). Journalism: Investigation and Research. French’s Forest, NSW: Longman. Theophanous v. Herald and Weekly Times. (1994). HCA 46. Toohey, B. (2019). Secret: The Making of Australia’s Security State. Carlton: Melbourne University Press. Tuchman, G. (1978). Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality. New York: Free Press. United Kingdom: Human Rights Act 1998 [United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland], 9 November 1998, available at: https://www.refworld. org/docid/3ae6b5a7a.html [accessed 3 January 2021]. Warren, C., Walters, E., Di Marzo, R., & Johnson, A. (2005). Turning Up the Heat: The Decline in Press Freedom in Australia 2001–2005. Redfern: MEAA. Williams, R. (1958). Culture is Ordinary. In N.  MacKenzie (Ed.), Conviction. London: MacGibbon and Kee. Williams, R. (1966). Culture and Society: 1780–1950. London: Penguin. Williams, R. (1977). Marxism and Literature. London: Oxford University Press. Winter, J. (1997). Democracy’s Oxygen: How Corporations Control the News. Montreal: Black Rose Books. Young, S. (2019). Paper Emperors: The Rise of Australia’s Newspaper Empires Sydney. UNSW Press. Zelizer, B. (1993). Journalists as Interpretive Communities. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 10, 219–237. Zelizer, B. (2004). Taking Journalism Seriously: News and the Academy. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

CHAPTER 2

Colonial Larrikins

At 1.40 p.m., on June 4, 2024, Australia celebrates its bicentenary of news media freedom. It was, on that exact date, at that exact moment, 200 years previously, The Hobart Town Gazette Government-appointed ‘editor’, Henry Emmett, signed his letter to the Van Diemen’s Land Lieutenant-­ Governor, complaining that the paper’s printer-publisher, Andrew Bent, had rolled the presses without approval. At that moment, Emmett gave up waiting for Bent to bring the proofs of edition number 422 to him for checking, and told Lieutenant-Governor George Arthur he had “no doubt that the proofs are purposefully withheld” (Emmett to Arthur, June 4, 1824, AOT CSO 1/198/4725). As Bent’s great-great-great-great-grandson, Craig Collins pointed out in his 2005 presentation to the Australian Media Traditions Conference: The printer, Andrew Bent, had nothing to hide. Rather, this was a battle for ownership and control of the newspaper, including the right to appoint and dismiss an editor. (Collins 2005: 3)

Bent was a convicted thief when he started publishing The Hobart Town Gazette and Southern Reporter in 1816 (Goc 2001). At the time, the press in Australia was designed specifically as a vehicle for government publicity and propaganda. When ex-convict George Howe started publishing Australia’s first newspaper, The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser in 1803, it publicly renounced all political discussion and its © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Vine, Larrikins, Rebels and Journalistic Freedom in Australia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61856-8_2

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pages were subject to strict censorship by Governor Philip King’s own hand (Walker 1976: 4). Like The Sydney Gazette, Bent’s publication also functioned as a government organ, both subject to government censorship and edited by government appointees (Goc 2001). But in May 1824, the now ex-convict expressed one of Australian journalism’s earliest outward shows of Larrikin defiance when he audaciously dismissed the government-appointed editor, and replaced him with one of his own selection, editor and lawyer, Evan Henry Thomas (Goc 2001). Less than a week later, Governor Arthur, whom biographer Nicola Goc describes as an “uncompromising military disciplinarian” and a self-­confessed enemy of the free press, sailed up the Derwent River to take over the colony of Van Diemen’s Land (Goc 2001). Within a month, Governor Arthur declared The Hobart Town Gazette and van Diemen’s Land Advertiser government property. In effect, the new Governor had pirated the ex-convict’s newspaper. But just a year previously, the New South Wales Act had established a legislative council and a Supreme Court, giving the Sydney Governor jurisdiction over Van Diemen’s Land (Bennett 2004). This meant that Bent could counter Arthur’s attack by sending his newly appointed editor to Sydney to seek redress from Sir Thomas Brisbane. The battle for journalistic freedom in Australia had begun!

As Bent’s editor raced the almost 1000  miles north to the colony’s capital, two young British lawyers, William Charles Wentworth and Dr Robert Wardell, were in transit from England to Sydney, along with a clandestine printing press. Despite risking severe punishment, the pair began brazenly publishing The Australian without authority (Walker 1976: 6). The first edition debuted on October 14, 1824. Biographer Robin Walker points out that the pair probably escaped penalty because the newly instituted legislative council was not yet functioning (Walker 1976: 6–7). Yet in the details of the seemingly simple (deliberate?) oversight to notify the authorities about The Australian, we can detect a Larrikin sensibility. Indeed, as biographer Sandy Blair suggests, The Australian was “infused” with an anti-authoritarianism spirit of “reform”: The Australian began as it intended to go on; outspoken, independent and not at all respectful of authority. (in Cryle 1997: 22)

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Meanwhile, Bent’s Hobart Town Gazette editor Evan Henry Thomas returned from Sydney to Van Diemen’s Land. The round trip to Sydney and back had taken more than five months, but the journey had been worth it. Thomas brought news that Sir Thomas Brisbane had declared Governor Arthur had no legal right to take over The Hobart Town Gazette. Bent’s public victory announcement—published just six days before Wentworth and Wardell brazenly printed the first edition of The Australian without prior restraint—acknowledged the Larrikin spirit that underpinned the win for freedom of the press. ... thanks most profoundly permanent to that hallowed spirit of British Justice which animates SIR THOMAS Brisbane, our resistance has been consecrated by a perfect triumph. (Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen’s Land Advertiser, October 8, 1824: 2)

Of course, once freedom from prior restraint was granted to both Wentworth and Wardell in Sydney, and Bent in Van Diemen’s Land, it could hardly be denied other publications in Australia. As Sir Thomas Brisbane said in his official explanation to the British authorities: I considered it most expedient to try the experiment of the full latitude of the freedom of the press … The Government printer, Mr [George] Howe, finding a Paper published without censorship, soon applied for the removal of that restraint from his paper, The Sydney Gazette, and I considered the same opinion alike applied to both, the censorship was removed. (Brisbane to Bathurst, January 12, 1825, Historical Records of Australia, ser.1 vol. 11 pp. 470–471)

So, by the end of 1824, the press in a remote place of exile now had an embryonic form of journalism with more freedom than in Mother England (where proprietors were still fighting high taxes on printing), thanks to a deep desire for journalistic independence underpinned by the brash, Larrikin spirit of defiance and audacity. The consequences of the Larrikin’s successful defiance of authority were to echo down the years, initiating the evolution of a Larrikin tradition in Australian journalism micro-culture. As Bent biographer Joan Woodberry comments: Bent was responsible for the introduction of three principles which today are accepted as never to be challenged: private ownership of the press, the expression of opinion in the form of editorials and the establishment of correspondent’s

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pages through letters-to-the-editor. It was indeed Bent’s stand against Arthur that precipitated interest and concern with the principle of freedom of the press in Australia. (Woodberry 1972: 18)

Despite the fact the Australian press was no longer subject to overt censorship, the colonial authorities could continue placing, sometimes quite bizarre, boundaries around freedom of the news media. Such measures apparently encouraged the emergence of Larrikinism as a professional value. Indeed, defying, and exceeding, legislated limits at times seemed a necessary means to one end: maintaining journalistic independence. To view one of the earliest examples of this syndrome, we need to go back to the narrative about Lieutenant-Governor George Arthur and Andrew Bent. According to Goc (2001), Arthur’s rage over Bent’s publication of letters criticizing his regime manifested in the setting up of a competitor to The—now-independent—Hobart Town Gazette using an identical masthead, but filled with pro-Arthur sentiment. In defiant reaction, Bent branded the imposter Gazette’s owners as “pirates” and published a scathing attack alleging the Governor’s previous misdeeds. Bent was sued for libel, sentenced to six month’s imprisonment and fined 518 pounds. A year later Arthur passed an Act requiring an outrageously expensive license to print or publish a newspaper. “Naturally,” says Goc, “Bent was refused a license to print” (in Bainbridge et  al. 2011: 470). Struggling financially, Bent lost his newspaper, now renamed The Colonial Times but kept his printing press and, skirting around what he seemed to consider mere legality, established a monthly news magazine that was not subject to licensing laws (Bainbridge et al. 2011: 75). From this it seems that Australian journalism had, very early on, established a practice of defying authority in order to ‘push back that line’ toward a freer news media. By the 1830s, Gilbert Robertson, whom Goc describes as a “wild and headstrong” Tasmanian, was also publishing revealing copy about Arthur’s alleged cronyism and corruption in his True Colonist. Charges against Robertson were inevitable. As Goc says: The True Colonist became a political voice in vigorous opposition to Arthur and it must be said that moderation was not high on Robertson’s news agenda. (in Bainbridge et al. 2011: 76)

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Although New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land were given status as full colonies, with appointed legislative councils (New South Wales Act, 1823 [UK]), English laws and statutes continued to operate in both colonies (Bennett August 27, 2004). Under this legislation, Robertson was charged with three counts of libel and sentenced to 13 months jail, with another 12 months for a further charge of libel in 1835 (Goc 2001). Bent, again in defiance of Arthur, volunteered to print The True Colonist during Robertson’s incarceration (Goc 2001). Robertson wrote of his gratitude to Bent: When we experienced some difficulty in getting our Journal printed at any office, our ‘Tasmanian Franklin’ immediately threw open gratuitously the use of his office, type and press to us. (The True Colonist, March 27, 1835: 2)

Despite Bent’s assistance, Robertson could not bring the paper out from prison daily, and after March, 1835, it reverted back to a semi-weekly, then weekly publication. Robertson’s defense against the alleged libels was always the ‘public good’, in the hope of an inquiry into the colony’s affairs. The last issue of The True Colonist appeared on December 26, 1844, when Robertson left for Norfolk Island (Godfrey 1967). Despite the end result, Bent and Robertson demonstrates the need for colonial journalists to manifest Larrikin characteristics such as defiance of authority and exceeding legal limits in order to maintain the freedom of the news media and ensure some level of governmental transparency. If a Larrikin is “above all,” defiant of authority (Gorman 1990: x), then Robertson and Bent’s determined and repeated transgressions would appear to qualify the two Tasmanians as among Australia’s first Larrikin-journalists. Roberston and Bent were the first of a diverse bunch, it seems, if we regard as Larrikin the attitude and actions of Edward Smith Hall, who set up The Monitor in Sydney on May 19, 1826. According to press historian Denis Cryle, journalism was at the time regarded by many as a “disreputable profession” (Cryle 1997). This resulted in official justifications for press control through license fees, regulations, and legislation. But Smith Hall, it would appear, was almost destined to defy authority. For example, when Smith Hall and his bevy of daughters were excluded from their usual rented pew in Sydney’s St James Church, he defiantly stepped over the locked pew door. And when the authorities later boarded over the pew, he seated himself and his progeny on the chancel steps, illustrating his attitude toward authority (Walker 1976: 15). Smith Hall’s attitude

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Fig. 2.1  The Monitor’s masthead (The Monitor, January 29, 1830: 2)

was also prevalent in his editorial policies. Motivated by the central belief that government should, at all times, be accountable to the people, Smith Hall was outspoken and aggressive. His celebrated choice of masthead, an aggressively glaring eye to ‘look out’ over the colony, is an enduring symbol of journalism’s obligation to ‘push back that line’ toward a freer news media. In 1829, finding himself incarcerated for his persistent scrutiny of authority, Smith Hall relentlessly continued writing from his cell (Blair in Cryle 1997: 27). He was convicted of seditious libel against Governor Ralph Darling and criminal libel against the Commandant at Port Macquarie, and was sentenced to 12 and 3 months imprisonment respectively. Yet, from the security of Parramatta Gaol, Smith Hall continued to edit The Monitor and pen further criminal libels, which brought additional sentences of 22  months. As press historian Robin Walker describes the event, the editor and his “giant unwinking eye” were prepared to defy the rest of Darling’s governorship from behind prison bars (Walker 1976: 16). It would appear a Larrikin spirit, shaped by Enlightenment ideals, informed Smith Hall’s heart, as well as his masthead. Meanwhile, Atwell Hayes, who had taken over editorship of The Australian, was fined and sent to jail for six months for seditious libel against Governor Darling, whom he declared (on account of his apparent “ignorance” and “disregard for the law”) was unfit to rule over any British colony. Judge James Dowling ruled it seditious to suggest corrupt motives

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or willful misrule or oppression. “Thus,” says Walker, “the pens of two incarcerated editors bitterly scratched away together in Parramatta Gaol” (Walker 1976: 16). It was during the incarceration of Hayes and Smith Hall that we find one of the earliest pieces of evidence concerning Larrikin-journalists ‘taking the piss’ to ‘push back that line’ toward a freer news media. In an attempt to silence Smith Hall and Hayes who, at the time, were still writing from their Parramatta cells, Governor Darling passed a new law, making it mandatory for the court to impose a sentence of banishment on any person convicted for seditious libel for the second time. Consequently, Wentworth and Wardell were forced to delete their latest editorials from The Australian. Yet they continued to mock authority. Larrikin-like in audacity, the pair published an image on February 24, 1830, of a military officer chaining a printing press, with the printer hanging by the neck from a metal spike.

Fig. 2.2  ‘The Press’ (The Australian, February 24, 1830: 2)

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Smith Hall also mourned this ‘death’ of a free press by publishing an illustration of a coffin with an epitaph, mischievously written in Latin (in Cryle 1997: 28), which translated as: Fig. 2.3  The Monitor, January 29, 1830: 2

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Under the Government of Sir Thomas Brisbane, Knight, Liberty of the Press was born. Under the Government of Ralph Darling, Esquire, it was strangled on the 29th day of January 1830. It shall rise again.

There is a recent school of thought among media historians that Australia’s earliest journalists used ‘Liberty of the Press’ as propaganda to mask more sinister commercial and political ambitions. And it is true that characters such as the publisher of Australia’s first newspaper, George Howe, had several interests in bowing to the colonial law of publishing ‘by authority’, including his part-ownership of the nation’s first bank. Smith Hall was also a bank proprietor, and the barristers Wentworth and Wardell had shareholdings in the Bank of New South Wales large enough to make them directors. There is some evidence that Bent was a barely literate opportunist, whose defiance was merely the result of a set of manipulative actions by a power-hungry political faction of Tasmania. As media scholar Sally Young points out, these newspaper owners were part of a “commercial-­ legal middle class” that was seeking “greater authority” in the military-­ controlled penal settlement of Australia, and were using the rhetoric of ‘freedom of the press’ to gain it (Young 2019). All this may be historically true. But this is not the way the Australian journalism micro-culture constructs its forefathers’ narratives. Even today, Bent appears in the Melbourne Press Club’s Hall of Fame, described as “Australia’s first fighter for press freedom and the first newspaperman to be jailed for libel” (Smith n.d., https://halloffame.melbournepressclub. com/article/andrew-­bent, accessed July 8, 2020). Linking defiance of legal authority and press freedom, the micro-culture has developed Bent as a foundation stone in the construction of Australian journalism’s Larrikin “memorial narrative.” Similarly, the Melbourne Press Club connects anti-authoritarianism with news media freedom in its Hall of Fame profile of Wardell: Wardell was charged with libel, but conducted his own defense brilliantly and escaped conviction. Wardell and other publishers fought off Darling’s attempt to introduce a newspaper tax, thus winning an important victory for press freedom. (Osborne n.d.-a, https://halloffame.melbournepressclub.com/ article/robert-­wardell, accessed July 8, 2020)

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Smith Hall receives comparable treatment: Hall was one of Australia’s first and most vigorous fighters for press freedom and social justice … Hall was the first Australian to be jailed for criminal libel and Darling tried to impose licensing of newspapers to silence him and other critics. (Osborne n.d.-b, https://halloffame.melbournepressclub.com/article/ edward-­smith-­hall, accessed July 8, 2020).

The clear celebration of Australian journalism antecedents’ defiance of legality, contributes to the construction of the Larrikin as an Australian journalism “memorial narrative.” After all, to Larrikin spirits such as Bent and Smith Hall, forging this new nation meant, in part, wresting control of the news media from the colony’s authoritarian masters, and giving convicts, ex-convicts, and small property owners a free ‘public sphere’ to voice concerns and grievances. Such positions would appear to reflect the fundamental Enlightenment ideal of egalitarianism. One can see here how the Larrikin characteristic, as defined in Rickard’s words, as “emotional attachment to working class origins” (1998) appears to fit those journalists who, in current journalistic lexicon, were ‘championing the underdog’. Bent particularly displayed a Larrikin’s penchant for egalitarianism. He insisted on publishing letters from ‘working class’ ex-convicts and small landholders; all criticizing what Goc describes as Arthur’s “autocratic regime” (Goc 2001). In 1825, Bent even overtly stated his class affiliation when he attacked Arthur’s treatment of the ‘working class’ with this blunt appraisal: It is much better that a few supine, ignorant and extravagantly-hired public officers should be galled for their misconduct than that a whole community be crushed, enslaved and subjugated. (Hobart Town Gazette, May 20, 1825: 2)

The Bent narrative suggests that concern for freedom of the press affiliated Australian journalism with the ‘working class’. For example, when Bent was sued for libel in 1824, many members of the public saw it as persecution of their champion by a tyrannical governor, and held a public meeting to form ‘Friends of Liberty of the Press’, raising 250 pounds for Bent’s court costs. Later, when Bent was refused a license to print, 50 leading citizens signed a petition claiming that the restrictions were “needless, unconstitutional and debasing—an insult to the Colony” (in Goc 2001). The relationship between Australian Larrikin-journalists and the ‘working class’ is also quite evident in the historical narrative surrounding early Sydney journalism. Biographer Sandy Blair even describes Smith Hall

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as a “belligerent activist of working men’s rights.” According to Blair, Smith Hall had a “deep hatred” for the confinements of colonial society, with its “current of cruelty, anti-intellectualism and military rigor.” As a result: The Monitor overflowed with the sufferings of working people both convict and free. (in Cryle 1997: 23)

In return, Sydney’s ‘working class’ openly declared affection for its champions. When London Crown Law Officers suspended New South Wales’ restrictive stamp duty in 1827 there was, as Blair interprets, an “uproarious state of excitement” (in Cryle 1997: 25). Public celebrations even extended to the outlying towns of Parramatta, Windsor, and Liverpool. In Campbell Town, a small settlement some distance to the West, houses and businesses were illuminated, guns were fired, and celebrations continued well into the night. In taverns and public houses, drink flowed, with toasts being raised with heated enthusiasm to journalists, “Monitor Hall,” and those “patriots of Australia,” Wentworth and Wardell: “No wonder leading [journalists] such as Wentworth gained a reputation among conservatives as ‘drunk public meeting patriots’,” notes Blair. (in Cryle 1997: 25)

Privates Joseph Sudds and Patrick Thompson The relationship between the Larrikin’s defiance, egalitarianism, and journalism’s role in bringing to light individual suffering, is possibly best demonstrated in the 1826 case of Privates Joseph Sudds and Patrick Thompson. Indeed, Chief Justice James Spigelman even describes the Sudds/Thompson case as forming the “foundations of freedom of the press in Australia” (2003: 9). In 1826, New South Wales’ Governor Darling, sentenced two privates in the 57th regiment, Joseph Sudds and Patrick Thompson, to seven years on a chain gang for the relatively small misdemeanor of stealing a bale of calico. Further, Darling devised a set of special chains for each prisoner, made of an iron collar furnished with two six-inch bars, two chains descended to leg basils clamped above the ankles and joined together with iron links. The whole thing weighed more than 13 pounds. Sudds died in jail five days later, and Thompson was dispatched to a road gang where he wore the iron collar for the next three months (Spigelman 2003: 9).

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Fig. 2.4  Smith Hall’s portrayal of Joseph Sudds and Patrick Thompson. (https://dictionaryofsydney.org/media/1518)

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On the day Sudds died, The Australian commenced, what Spigelman describes as a “blistering attack” on the governor and the system that allowed such cruelty, and raised serious doubts about the legality of the punishment (Spigelman 2003: 10). The Monitor also aggressively took up the cause, campaigning against state brutality toward convicts. The media critique in the wake of Sudds’ death rendered the incident a symbol of the injustices perpetrated on residents of New South Wales by Governor Darling, in the absence of due legislative process and trial by jury. Darling, shaken by the publicity, belatedly sought legal advice, including an advisory opinion from the Supreme Court, then a mere two-years-­old. In a joint opinion, Sir Francis Forbes and Justice John Stephen ruled against Darling’s sentence as unconstitutional. Thompson was released and sent back to his regiment (Walker 1976: 10), and the colonists were granted a renewal of the 1823 constitution that had secured them rudimentary popular rights (in Cryle 1997: 25). Here, Australian journalists had, very early in their history, championed egalitarian values through a public exposé of authoritarian tyranny, marked by a Larrikin defiance of Darling’s authority.

Eureka! But the Larrikin’s sense of egalitarianism with colonial journalism is possibly best demonstrated during the Victorian gold rush of the 1850s. Indeed, Argus biographer, David Dunstan describes the gold-seeking population as “swelling” the ranks of the working class in Victoria, whose “cause” was actively “championed” by The Argus (in Porter 2001). By this time, the district of Port Phillip (now the Victorian capital city of Melbourne) separated from New South Wales, and the Australian Constitutions Act (1850) confirmed the legislative powers of the colonies, including the power to write their own constitutions. And yet, freedom of the news media appears to have been overlooked in both the New South Welsh and Victorian constitutional development. But four years later, in what is believed to be the only civil rebellion on Australian soil, Australian journalism’s ideological commitment to a free news media made some way toward making up for the 1850 Act’s omission. The Eureka Rebellion has come to represent the downtrodden rising to seize liberty from, what Kirkpatrick describes as, an “arrogant and uncaring” authority that “demanded exorbitant” license fees, and used “heavy-handed police tactics” to obtain them (Kirkpatrick 2004: 31). But

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it is the narrative surrounding journalism’s role in the aftermath of this event that is significant for the Larrikin tradition in Australian journalism. As Kirkpatrick says, Eureka has “much to say about courageous editorial leadership on behalf of an oppressed people” (Kirkpatrick 2004: 31). The chain of events began in 1854, when Sir Charles Hotham, who had replaced Charles Joseph La Trobe as the newly formed Victorian community’s governor, instituted twice-weekly searches at the Ballarat gold-­ digging camp that was already deeply dissatisfied with the licensing system. After botched investigations into the deaths of two diggers, one on the fields, and another after a night of drinking, riots broke out at Ballarat’s Eureka Hotel, followed by fighting at the makeshift ‘Eureka Stockade’. As a bloody battle that left five soldiers and 24 diggers dead, Eureka has come to symbolize conflict between liberty and authority in Australia. Yet, it is incompletely understood as one of the earliest manifestations of Larrikin values in Australian journalism. According to Kirkpatrick, The Age, Argus, Geelong Advertiser, and The Ballarat Times condemned the administration “as though with one voice” (Kirkpatrick 2004: 34). As the local paper, The Ballarat Times was particularly partisan on behalf of the diggers. Editor Henry Erle Seekamp is remembered as one of the key animators of public opinion in the licensing debate. His wife, Clara, is recorded as saying if “Peter Lalor was the sword of the movement, my husband was the pen” (in Kirkpatrick 2004: 32). Indeed, it is in Seekamp’s somewhat hyperbolic pen that we discern a Larrikin tendency to exceed limits, particularly the limits of legality, in the spirit if egalitarianism. For example, Seekamp charged that the twice-weekly license searches of diggers’ tents was akin to sport among camp gentry, describing it as “hunting the digger” (The Ballarat Times, Sept 30, 1852: 2). It seems Seekamp was a crusading editor who was—in Kirkpatrick’s words— “angry” on behalf of the “suffering” diggers up against “the corrupt tools of a tyrannical government” (Kirkpatrick 2004: 31). And yet this Larrikin’s “forthright” editorializing “ensured that agitation and the press were spoken of in the same breath” (Kirkpatrick 2004: 34). As a result of his Larrikin journalism, Seekamp was jailed for sedition during the ensuing trials. However, similar to Bent and Smith Hall, Australian journalism culture constructs him, not as a criminal, but as a crusading spirit, who martyred himself to protect freedom of the press against authority. Here Ballarat historian, Peter Mansfield, allows us to suggest that future belief in the role of Larrikin-journalists was effectively anticipated, even instantiated, by Seekamp:

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Seekamp and other newspapermen ensured that the political background was much larger and subject to public scrutiny—a process we now take as a natural right. (in Kirkpatrick 2004: 41)

But it is in Seekamp’s wife Clara Seekamp that we see how female journalists are equally as Larrikin as their male counterparts. When her husband was jailed for sedition, Clara had no qualms about taking on editorship of the Ballarat Times, arguably a Larrikin-like act in itself insofar as journalism during her time was an aggressively masculine pursuit. Indeed, Kirkpatrick suggests Clara readily took on a Larrikin persona, and quickly won notoriety for outspokenness against the restrictions imposed on the voices of the diggers, and The Ballarat Times’ freedom as a vehicle for them. It is clear Clara would not allow The Ballarat Times to be cowed by the fact her husband was incarcerated. The Ballaraat (sic) correspondent, writing in The Argus dated January 31, reports that “Mrs” Seekamp had published her “manifesto,” which was: as startling in its tone, and as energetic in its language, italics and capitals and free use of the words ‘sedition’, ‘liberty’ and ‘oppression’ as a Russian ukase would be. (The Argus, Jan 31, 1855: 5)

If we listen to Clara’s leader on New Year’s Day 1855, we not only hear her ‘startling tone’ and ‘energetic language’, but also her Larrikinesque defiance, exceeding of legal limits as well as taking the piss out of pomposity. In outraged reaction to the blunt scapegoating tactics by Governor Hotham (i.e., only foreigners could possibly be responsible for the insurgence, Americans had amnesty), Clara wrote: Who are the foreigners? Where are the foreigners? What is it that constitutes a foreigner? … Poor Governor Hotham! Could you not have found some other truthful excuse for all the illegal and even murderous excesses committed by your soldiery and butchers? (Ballarat Times, Jan 1, 1855: 2)

One could imagine Clara’s disdain for Hotham’s exemption of punishment for Americans may have come from the fact that he was pardoning the very cohort that could, realistically, predict a republican future and had already experienced the practical success of rebellion, the actions of which would normally be seen as galvanized by the Larrikin’s emotional innocence.

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Unfortunately, most of The Ballarat Times editions edited by Clara are missing from the files (Kirkpatrick 2004: 1; Wright 2013: 507; author’s own research, 2019/2020), limiting us in our interpretations of her journalistic style, and leaving us to rely upon second-hand sources, such as the Argus Ballaraat (sic) correspondent. Notwithstanding the fact our Argus correspondent may have been under the illusion that his words were criticizing a system that allowed the “dangerous influence” of a “free press petticoat government,” the descriptions of Clara’s writing certainly record her as an aggressive, yet idealistic, Larrikin-journalist ‘pushing back that line’ toward a freer news media. Maybe because of the paucity of historical data on Clara, it is her husband,  Henry Erle Seekamp,  who is remembered within Australian journalism micro-culture. For example, Henry Erle is lionized in the Melbourne Press Club’s Hall of Fame, while his wife is barely mentioned. Even so, his profile clearly again shows how the Australian journalism micro-culture celebrates Henry Erle Seekamp as a Larrikin-journalist: Seekamp was the first Victorian journalist jailed over editorial principles and the only man to serve a prison term as a result of the Eureka Stockade … He was charged with seditious libel, jailed for six months and released after three months following a monster petition from the people of Ballarat. (Blainey n.d., https://halloffame.melbournepressclub.com/article/henry-­s eekamp, accessed July 8, 2020)

The Argus In 1846, Scotsman William Kerr founded The Argus (Porter 2001: 13). In his chapter on The Argus’ origins, biographer David Dunstan suggests Kerr’s anti-authoritarianism manifested itself in his “fiery independent temperament” and “naturally combative tendencies” toward the authority of the day, Charles Joseph La Trobe’s Port Phillip administration (in Porter 2001: 11, 13). In 1848, Kerr sold The Argus to like-minded contributor, Edward Wilson and his squatting partner, James Stewart Johnston, while staying on as editor. Under Kerr and Wilson’s joint editorship, The Argus ran defiant nonconformist campaigns in support of land reform, and against the introduction of convict labor. Dunstan’s description of The Argus as “radical and partisan” (in Porter 2001: 13), suggests its determination to maintain its freedom to operate as a journalistic organ to agitate for those with little access to the public sphere.

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Indeed, The Argus’ name itself, taken from a fabled monster in Greek mythology with a hundred eyes and thus an all-seeing capacity, suggests the publication’s aggressive self-identity. This was coupled with a defiant motto, quoted from reformer John Knox, on its masthead, clearly challenging those who sought to “impugn” the publication’s freedom: I am in the place where I am demanded of conscience to speak the truth, and therefore the truth I speak, impugn it whoso list.

In fact, it is in The Argus’ campaign against La Trobe that we discern evidence of the Larrikin tendency to challenge authority by mocking its pomposity. For example, in the crises leading up to the Eureka rebellion, The Argus mocked La Trobe’s governorship with a simple insubordinate, ‘piss-taking’ Classified Advertisement: Wanted, a Governor. Apply to the people of Victoria. (Argus, May 16, 1853: 2)

Contemporary journalist and author, William Kelly, wrote in 1859 that there was such a “relentless persistence” in the advertisement’s tone that the diggers were “cajoled into the belief that it was genuine earnestness” (Kelly 1859: 104)—an indication that The Argus understood the irony in Larrikin mockery better than the problem of a text’s reception. Post-Eureka, The Argus’ editorial policy on gold seekers veered toward the more powerful side of the squatters and away from the land reformists. Nevertheless, The Argus’ early egalitarianism, aggressive persona, and Larrikin penchant for ‘taking the piss’ mark it as a journal of record that helped to “push back that line” toward a “freer news media” in Australia’s somewhat less than democratic pre-Federation times. When The Argus began catering to a more conservative audience, its rival The Age quickly filled the void. Established in the same year as the Eureka rebellion (1854), The Age arguably embodied the Larrikin insofar as its stories were defiant and aggressive in promotion of policies challenging established squattocracy (in Cryle 1997: 63). The Age filled The Argus’ previous role, not only in an ideological sense, but also in terms of human resources. The fact that many of The Argus’ staff, including the “natural and instinctual radical,” Ebenezer Syme, felt disaffected enough to join its rival paper (in Porter 2001: 19) says much about the nonconformist ideology of newsroom-floor journalism at that time.

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Larrikins up North So far, our Larrikin has appeared throughout early Australian journalism from Tasmania to New South Wales, and back down to Victoria. We have seen how Larrikin-journalists of South-East Australia effectively served as the enacting agents of ‘pushing back that line’ toward a freer news media during the nation’s colonial period. But we can also find similar ‘threads’ and ‘indications’ about Larrikinism, journalism, and freedom of the news media being spun as we head up north to more remote areas of Australia. And these Northern journalists are treated with as much reverence within Australian journalism micro-culture as their Southern colleagues. For example, Thaddeus O’Kane and his Northern Miner take their place in the Melbourne Press Club’s Hall of Fame. Here, Kirkpatrick pens a profile that applauds the fact that O’Kane upset so many groups in Charters Towers that an association of “respectable men, Catholics and Protestants united” was formed. Attempting to blackmail O’Kane into restricting his publication’s freedom, this group swore “not to enter or frequent any house in Charters Towers or elsewhere” in which O’Kane’s Northern Miner was known to be read (in Cryle, 1997: 103). O’Kane admitted The Northern Miner had its enemies but, demonstrating some insight into the Larrikin paradox, claimed public disapproval proved the publication’s “genuineness.” Indeed, O’Kane confessed that he could not help “knocking against the bigots, the brainless, the swindlers and the rogues” (Kirkpatrick n.d., https://halloffame.melbournepressclub.com/ article/thadeus-­o-­kane, accessed July 10, 2020); articulating the defiance, aggression, and willingness to exceed limits, that mark him as a foundational Larrikin-journalist. Furthermore, as Larrikins at The Monitor and The Australian had done before him, it was “common” for O’Kane to conduct his “knocking” through a humor that ‘took the piss’ out of pomposity (in Cryle 1997: 113). For example, when he was served with a writ of 2000 pounds for libel against a former town clerk by the name of Doyle, whom he had accused of embezzlement, O’Kane’s mockery dripped with ‘piss-­ taking’ irony: We were almost disposed to let judgement go by default, as 2000 pounds and five guineas costs would be simply a flea-bite to us, but on second thoughts, decided to defend the action. We sincerely trust Mr Doyle will receive from an intelli-

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gent jury verdicts for the amounts sued for. He will then be able to return to India and assume his proper position as Maharaja, and we shall be happy to accompany him as private Secretary and receive instructions in the art of ‘how to do it’ in a civilized country and amongst white men. (in The Bulletin, June 11, 1881: 4)

Disdainful in tone and style, O’Kane’s editorial was a mocking attack on what he assumed was the arrogance of a “Maharaja” seeking to block freedom of the news media by misusing legislation. Here, similar to his Tasmanian and New South Welsh journalism counterparts, O’Kane manifested the Larrikin’s penchant for exceeding the limits of legality in order to establish his publication’s freedom to hold public authorities to account—a fact underlined in the Melbourne Press Club Hall of Fame. Here, Kirkpatrick describes O’Kane as “one of Australia’s most fiery, colorful and strident 19th century Australian editors,” who attracted “countless writs and expulsions from local organizations” (Kirkpatrick n.d., https://halloffame.melbournepressclub.com/ article/thadeus-­o-­kane, accessed July 10, 2020). And yet, O’Kane, typically Larrikin, had allies among the working class. Kirkpatrick reports that local miners raised money to help him fight two libel writs (Kirkpatrick n.d., https://halloffame.melbournepressclub.com/article/thadeus-­o-­ kane, accessed July 10, 2020). Indeed, one of O’Kane’s contemporary colleagues commented in 1881: The Northern Miner, far from being depressed by impending actions, is more trenchant than ever. (in The Northern Miner, July 7, 1881: 2, extract from The Cooktown Herald)

O’Kane fashioned The Northern Miner into a weapon to fight for the cause of the miners, and any other underdog that appeared on his radar. According to then townsman, R.H. Smith, O’Kane’s Northern Miner was a “power in the land”: Owing to his coming down here we are now placed in a better position to obtain our just rights than we were before. (Northern Miner, July 20, 1880: 2)

The class-political dimensions of O’Kane’s Larrikinism may be implicit in some of his details, but it was not until Frederick Charles Burleigh Vosper entered the business of newspaper ownership that we see Larrikin

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journalism with an overtly political face. Vosper, The Australian Republican’s “fiery Cornishman,” is remembered for “swearing” to “defend workers and trade unionism” (in Cryle 1997: 106). And it is in Vosper that we can begin to discern how colonial journalism’s penchant for egalitarianism may be read as an aggressive style of early republicanism; albeit one marked by the emotional innocence of a Larrikin. For example, in his introductory editorial of The Australian Republican, Vosper declared: We shall devote our columns to merciless attack and exposure upon, and of, all kinds of political and social shams and abuses; while corruption and error in our public men will be vigorously denounced without respect to place, person or party; the just cause of Labour … the cause of all mankind … shall have our hearty and unwavering support … Above all, the great cause of the Future Republic … the coming United States of Australia will be kept steadfastly in view. (in Kirkpatrick 1984: 132)

Vosper’s ‘emotionally innocent’ emphasis on “the cause of all mankind” echoes the Enlightenment’s optimism in a similar way as Bent, whom Goc describes as a “willing martyr to the cause of the free press”: This was a man of principle who took on the authorities and suffered the consequences. (Goc 2001)

Goc’s assessment of Bent also echoes in O’Kane’s emotionally innocent vision of journalism. Journalism, in O’Kane’s view, held “higher and wider functions than ever the pulpit possessed” (in Cryle 1997: 104). The pulpit, according to O’Kane, had always proved itself the “sycophant of the courts,” the “ally of tyranny,” and the “enemy of knowledge and progress.” The press, however: has been the greatest defender of liberty and consciousness, of toleration, of the speed of education and diffusion of knowledge, the foe of tyranny, of superstition, of blind and brute obedience to authority, of belief in religious hypocrisies and impostures … The Press is the great Lay Pulpit of the present—it addresses the universe and speaks the language of universal Humanity, Brotherhood and Freedom. (in The Bulletin, July 1, 1882: 5)

In colonial times, it seems, such fervor was required, to not only ‘push back that line’ toward a freer news media, but to also survive the hard

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practicalities involved in early newspaper production. Here, we note Bent’s assessment of his early struggles in establishing the Hobart Town Gazette: Our type was so limited that we could not compose at once more than is contained in one of our present-sized columns. There was no printing ink in the colony, but what we necessitated to manufacture in the best possible manner for ourselves, and common Chinese paper, no more than half the size of foolscap, and of which two sheets were consequently obliged to be pasted together for each gazette, cost two guineas sterling per ream! (in Goc 2001)

Given this, it is somewhat surprising that Bent decided to print Robertson’s True Colonist, during the latter’s incarceration in 1835 (Goc 2001). Bent’s demonstration of goodwill toward Robertson (a competitor) suggests a shared ideological commitment to ‘push back that line’ toward a freer news media; perhaps even indicating that, although aggression toward authority was common, aggressive competitiveness between journalists (something that is a hallmark of both quality and ethically dubious journalism today) was slow to develop in colonial times.

Protecting Sources In October 1891, the Victorian Parliament suffered one of its most undignified losses. Sometime between 1.30 a.m. and 1 p.m., the ceremonial mace of the Legislative Assembly was stolen from speaker Matthew Davies’ parliamentary chambers (Wright 1992: 104). As political historian, Raymond Wright (1992) says, loss of the mace was a serious breach of parliamentary authority. Its theft was both immensely insulting and fearfully embarrassing. But even more embarrassing was the article that appeared a year later in Punch magazine’s precursor, Table Talk, claiming that the mace had been stolen by a “party of merry ladies” that had been invited into Parliament House, and could even now be found in a nearby brothel (Punch, November 18, 1892: 1). This followed a similar report published in the Sydney Bulletin in November and, on January 6, 1893, The Ballarat Courier published that the mace was not stolen, but in fact, taken and accidently left in Boccaccio House, a popular brothel just around the corner from Parliament in Lonsdale Street, where it was being used in “low travesties of parliamentary procedure” (Ballarat Courier, January 6, 1893: 1).

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All this has gone down in the history books as merely a humorous and somewhat humiliating incident that suggested nothing more than the loose morals of colonial politicians. But for Australian journalism it means much more: During the ensuing inquiry, Table Talk’s Maurice Brodzky refused to name his sources (Wright 1992: 104). Although the threat to fine Brodzky for contempt was only that—a threat—it was significant because it is possibly the earliest recording of a journalist in Australia claiming professional indemnity against revealing anonymous sources, on the grounds that betraying such confidences threatens freedom of the news media. Australian journalism’s lack of indemnity against protecting  source anonymity has reverberated down the years as a serious impediment to freedom of the nation’s news media. According to historian Clem Lloyd (1985), prior to the outbreak of WWII, a journalist’s ability to refuse to divulge his or her sources of information had traditionally been “accepted convention” among both journalists and judges (1985: 219). Journalists were to some extent confident in this because there was some legal precedent: the Kings Bench Court of Britain had a rule of practice not to compel newspapers or individual reporters to reveal the sources of information. But in 1940, Melbourne Truth editor, Frank McGuiness, appealed to the High Court after a Royal Commission fined him 15  pounds for refusing to answer questions about the identity of his confidential sources for stories about graft and corruption among Victorian milk suppliers. The High Court unanimously rejected the notion of journalistic privilege, with Justice Starke saying bluntly that no such privilege existed, and journalists had neither greater nor lesser privilege than any other citizen (McGuiness v Attorney-general of Victoria 1940, 63 CLR 73). Australian journalism’s union, formed in 1910—the significance of which we shall discuss in following chapters—considered lobbying government for legislation to protect journalists from contempt for refusing to reveal their sources when demanded in a court of law. This proposal also had the backing of proprietors. According to Lloyd, however, the problem was a matter of timing; the majority of the Association felt that, with war looming, the inevitability of restricting journalistic activity was very real and there would be no political appetite for increasing legal protections for reportage. The Association decided to take no further action at that stage. The question of protection of journalism’s sources of information was left unresolved (Lloyd 1985: 219).

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More than 70 years later, in 2011, the Australian Labor government enacted the Evidence Amendment (Journalists’ privilege) Act 2011. This was a small step forward, in that it allowed the court discretion in deciding whether to order a journalist to reveal a source. But it was still up to each individual judge’s perception of ‘public interest’ and ‘adverse effects’ on naming anonymous sources. In other words, journalists who refuse to nominate their sources in a court of law or Royal Commission continue to do so at their own risk. And risk it they do, as we shall see in later chapters. Without confidence that journalists will choose protecting their sources over suffering personal and professional harm, informants are reluctant to provide information. The saying that a journalist is only as good as his or her sources is not mere rhetoric. Although the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance Journalists’ Code of Ethics states: Where confidences are accepted, respect them in all circumstances. (Clause 11, https://www.meaa.org/meaa-­media/code-­of-­ethics/, accessed July 10, 2020) ...there has never been any solid legislative protection for journalists to do so. This means the professional—and personal—ideological commitment to source confidentiality is purely cultural.

All this means that the Larrikin-like anti-authoritarian refusal to reveal anonymous sources, shown by Brodsky in 1891  in the seemingly trivial ‘Missing Mace’ case is, in fact, a significant ‘thread’ that makes up the ‘web’ we are weaving about Larrikinism, journalism, and micro-cultural commitments to ‘pushing back that line’ toward a freer news media. Just for the record, the missing mace from Victorian Parliament was never found (Wright 1992: 104). McGuiness did not reveal his source, was fined 15 pounds, and carried a criminal record for the rest of his life (McGuiness v Attorney-general of Victoria 1940, 63 CLR 73).

Bibliography The Argus. (1853, May 16). No Title, 2. The Argus. (1855, January 31). Ballaraat (sic). From Our Correspondent, 5. The Australian. (1830, February 24). The Press, 2. Bainbridge, J., Goc, N., & Tynan, L. (2011). Media and Journalism: New Approaches to Theory and Practice (2nd ed.). South Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

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Ballarat Courier. (1893, January 6). No Title, 1. Ballarat Times. (1852, September 30). No Title, 2. Ballarat Times. (1855, January 1). No Title, 2. Bennett, S. (2004). Australia’s Constitutional Milestones. Parliament of Australia. Retrieved March 2, 2020, from https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/ Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/Publications_Archive/ online/Milestones. Blainey, G. (n.d.). Melbourne Press Club Hall of Fame, ‘Henry Seekamp’. Retrieved July 8, 2020, from https://halloffame.melbournepressclub.com/article/ henry-­seekamp. Brisbane to Bathurst. (1825, January 12). Historical Records of Australia, ser.1, vol. 11, pp. 470–471. The Bulletin. (1881, June 11). Title Unknown, 4. The Bulletin. (1882, July 1). Title Unknown, 5. Collins, C. (2005). Andrew Bent and the Birth of the Free Press in the Australian Colonies. Paper presented at the 2005 Australian Media Traditions Conference, Canberra. Retrieved February 22, 2020, from https://core.ac.uk/ search?q=Andrew%2BBent. Commonwealth of Australia, Evidence Amendment (Journalists’ Privilege) Act 2011. Retrieved July 8, 2020, from https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/ C2011A00021. Cryle, D. (1997). Disreputable Profession: Journalists and Journalism in Colonial Australia. Rockhampton, Queensland: Central Queensland University Press. Emmett to Arthur. (1824, June 4). Archives Office of Tasmania CSO 1/198/4725. Goc, N. (2001, December). Andrew Bent. Paper presented at the 2001 Journalism Education Association Conference, Perth. Godfrey, M. (1967). Robertson, Gilbert (1794–1851). Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. Retrieved March 2, 2020, from http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/robertson-­ gilbert-­2595/text3563. Gorman, C. (ed.) (1990). The Larrikin Streak. Sydney: Pan Macmillan Publishers. Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen’s Land Advertiser. (1824, October 8). No Title, 2. Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen’s Land Advertiser. (1825, May 20). No Title, 2. Kelly, W. (1859). Life in Victoria or Victoria in 1853, and Victoria in 1858. London: Chapman and Hall. Reprinted (1977), Lowden Publishing, Kilmore, Vol. 1: 104. Kirkpatrick, R. (1984). Sworn to No Master: A History of the Provincial Press in Queensland to 1930. Toowoomba: Darling Downs Institute Press. Kirkpatrick, R. (2004). Eureka and the Editor: A Reappraisal 150  Years On. Australian Journalism Review, 26(2), 31–42.

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Kirkpatrick, R. (n.d.). Retrieved July 10, 2020, from https://halloffame. melbournepressclub.com/article/thadeus-­o-­kane. Lloyd, C. J. (1985). Profession: Journalist: A History of the Australian Journalists’ Association. Sydney: Hale and Iremonger. McGuiness v Attorney-General of Victoria. (1940). 63 CLR 73. Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance. (1944/1999). Retrieved July 10, 2020, from https://www.meaa.org/meaa-­media/code-­of-­ethics/. The Monitor. (1830, January 29). No Title, 2. The Northern Miner. (1880, July 20). Supper to Mr O’Kane, 2. The Northern Miner. (1881, July 7). No Title, 2. Osborne, M. (n.d.-a). Melbourne Press Club, Hall of Fame, ‘Robert Wardell’. Retrieved July 8, 2020, from https://halloffame.melbournepressclub.com/ article/robert-­wardell. Osborne, M. (n.d.-b). Melbourne Press Club, Hall of Fame, ‘Edward Smith Hall’. Retrieved July 8, 2020, from https://halloffame.melbournepressclub.com/ article/edward-­smith-­hall. Porter, M. (Ed.). (2001). The Argus: The Life and Death of a Great Melbourne Newspaper: 1846–1957. Papers from a Conference at R.M.I.T.  University, Melbourne. Punch Magazine. (1892, November 18). Table Talk, 1. Smith, M. (n.d.). Melbourne Press Club, Hall of Fame, ‘Andrew Bent’. Retrieved July 8, 2020, from https://halloffame.melbournepressclub.com/article/ andrew-­bent. Rickard, J. (1998). ‘Lovable Larrikins and Awful Ockers’ Journal of Australian Studies, March, 56, 78–86. Spigelman, J. J. (2003, March). Foundations of Freedom of the Press in Australia. Quadrant, 9–19. The True Colonist. (1835, March 27). No Title, 2. Walker, R. B. (1976). The Newspaper Press in New South Wales: 1803–1920. Sydney: Sydney University Press. Woodberry, J. (1972). Andrew Bent. Hobart: National Library of Australia. Wright, R. (1992). A People’s Counsel. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Wright, C. (2013). The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka. Melbourne: Text Publishing [2014 reprint]. Young, S. (2019). Paper Emperors: The Rise of Australia’s Newspaper Empires. Sydney: UNSW Press.

CHAPTER 3

Larrikin-Journalists: Federation to Appeasement (1901–1939)

On January 1, 1901, after decades of discussion and development, the six Australian colonies federated into one nation. The Australian Constitution of 1901 established a system in which powers were distributed between a national government (the Commonwealth) and the six States (The Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory have self-­ government arrangements). The Constitution defined the boundaries of law-making powers between the Commonwealth and the States/ Territories, including laws affecting journalistic freedom. What this meant, essentially, was unless legislation relates to nation-wide interests (such as sedition and its relationship to national security), many laws differ from state-to-state. Paradoxically, the Constitution set up in 1901 went to great pains to enshrine almost all democratic protections—the separation of powers; free and fair elections; a judicial appeals process. And yet, it held no constituted protection for one of democracy’s key institutions: freedom of the news media. So Australia’s biggest opportunity to enshrine freedom of the news media within national democratic life was lost, leaving its responsibility to journalists themselves. And so the Larrikin tradition, of ‘pushing back that line’ away from encroachments by governments and other authorities continued on in Australian journalism micro-culture, its flashpoints coinciding with some of the most significant post-federation events.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Vine, Larrikins, Rebels and Journalistic Freedom in Australia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61856-8_3

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The Boer War In February 1902, two Australian Bush Veldt Carbineers, Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant and Peter Joseph Handcock, were court martialled and executed for killing Boer prisoners, and their colleague, George Witton, was sentenced to life imprisonment for the same crime. The British military authorities failed to inform the Australian Government and the families of the three offenders (in Porter 2001: 142). The story was immortalized in Bruce Beresford’s 1980 feature film, Breaker Morant. Beresford painted a picture of a pompous and uncaring British military, using Australian ‘trouble-makers’ as tools of propaganda to deter rampant war-crimes being committed wholesale by many soldiers, and to appease a public that was tiring of the conflict. In Beresford’s portrayal, Morant, Handcock, and Witton were denied the presumption of innocence of a crime that may have been justifiable under “Rule 303” (Morant’s reference to the Lee Enfield .303 rifle issued at the time) and the British policy that any Boer found wearing khaki could be shot on sight to deter the enemy’s tendency to disguise itself as British military. The narrative indicates almost all points on our Larrikin concept; courage in the face of insurmountable odds; tenacity in an already-lost battle, all epitomized in the ‘Breaker’s’ last defiant rebel-yell as he faced the firing squad: Shoot straight you bastards. Don’t make a mess of it!!

Although it is contested if these were  Morant’s actual  words  (The Argus, April 3, 1902c: 5), they have reverberated through Australian history and have come to represent a defining moment in the wider national identity as the colony started disentangling itself from the apron strings of mother England. However, not unlike our earlier example of the Eureka legend, reportage of the Morant affair also holds major implications for Australian journalism’s micro-cultural Larrikin identity, and its ability to ‘push back that line’ toward a freer news media. At the time, Australia was heady with Boer War jingoism. The colonies had already sent one contingent to the Transvaal, but after ‘Black Week’ in 1889—when the British suffered three major defeats at the hands of the Boers in a single week at Colenso, Stormberg, and Magersfontein and a call from London for a second contingent—“skyrocket patriotism” (as historian John McQuilton describes it) swept the nation (2016: 17). The call coincided with federation of the Australian colonies and the public

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mood was ripe for patriotic public enthusiasm for the first use of Commonwealth troops in military operations. Even regional areas, traditionally suspicious of big-city political demands, became so fervent for the imperialist cause that rivalries developed between towns in their displays of patriotic loyalty: Streets were decorated with bunting, bells pealed, the rifle clubs fired loyal volleys, effigies were burnt, and Boer sympathisers mentioned in speeches were ‘hooted’, says McQuilton. (2016: 23)

At the height of Boer War jingoism, a young Monty Grover was etching out his name as a news hound on The Argus. Grover would later go down in history as the editor who built Melbourne’s Sun New Pictorial into the powerhouse that it became for more than 70 years. But his earlier work— as a reporter with less influence than he would later achieve—is significant for its tendency to openly challenge political and social fervor for war in Africa. For example, as an expression of Larrikin defiance against both his conservative Argus employer and popular pro-war opinion, Grover insisted his name be put on his anti-war poem, ‘I Killed A Man At Graspan’ (published in The Coo-ee Reciter, 1901). It was truly a Larrikin’s work, expressing egalitarian solidarity, even sympathy, for the Boer foe; unconventional feelings couched in a latent critique of those who had ordered the war: And a man I’d never quarrel with… / Was spread on the boulders dead. (in Grover 1993: 17)

So it is little surprise to find Grover’s name embroiled in the revelations of the execution of Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant. At the time, the majority of journalism was happily complicit in censorship of any news coming out of the Transvaal—it was seen as necessary to the war’s successful outcome, and part of the vigorous pro-war policy of both the government and society. Self-censorship and voluntary propaganda were enthusiastically employed locally, and censorship of information coming out of the theater of war was vigorously upheld through a third-party pen. In The First Casualty, Philip Knightley claims censors in the Boer conflict would throw dispatches straight into the bin without even reading them (Knightley 1975/2003: 77). Reporters in South Africa were complaining of ubiquitous censorship, which, according to correspondent ‘Smiler’

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Hales, was intended to conceal the British military’s “awful blunders” and “farcical mistakes” (in Anderson and Trembath 2011: 39). Despite this, Grover’s Argus colleague, John Sandes, acting on an anonymous leak (rumored to be Prime Minister Edmund Barton) and in defiance of the censorship system, broke the story about Morant, Handcock, and Witton on March 26, 1902. The article told a narrative of “painfully clear and distinct” events that included the discovery of the “savagely mutilated” corpse of one of Morant’s “own brothers in arms”: “The officers who saw the remains of their comrade vowed to be avenged,” reported Sandes. (Argus, March 26, 1902a: 5)

The Boer responsible was, according to Sandes, captured wearing various items of the comrade’s uniform, court martialled and shot. Another eight were found and killed. Later, a German missionary, who had witnessed the events, was also killed, apparently on Morant’s orders. Three days after Sandes’ report, Grover, skirting the periphery of the postal censorship legislation, sought out a group of returning soldiers and, in Grover’s own words, by some “extraordinary luck” was able to gather the first eyewitness account of the executions (Grover 1993: 111). In the following editorial, The Argus’ tone was both magisterial and somewhat mocking as it pointed out the fragility of news media freedom: We could sincerely wish that the British military authorities were not as reticent as they actually are on these matters, because rumours are apt to leak out and the reports are apt to appear in the first place in a more or less biased form. (The Argus, March 29, 1902b: 12)

The Argus congratulated itself on the competitive advantage it had obtained: But for the vigilance of The Argus, nothing would have been known of the incident here. (The Argus, March 29, 1902b: 12)

In his memoirs, Hold the Front Page (1993), Grover implies it was only the determination and Larrikin-like cunning of himself and Sandes that tore open the British military veil of secrecy (Grover 1993: 17), and ‘pushed back that line’ toward a freer news media. But maybe it’s in

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Grover’s own description of the Morant story that we find a more accurate assessment of it as one of those ‘threads’ that are ‘weaving a web’ of Larrikin ideology in Australian journalism micro-culture: According to Grover, the Morant story was “one of the best scoops in Australian press history” (Grover 1993: 111). In Grover’s somewhat victorious tone, we can hear how journalism had started engineering the Larrikin’s belligerence to evolve a journalism-­ specific type of aggressive competitiveness. As we shall see, the Larrikin’s daring antagonism is a quality that would be increasingly turned upon professional competitors as much as against restrictions on freedom of the news media in the post-federation era. For example, Lachlan Mackinnon’s Argus journalists were notorious for aggressive competitiveness, particularly against those working for David Symes’ The Age. Conversely, when Symes renovated The Age’s façade, he commissioned an elegant bronze statue of Mercury, messenger of the Gods, which was installed on a pedestal atop the building. However, the statue was not only a symbol of the conveyance of information. In classical mythology, Hermes—the Greek equivalent of the Roman Mercury— slew Argus, a giant with one hundred eyes. So the newly erected statue was symbolic of the aggression between journalistic competitors (Fig. 3.1). The rivalry between The Age and The Argus for circulation supremacy even spilled over into the interpretive communities of each outlet. Indeed, the aggressive competitiveness of Larrikin-journalists went so far as to imperil Australian journalism’s trade union formation, which was, after several failed attempts, eventually achieved in 1910. According to Australian Journalism Association biographer, Clem Lloyd, the relationship between the journalists working for the two outlets was so combative that it inhibited “good fellowship” in the years leading up the union’s establishment (Lloyd 1985: 30). As historian Sybil Nolan points out, the two publications’ “mutual” opposition became part of the Melbourne tradition of journalism and, indeed, a “cornerstone” of Melbourne journalism history (in Porter 2001: 79). The Larrikin’s aggression, mixed with a competitive nature, during the first part of the twentieth century, resulted (and maybe  still results) in dubious practices contrary to principles of freedom of the news media. And yet, paradoxically, willingness to engage in dubious practices also contributes to journalism’s ability to ‘push back that line’ toward a freer news media. Examples of both consequences can be found in the ‘threads’

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Fig. 3.1  ‘The Age’s statue of Mercury’. (Source: Author)

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and ‘indications’ that go to make up the ‘web’ of Larrikinism in post-­ federation journalism micro-culture. When the famous Melbourne landmark, the Young and Jackson’s Hotel, caught fire on November 27, 1897, Grover was first on the scene. His exclusive story the next morning revealed that the provocative nude painting, Chloe, usually hanging in the Young and Jackson’s bar, had been found safe in St Paul’s Cathedral across Swanston Street. So fiercely competitive was the young Grover that colleagues, particularly Claude McKay, suspected that he had carried the painting to safety, just so he could keep the story for himself (McKay 1961). In his autobiography, Grover also explains how he ferreted through the lining of a hat owned by a man suspected of murdering his wife, behind the policeman’s back, in order to gather details of the victim. Although apparently tampering with evidence, Grover describes this act as “the only thing” to his “credit during the whole case” (Grover 1993: 75), indicating that the Larrikin-journalist’s tendency to exceed limits—even to the point of criminality—may be somewhat revered in journalism micro-culture. Indeed, one of Grover’s Argus colleagues, Billy Salter, developed a reputation for being, in Grover’s words, “the noblest roundsman” in the city (Grover 1993: 74), by willingly exceeding the limits of legality and accepted morality. For example, in his autobiography, This Is the Life (1961), Claude McKay describes how Salter was first on the scene of a suburban railway smash in which the engine driver was fatally injured. The victim was carried to a cottage nearby and Salter sat beside the lifeless form. When doctors and reporters from other dailies arrived, Salter told them the man had died. But next morning his paper carried the exclusive interview with the engine driver who, it seemed, had briefly regained enough consciousness to speak to Mr. Salter (McKay 1961: 33). Here we can see how the Larrikin’s tendency to exceed limits pushes the boundary of expected ethical practices. And yet, because such behavior powers the ability to ‘push back that line’ toward a freer media, it is constructed within Australian journalism micro-culture as a celebrated and powerful ‘memorial narrative’. Let’s look at Sydney’s Dulcie Deamer. She has gone down in Australian journalism history as, in biographer Sharyn Pearce’s words, a “daring and unconventional female journalist” (Pearce 1998: 69). Deamer is probably best known as the first female boxing reporter in Australia, after covering a middle-weight championship for Sydney’s Sun in 1910 (Deamer 1998: 32). She also once surreptitiously spent a night in a Surry Hills women’s

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shelter to gain insight into the plight of homeless people (Deamer 1998: 136). But her most Larrikinesque venture was when she disguised herself as a male South American vet in order to gain access to a Sydney slaughterhouse which, at the time, was illegal for women to enter, for a story for The Sunday Times (Deamer 1998: 110–114). But for Deamer herself, these legally and ethically dubious actions were not for any noble cause; they were for freelancer’s fee: I can honestly say that in the killing bays I was so intent on mentally photographing impressions for the article that the only qualm I suffered was an anxiety lest I slip on the edge of one of the great puddles of blood-and-entrails, come a buster, my hat come off, my hair come down, and the law-breaking escapade be exposed … when I’m on the job I’m completely detached from everything except the job. And nobody but myself knew how urgently I needed that fiver I was earning. (Deamer 1998: 113)

And yet, rather than be condemned for her illegal, and possibly unethical, news-gathering technique, Deamer and her ‘disrespectability’ is celebrated as “sophisticated” and “deliciously outrageous” (Pearce 1998: 69) within Australian journalism micro-culture. So, paradoxically, it is individual journalists’ ‘disreputability’ within the wider social macro-culture that makes them ‘reputable’ within the narrower journalism micro-culture. And yet, in the early post-colonial era, the Australian journalism micro-culture was working very hard to elevate its respectability.

Professionalization The idea was to ‘professionalize’ journalism, something that the journalism micro-culture was convinced would attract government and proprietorial respect for its independence, and wider freedom of the news media—perhaps even result in legislated protection for journalistic activity. Australian journalism had, for years, been working toward unionization. But it only started seriously on December 10, 1910, when more than 100 journalists—which, at the time, was the majority of journalists in Melbourne—crowded into a cafe in the basement of the Empire building on Flinders Street. A secret ballot was held on the motion:

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That this meeting of press writers of Australia affirms the desirability of forming an organisation for registration under the Conciliation and Arbitration Act of Australia. (Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance 2017)

The Australian Journalism Association (AJA, now called the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance) was born. On May 24, 1911, registration was granted, and the AJA became the first official union for journalists in Australia. Melbourne became the first district branch of the AJA, Brisbane followed on February 14, then Adelaide on March 24, and NSW on April 23. On July 19, Hobart was admitted to AJA membership, followed by Perth on September 29. But the AJA wasn’t just after improvements in wages and working conditions. It also had ambitions to raise the status of journalism from ‘trade’ to ‘profession’, through compulsory union membership, official journalism qualifications, and—much later in 1944—enforced adherence to an overt code of ethics. The desire for respectability can almost be heard in the pages of the AJA’s trade publication, The Journalist. In 1927, the magazine (then called The Australasian Journalist) editorialized that the “cry” for professional status was the “cry” of a “highly developed, highly cultured class of workers” for the protection of their interests, knowledge, and skill: It is a cry for relief from the ancient tradition that placed the journalist where the riff-raff regarded him with suspicion and surrounded him with an aura of all known and unknown vices. It is the effort of those who realise employers and public alike, still look upon them as people to exploit, because there is no accepted standard by which exploitation is made impossible. It is yet more. It is the determination of skilled knowledge and experienced technique, of craftmanship and education to endow itself with the outward sign of achievement, that merely to be known as a journalist shall be a recognised guarantee of all those things that make for the higher and more cultured ranks of social life, and to which the journalist is entitled by his very existence. (Feb 23, 1927, 24)

On November 18, 1929, The Journalist wrote that “no one” but “Rip Van Winkle” would refuse to grant journalism the “dignity of a profession”: Time was when writing for the press was the business of booksellers’ hacks … the wild tribe of Grubb Street, who quarrelled over their wretchedly paid

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jobs as hungry dogs fight for a bone, whose hireling pens were at the command of any political villifier and whose periodical visits to gaols a debtors’ prisons were as commonplace as going to one’s barber. (Nov 18, 1929: 176)

And in 1933, correspondent L.J. McBride even went as far as claiming that, in the absence of a set of ethical ‘rules’, journalism was akin to what is “leniently described” as the “most ancient of all” professions (i.e., prostitution). He further argued that all new journalists should be “obliged” to pass an entrance test on ethics. The idea was to ultimately achieve an Act of Parliament that would allow only those who held a recognized qualification to practice as journalists, with “heavy penalties” for infringements (October 31, 1933: 1). The debate about journalism’s ‘professional’ status has emerged periodically ever since the AJA’s inception. Scholars such as Henningham (1988, 1989) and Pearson (1991) more recently picked up on the AJA’s 1910 argument that professionalization has potential to free journalism from external pressures brought to bear by proprietors, managers, advertisers, and changing audience uses. Professionalization in this context means compulsory qualifications, Association membership, and a binding code of ethics. In other words, the argument runs, there is no reason why journalism should be any different from traditional professions, such as law and medicine. Except journalism is different. Its function in protecting freedom of the news media—which a myriad of institutional authorities are compelled to shackle—makes it different. What the AJA could not foresee in 1910 was the homogenizing potential of compulsory education—a detrimental outcome for a profession whose job is to empathize with a diversity of audiences and sources. Neither could the AJA anticipate how compulsory professional association membership could mean that any journalist acting outside the ‘guidelines’ could effectively be ‘disbarred’. This then opens the way for individuals with particular agendas and self-interests to determine who has permission to publish what. But probably the biggest issue with the AJA’s early concept of structural ‘professionalization’ was its tendency to create a self-identity of ‘respectability’. And such a sense of ‘respectability’ runs counter to journalism’s responsibility to defy Mill’s concept of the “tyranny” of both the “magistrate” and the powerful “majority.” In effect, the AJA’s idea of structural ‘professionalization’ has, paradoxically, potential to somewhat imperil the notion of freedom of the press and journalistic independence.

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The AJA may not have achieved structural professionalization, but it was certainly successful in realizing basic rights and working conditions for journalists. On November 11, 1911, the AJA secured, under the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act, an industrial award to limit hours of work and provide for holiday requirements. Under its proposed staff-grading system a senior reporter on a ‘Class A’ morning newspaper would earn a minimum of 7 pounds a week; a first-year cadet 1 pound and 10 shillings. Senior reporters had to make up at least threefifths of a newspaper’s staff. Working hours were fixed at 48  hours per week, with one clear day off in seven (MEAA 2017). What appears to be missing in the November 11 agreement, however, is any reference to the legal protection of journalistic activity. This is not really surprising. As founder Bertie Cook wrote to one provincial journalist who had sent a letter remonstrating the Association for its focus on industrial issues, and its seeming dismissal of freedom of the news media as a question of concern: At the present time our men are more concerned about their own affairs than the blessed liberty of the press. A dog feels the discomfort of fleas more than the life-long servitude to his master. But I think that the perspective of pressmen is altering. They no longer adhere to the old-time doctrine that to join a newspaper is to marry it. We need a few healthy articles upholding the dignity as well as the ‘liberty of the press’ before we can hope to reach the status which is our right. (in Lloyd 1985: 85)

Even so, the AJA’s Constitution and Rules, developed in 1910, indicates its architects did foresee freedom of the news media as a possibility for concern. The Constitution states that among the Association’s ‘objects’: 4 (d) To formulate, in so far as may be found desirable, the professional usages and customs of journalists, and to formulate, protect and extend, when necessary, the beneficial privileges of the press.

And section 4 (f) states: To watch all legislative and other proposals which may affect journalists in the discharge of their professional duties, and to use its influence to obtain amendment of such proposals in respect of any matters which may be injurious to the interests and usefulness of their calling. (AJA, Constitution and Rules, 1910: 2)

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The AJA does not explicitly state that protecting freedom of the news media is one of its ‘objects’ (or even one for which membership has obligation). The above clauses, however, can be interpreted as meaning that the AJA considered journalism, as a collective, had responsibility for its own independence. With Australian journalists now unionized and organized into an official cohort, journalism could start defining its cultural ideology, and articulate its communal values and beliefs in ‘pushing back that line’ toward a freer news media. For example, journalism could now be differentiated as independent from proprietors. Gone were the days when the proprietor was the journalist (recall Wentworth and Wardell, Andrew Bent, Gilbert Robertson, etc). Although proprietors could continue to meddle in editorial content (which they did, and possibly still do), the contradiction between commercial ideology and journalistic intent was now recognized in an official capacity. As Lloyd writes: One of the principal changes it [the 1904 Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act] was to bring was the transformation of relationship between journalists and their proprietors. (Lloyd 1985: 55)

But proprietorial influence over editorial content would soon be of secondary concern to freedom of the news media. With war looming, journalism’s budding ‘disreputable’ Larrikin characteristics would become increasingly valuable as the profession negotiated inevitable censorship and war propaganda.

World War I When Germany threw its support behind Austria-Hungary in its challenge to Serbia in 1914, and Britain and France allied with Russia to oppose them, no one questioned whether Australia would join what became the ‘Great War’. After all, the adolescent nation was still constitutionally bound to Britain, and it was the Governor-General who informed the Australian Prime Minister that his country was now at war (Macintyre 1999: 156). Maybe declaration of hostilities was somewhat fortuitous for Prime Minister Joseph Cook, because he just so happened to be in caretaker mode and in the middle of an election campaign. The war provided both parties—Cook’s Liberal regime and Andrew Fisher’s Labor challenger—with an ideal propaganda opportunity. Each party’s

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electioneering strategy hyped up the already-zealous public commitment to Imperialist Britain. Cook declared: “all our resources are in the Empire and for the Empire,” while Fisher committed Australia’s “last man” and “last shilling.” Fisher’s Labor Party won and formed an expeditionary armed force by recruiting eager volunteers, to be commanded by British generals, and consist predominantly of frontline troops. The Royal Australian Navy too, was under the British Royal Navy’s control from the war’s beginning. In other words, the ‘mother country’ would be making the decisions about Australian participation. One of the first things the Australian government did was to rush through The War Precautions Act, under which censorship controls were implemented. While the strategic rationale for censorship was to prevent military information falling into enemy hands, as war progressed surveillance was increasingly directed toward monitoring the views of those opposed to the war or to the policies of the government. Censorship extended to press coverage of both domestic and international events. There were circulation figures to be gained in loudly supporting the national war effort, and newspaper proprietors were largely in sympathy with government policy. University of Melbourne’s Richard Trembath goes as far to claim that the press in Australia was “neither the mouthpiece of a warmongering government, nor its master. It was its ally” (Trembath 2015). By this time, our Larrikin-journalist, Monty Grover, had left The Argus and took up a position revamping Sir Hugh Robert Denison’s failing Australian Star newspaper, which, in 1910, disappeared to be replaced by a bold new broadsheet, The Sun. In the face of official censorship and pervading WWI jingoism, a still defiant Grover refused to put his name to The Sun’s editorials supporting Australia’s involvement. This defiant nonconformity worried Sir Denison so much that he promoted the more conservative journalist, Herbert Campbell Jones, to managing editorship and gave him the power to veto Grover’s ‘radical’ ideas. A showdown came in 1916, when Denison insisted on supporting the conscription campaign, resulting in Grover stepping down from daily editorship (Grover 1993: 21). Grover is revered in Australian journalism micro-culture—The Herald and Weekly Times, for many years, named its annual cadet prize after him. Writing in the Melbourne Press Club Hall of Fame, journalist Peter Blunden overtly describes Grover’s work as having a “distinctive tone of larrikinism and humour.” Pointing out that Grover mentored “some of

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Australia’s finest newspaper people,” Blunden implies Grover’s position in the perpetuation of Larrikinism within the Australian journalism micro-­ culture (Blunden n.d., https://halloffame.melbournepressclub.com/ article/montague%2D%2D-­monty%2D%2D-­grover, accessed July 10, 2020). It was Grover who famously gave a young Age penny-a-liner his first secure employment as a journalist, where he started forging a formidable reputation as a political correspondent in the newly established Federal Parliament in Melbourne (Lloyd 1988: 42). In wider macro-cultures, Keith Murdoch may be most well-known as the father of today’s most politically influential media baron and, in many minds (see Roberts 2015 and Young 2019), responsible for the beginnings of an aggressive corporate culture that directly contradicts journalistic freedom. But to build up a narrative about Murdoch’s apparently unbridled political ambition and commercial aggression downplays his cultural contribution to journalism. As we shall see, the narrative of Murdoch and the 1915 battle of Gallipoli make him an unmistakeable Larrikin and, arguably, one of Collingwood’s ‘threads’ that form the ‘web’ we are weaving about the Larrikin ‘memorial narrative’ within Australian journalism. Murdoch was never meant to cover the war—when the AJA held a vote to select an official correspondent to accompany the Australian troops, Murdoch lost (albeit by one vote) to the “excellent journalist” CEW Bean (Lloyd 1985: 114). The loss must have been demoralizing for the ambitious young journalist and may well have energized his determination to play a part in global events of the time. After being appointed as editor of the international cable service supplying the Sydney Sun and Melbourne Herald out of Northcliffe’s London Times building, Murdoch was seen to be in a good position to act as somewhat of a personal spy for Australian Prime Minister Andrew Fisher (Carlyon 2002: 493–494). Murdoch was asked to drop by Egypt, on his way to his new job in London, and report back about the unreliable mail service (Young 2019: 246). But the young Murdoch saw an opportunity, and took it upon himself to have a look at the offensive being waged by Sir Ian Hamilton, under whom Anzac troops were fighting, in the Dardanelles. It was certainly bad timing for the war effort; Murdoch arrived in the aftermath of the August offensive, when the situation could not have looked worse. After months of futile attack of well-defended beaches, the offensive under Hamilton was in total chaos and confusion (Kirby et al. 2015). British correspondent, Ellis Ashmead Bartlett, had been writing censored versions of the campaign, with which

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he was becoming increasingly disillusioned. The two correspondents hatched a plan for Murdoch to smuggle a letter, outlining the bungled offensive, back to London. According to Knightley (1975/ 2003), there was no doubt another correspondent had betrayed Ashmead Bartlett to Hamilton. Documentary maker, Tim Kirby, however, is not so sure (2015). Either way, the military police at Marseilles knew to stop and search Murdoch, and the letter was confiscated. Despite the censor’s obvious opinion of the letter’s contents, Murdoch immediately started rewriting its substance once back in London—only this time it was addressed to the Australian Prime Minister, Andrew Fisher, and was penned with heavy nationalist, anti-British sentiment. But before the letter could reach its intended Australian recipient, it was seen by those opposed to British Prime Minister Lord Herbert Asquith (Kirby et al. 2015). As Murdoch was writing in his office at the London Times, the editor happened to notice and asked if he could show it to “the boss” (Kirby et al. 2015), meaning proprietor and Murdoch’s role model, Lord Alfred Charles Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe. Lord Northcliffe, an anti-Asquith press baron, saw how it could be of use to him politically, and sent it to then opposition leader Lloyd George. The letter was turned into a cabinet document and used as a discussion point to decide on withdrawing troops from the peninsula. And Murdoch became the darling of editors and proprietors throughout London, particularly the influential Lord Northcliffe. Murdoch’s career blossomed and it is no surprise that the one exclusive interview Lloyd George gave after taking office was with Murdoch. There is no denying Murdoch’s connections to the powerful were used to advance his commercial and political ambitions. Yet, his 1915 defiance of Hamilton and the censors can only have been, at least partially, motivated by a desire to ensure freedom of the news media to publish information about the battle, and his actions were certainly Larrikinesque in both anti-authoritarianism and so-called criminality. Later, when Murdoch faced the Dardanelles Commission official inquiry in 1917, the Larrikin’s tendency to skirt the periphery of legality again appeared when he vehemently denied that the letter contravened the declaration of censorship, which he reluctantly admitted that he had signed (Kirby et al. 2015). The letter itself is saturated with a Larrikin’s attitude. Murdoch bitterly mocks British pomposity, the officers’ “conceit and self-complacency” is “equalled only by their incapacity”:

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What can you expect of men who have never worked seriously, who have lived for their appearance and social distinction and selfsatisfaction (sic). (Murdoch and McKernan 1915/2010)

In comparison, Murdoch’s portrayals of Australian soldiers, the “fresh, raw, untried troops” (1915/2010: 74) reveals the Larrikin’s emotional attachment to working class origins, and journalism’s classic championship of the underdog. Although Murdoch’s embellished descriptions of the heroic soldiers can only be described as propaganda, and are clearly biased in their lack of recognition that many of the troops were made up of British, Indian, and French soldiers, it does perpetuate the egalitarianism of the Larrikin-journalist. When reassessing Murdoch, however, it is important not to forget that it was not until 25 years later that the contents of ‘the Gallipoli letter’ was made public. Like many of the Larrikins we have met so far, Murdoch, is an amalgamation of strange contradictions between moral and immoral. And yet it was that amalgamation, so characteristic of the Larrikin—a compulsion to exceed limits, aggression, and anti-authoritarianism—that pushed him to the Gallipoli peninsula, and to carry the clandestine, uncensored letter to London during a time of strict postal censorship. In this action, irrelevant of his motivation, Murdoch is indeed a ‘thread’ that contributes to the weaving of Larrikinism as a professional ideology that ‘pushes back that line’ toward a freer news media. As Knightley says: Suspect though Murdoch’s motives may have been, his report on the bungling at Gallipoli cost the general his job, contributed to the decision to abandon the campaign, and confirmed the opinion of the general staff that war correspondents were dangerous meddlers and it had been a mistake to have ever imagined otherwise. (Knightley 1975/ 2003: 106)

It is an epitaph any journalist would be proud of.

Interwar Larrikins and the Left Post-war Australia was poverty-stricken as returning soldiers searched for work that was not there. The country experienced a wave of strikes as unions sought to make up for lost wages and conditions, returned diggers rioted in the streets, enraged at their own treatment and sometimes at those who objected to the war. The Returned Sailors’ and Soldiers’

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Imperial League of Australia (RSSILA)—later the Returned and Services League (or RSL)—was founded in 1916 to lobby for the fair treatment of Anzacs, but it was also designed by figures who had a tendency toward conservatism. The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution (which was to lead to the Australian Communist Party in 1920) and the suffering after the 1929 stock market crash, caused increasing apprehension within Australian politics and society over a perceived threat posed by left-wing ideology, and provided the government with fresh energy for censorship and surveillance. By now, the Larrikin-journalist had developed beyond its embryonic colonial state and was instinctively reacting both defiantly and aggressively against the government’s interwar restrictions on news media freedom. This situation, however, made it very easy for the government (and any other authority) to use the slur, ‘Communist’, to injure the independence of individual journalists who were defying the prevailing social and political commitment to appeasement. In late 1934 and early 1935, the United Australia Party Government of Joseph Lyons made moves to exclude German Communist Party member Egon Kisch from entering Australia. Kisch was a Jewish Communist, anti-­ war activist, and a vocal critic of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime. As a result had his books banned and burned in Germany. He was also a journalist, and as the leading proponent of German-language reportage became known to admirers and critics alike as ‘The Raging Reporter from Prague’. Kisch was a speaker, operative, and a senior figure in the publishing empire of the West European branch of the Communist International, and its 1934 policy to build popular fronts of all political parties opposing Fascism was to be promoted by Kisch’s Australian visit. Alarm within Australian journalism micro-culture, over this perceived threat to freedom of speech generally, and freedom of the news media specifically, can almost be heard in the pages of The Journalist. On January 31, 1935, a Mr. ‘B Grade’ described the Australian Government as a “junta of narrow-minded dictatorial people” and its censorship policies as a “very real menace to journalism”: If we are prepared to allow the present system of censorship to continue here, we cannot expect to excuse ourselves from responsibility for further repressive acts which will inevitably follow.

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Mr. ‘B Grade’ then makes a rallying call to the AJA executive to “rouse public opinion” against censorship legislation (January 31, 1935a: 2). The Journalist’s lead editorial in the same edition—written by a Mr. ‘H.O.P’—suggests complicity between media proprietors and the government in censoring Kisch—a “journalist, novelist and fighter against fascism” of “undoubted energy, ability and decency.” Here, it is important to note the editorial is starting to demonstrate a consciousness of a clear separation between journalism’s micro-culture and the wider macro-­ culture of media ownership. “Plainly proprietors’ interests are opposed to ours and even acting against their advice and wishes we have to take greater interest in politics for our own sakes” (original italics). Mr. ‘H.OP.’ finishes his editorial with what sounds as a clearly politically driven statement: Our future is struggle—and the sooner we see the truth of our position the better it will be for us. (January 31, 1935b: 1)

In July 1935, ‘Watchkook’ wrote a scathing article against Kisch’s proposed exclusion. Describing Kisch’s organization, the World Movement Against War and Fascism as a “movement to unite all those who lose by war—workers, students, journalists, professional men, shopkeepers and small farmers—against war,” ‘Watchkook’ reflects the left-wing connotations associated with journalism: It is the ‘world’ part that they war-makers and their servants in the various States do not like. The movement is too popular with the world’s workers for their liking. Imperialism spells inevitable war and preparations for war—normal peace-­ time activity of capitalist states—has accelerated so greatly … that the war-­ making class is already licking its lips in anticipation of the second world war. Herr Kisch did impress me. (July 1935c: 8)

Here we can see the Larrikin-journalist’s tone and spirit could easily be interpreted as ideologically-motivated. However, with the amelioration of time, such statements are interpretable as journalists merely articulating their micro-cultural responsibility to ‘push back that line’ against political encroachment on freedom of the news media. The diary of writer and journalist Alan Moorehead further contributes to the ‘web’ we are ‘weaving’ about journalism and ideologically driven

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antagonism to prevailing political and social conservatism. Moorehead noted that “nearly all” of his Sydney Morning Herald colleagues were left wing in this interwar period: We glowed with hate for Mussolini and the up-and-coming Hitler … some of us joined the Writers League which had affiliations with the Communist Party. (Moorehead 1970: 36)

By this time, with Australia enthusiastically aligned with the UK and the US in their policies of Appeasement, and with many journalists critical of that policy, their micro-culture appeared to have political alignments. For example, writer and journalist George Johnston may be regarded as a Larrikin insofar as he defiantly refused to conform to the Australian penchant for Appeasement. Johnston would later go on to be an accomplished WWII correspondent, and win acclaim as the author of ‘the great Australian novel’: My Brother Jack (1964). But during the interwar years, Johnston established himself as a journalist who defied Mill’s ‘tyranny of the majority’ and ‘tyranny of the magistrate’ over Australia’s enthusiastic Appeasement policy. Johnston’s biographer Garry Kinnane suggests his tool of defiance was the classic Larrikin trait, mockery. According to Kinnane, Johnston “loved to take the mickey” out of Appeasers, particularly if it involved “deflating their pomposity” (Kinnane 1986: 32). Today, Johnston’s journalism on Japanese expansionism (e.g., its occupation of China in the 1930s) stands out for its grasp of Japan’s military competence at a time when many underrated it as a threat to Australia (Kinnane 1986: 32–34). As such, Johnston undoubtedly helped to ‘push back that line’ at a time when the United Australia Party (UAP) government actively supported the prewar shipping of Australian scrap iron to a militarizing Japan. Robert Menzies, the Attorney-General at the time, even threatened to prosecute anti-fascist unionists at Port Kembla for refusing to load scrap-iron ships bound for Japan (Ward 1969: 147–148). Elsewhere, a defiant and ‘piss-taking’ Eric Baume responded with Larrikin flair to the British Government’s policy of Appeasement of Hitler at the Munich Conference (1938). As a result, in a clear threat to his journalistic independence, Baume was “unceremoniously” turned off Sydney radio for his mocking prophesy that the British Empire would “have to fight” Germany, “despite God, Munich, ‘There’ll always be an England’, and the Heavenly Halifax”:

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The greatest tragedy of these appeasement years was in the 1920–39 decadence of England—decadence which today she, as a regenerate soul, should never count among her blessings. (Baume 1941: 10)

Despite the message from both the government and his ABC employer, Baume continued displaying considerable aggression in his 1941 autobiography, expressing contempt for those “nasty little class-conscious snobs” who he saw as supporting Appeasement (Baume 1941: 27). The Larrikin tendency to ‘exceed limits’ and ‘mock pomposity’ is also recognizable in Baume’s hyperbolic references to “slobbering bunches of socialites” and “virtuous young literary prigs” as the next generation of out-of-touch power-holders, determining the course of events (Baume 1941: 57). Further evidence of Baume’s Larrikin perspective on prewar life in Sydney can be discerned in his piss-taking description of himself and his wife attending a “daddy of all fetes”—a “thousand pound dinner” given by John Woolcott Forbes (“the new Midas”) as owner of the Primary Producers’ Bank: The affair was like a page out of some Roman Emperor’s private diary … The champagne was the finest ever seen in Australia but even champagne was not good enough for John Woolcott Forbes. (Baume 1941: 149)

Baume finishes his anecdote by noting how he and his wife could only vomit up “that dinner!” (Baume 1941: 149). So, the Larrikin streak running through the micro-culture of Australian journalism, or Collingwood’s ‘threads’ and ‘indications’, could be interpreted as developing a leftist dimension as such ideas spread from revolutionary Russia after the 1929 stock market crash and subsequent Great Depression. The apparent creeping politicization of ideological Larrikinism in twentieth-­century Australian journalism is, however, most conspicuous in the career of Baume’s contemporary, the ‘arch-Larrikin’, Wilfred Burchett. Described by Robert Manne (2008: 22) as “the most controversial and influential communist in Australian history,” Burchett may be regarded as a particular kind of Larrikin—a partisan Larrikin whose defiantly nonconformist egalitarianism tended toward an exceeding of limits because it was marked by an emotional innocence grounded in what he came to regard as the superiority of Communism.

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In 1936 Burchett traveled to Europe. In Berlin, he could see the way events were moving. Here, he helped smuggle Jewish people out of the Nazi state (an act that, in itself, could be interpreted as a representation of a Larrikin’s defiance). But it was his letters to British and Australian newspapers that indicate Burchett’s status as a Larrikin-journalist. Despite the pervading public opinion of Appeasement, Burchett’s letters displayed anti-fascist sentiment, and arguably provoked freedom of opinion within the Australian news media about the degradation of the German state. In the documentary, Public Enemy Number One (Bradbury 1980), an elderly and reflective Burchett defends his attitude. I became aware of what was going on in Germany, but the atmosphere in Australia was that Germany [was] the most civilised country in Europe, Hitler was a man of peace … and the stories of persecution of the Jews was propaganda. This was a bit more than I could stomach, so I started writing letters to newspapers describing the Germany that I had seen. (in Bradbury 1980)

So, our Larrikin concept has now taken us to a period of Australian journalism that was, often quite overtly, politically ideological. However, our ‘threads’ and ‘indications’ are beginning to tell us that in an environment in which Australian social and political life was marked by prevailing anti-communism, Appeasement, and what Ward (1969: 145–147) calls “a strong tendency towards isolationism” with “conciliatory and appeasing noises towards Fascism” sounding through the public sphere, Larrikinjournalists had something to overtly rebel against. Because naturally nonconformist journalists tended to criticize Appeasement, the entire profession appeared, in a highly conservative national environment, as anti-fascist, and consequently, pro-communist. It was a reputation that would bedevil the Australian journalism micro-culture, and be used to restrict freedom of the news media for decades to come.

Bibliography The Argus. (1902a, March 26). An Episode of the War. Trial by Court Martial. Two Australians Shot. Charged With Killing Unarmed Boers, 5. The Argus. (1902b, March 29). No Title, 12. The Argus. (1902c, April 3). The Court Martialled Australians: How Morant and Handcock Died, 5. The Australasian Journalist. (1927, February 23). Professional Status, 24.

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Australian Journalism Association. (1910). Constitution and Rules. Melbourne: Shovelton and Storey. Baume, E. (1941). I Lived These Years. Sydney: George Harrap & Co. Beresford, B. (1980). Breaker Morant, South Australian Film Corporation, Australian Film Commission, The Seven Network, Pact Productions, Distributed by Roadshow Film Distributers. Blunden, P. (n.d.). Retrieved July 10, 2020, from https://halloffame.melbournepressclub.com/article/montague%2D%2D-­monty%2D%2D-­grover. Bradbury, D. (1980). Public Enemy Number One: A Biography of Wilfred Burchett, (video recording) Cinesound, BTQ7, Negative Cutting Services: Sydney; Ronin Films (distributor): Civic Square, Canberra, A.C.T. Carlyon, L. (2002). Gallipoli. Sydney: Pan Macmillan. Deamer, D. (1998). The Queen of Bohemia: The Autobiography of Dulcie Deamer. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Grover, M. (1993). Hold Page One: Memoirs of Monty Grover (Edited and introduced by M. Cannon). Main Ridge, VIC: Loch Haven. Hales, A. G. (2011). Smiler. In F. Anderson & R. Trembath (Eds.), Witnesses to War. The History of Australian Conflict Reporting. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. Henningham, J. (1988). Looking at Television News. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire. Henningham, J. (1989). Why and How Journalists Should be Professionalised. Australian Journalism Review, 11, 27–32. The Journalist. (1929, November 18). The Making of a Journalist, 176. The Journalist. (1933, October 31). Why Not a Test for Initiates, 1. The Journalist. (1935a, January 31). The Right to Read, 2. The Journalist. (1935b, January 31). What Has Fascism To Do with Us, 1. The Journalist. (1935c, July 31). Horror Will Not Stop Wars, 8. Kinnane, G. (1986). George Johnston: A Biography. Ringwood: Penguin Books. Kirby, T., Harrison, S., Tikaram, R., Doyle, P., Fewster, K., Hastings, M., Murdoch, R., Newton, D., Ramsbotham, L., Roberts, T., & Simpson, K. (2015). Gallipoli: When Murdoch Went to War. Australia: SBS [broadcaster], Web. Knightley, P (1975/ 2003). The First Casualty. London: Andre Deutsch. Lloyd, C. J. (1985). Profession: Journalist: A History of the Australian Journalists’ Association. Sydney: Hale and Iremonger. Lloyd, C.J. (1988). Parliament and the Press: The Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery, 1901–1988, Melbourne: University Press. Macintyre, S. (1999). A Concise History of Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Manne, R. (2008). Agent of Influence. The Monthly, 22–32. McKay, C. (1961). This Is the Life: The Autobiography of a Newspaperman. Sydney: Angus and Robertson.

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McQuilton, J. (2016). Australia’s Communities and the Boer War. Woolongong: Palgrave Macmillan. Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance. (2017). A Proud History at the Forefront of Australian Journalism. Retrieved March 9, 2020, from https://www.meaa. org/news/meaa-­media-­aja-­history/. Moorehead, A. (1970). A Late Education: Episodes in a Life. London: Hamilton. Murdoch, K., & McKernan, M. (Eds.). 2010 [1915]. The Gallipoli Letter. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin. Pearce, S. (1998). Shameless Scribblers: Australian Women’s Journalism 1880–1995. Rockhampton, QLD: Central Queensland University Press. Pearson, M. (1991). Education for Journalism and for Law: Common Issues and Challenges. Australian Journalism Review, 11, 105–114. Porter, M. (Ed.). (2001). The Argus: The Life and Death of a Great Melbourne Newspaper: 1846–1957. Melbourne: Papers from a conference at R.M.I.T. University. Roberts, T. (2015). Before Rupert: Keith Murdoch and the Birth of a Dynasty. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Trembath, R. (2015). Retrieved March 9, 2020, from https:// encyclopedia.1914-­1918-­online.net/article/pressjournalism_australia. Ward, R. (1969). Australia. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall. Young, S. (2019). Paper Emperors: The Rise of Australia’s Newspaper Empires. Sydney: UNSW Press.

CHAPTER 4

Larrikin-Journalists: WWII (1939–1950)

With hindsight, we know that our anti-appeasement Larrikin-journalist had a point. In 1939, Hitler invaded Poland. France and Britain subsequently declared war on Germany. Just two days later, on a warm September evening, Prime Minister Robert Menzies addressed the Australian nation through radio airwaves: It is my melancholy duty to inform you officially that, in consequence of a persistence by Germany in her invasion of Poland, Great Britain has declared war on her and that, as a result, Australia is also at war. (Source: Australian Screen n.d., https://aso.gov.au/titles/radio/menzies-­speech-­declaration-­ war/clip1/, accessed July 20, 2020)

Despite Menzies’ clear Imperialist sentiment, there is much about Australia’s involvement in WWII that contributes to its national sense of independence. Building on episodes such as the 1850 Eureka Rebellion, the 1902 execution of Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant in the Transvaal, and the 1915 storming of Gallipoli, WWII added Tobruk, the fall of Singapore, and the Kokoda Track, to the construction of Australia’s wider national Larrikin identity. But for us, the events of WWII are more significant for their contribution to the construction of Australian journalism’s micro-cultural ideology. In other words, our ‘authorities’ about WWII journalism spin  particular ‘threads’ and ‘indications’ that continue ‘weaving’ our © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Vine, Larrikins, Rebels and Journalistic Freedom in Australia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61856-8_4

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‘web’ about journalism, Larrikinism, and a micro-cultural commitment to ‘pushing back that line’ toward a freer news media. As we shall see, it was battles in New Guinea that created an environment for the cultivation of this micro-cultural commitment. Soon after Menzies declared Australia’s involvement, his government quickly established a federal Department of Information (DoI). Under National Security Regulations, the  DoI controlled newspaper coverage and reports coming through the new household medium—radio. The DoI had jurisdiction over information about military events and monitored correspondents closely. But its powers also extended to domestic events that might be considered as dangerous to Australia’s war effort—including public morale. So information on industrial disputes, the arrival of US troops in Melbourne in 1942, and the Japanese bombing of Darwin were legally hushed up (Darian-Smith 1990). Censorship was justified on the grounds of National Security, but, as many information restrictions tend to do, it also had potential to be used for political gain by both the conservative Menzies Government and John Curtin’s successive Labor administration. There was a difference between the censorship of WWI and WWII, however. This time newspaper proprietors were not so willing to participate (presumably more for competitive advantage, rather than for any idealistic reasons related to freedom of the news media). This led to confrontations between proprietors and the DoI, which also tried to merge Melbourne’s three morning papers, The Age, The Argus, and The Sun, ostensibly because wartime rationing affected paper and ink production (Darian-Smith 1990). In 1944, a number of Sydney proprietors collaborated to show their frustration by printing articles with blank spaces to indicate the extent of the censor’s deletions. By doing this they had breached National Security Regulations and the police were ordered to stop distribution of these editions of the paper (Hilvert 1984: 178–179). In classic Larrikin piss-taking style, Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph filled the space with a front-page photograph of Information Minister, Arthur Calwell and President of the Australian Newspaper Proprietors’ Association, Rupert Henderson. In a box was written, in large type (Fig. 4.1): A Free Press—? The Great American democrat Thomas Jefferson said, ‘Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.’

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Fig. 4.1  The Sunday Telegraph, ‘A Free Press?’ April 16, 1944: 1

Arguably, The Sunday Telegraph’s mockery of the censorship system had a metaphorical genetic similarity to our colonial era Monitor and Australian newspapers when, in 1830, they ‘took the piss’ out of Governor Darling’s mandatory sentencing of banishment for any person convicted for seditious libel for the second time (see Chap. 2). Despite proprietorial clashes with the censorship system during WWII, patriotism spread through the nation. This was felt particularly because Australia was, for the first time, fighting for its own interests. Under the

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1919 Paris Peace Treaty, Australia had been given what was termed a ‘mandate’ over the former German colonies of New Guinea and the islands, meaning Australia was responsible for their progress toward becoming independent members of the recently established League of Nations. Australia’s interest in the Islands, however, had little to do with the welfare of the small island communities; it was more a means of securing Australia’s borders to the north against what was feared to be an expansionist Japan. Australia’s fears became very real in February 1942 after the fall of Singapore. Not only did the Japanese victory bring the conflict very close to home, but it also damaged Australia’s confidence in its relationship with its British ally. As Singapore fell and the Japanese military prepared to invade New Guinea, the 7th Division of the Second Australian Imperial Force was sailing from the Middle East back to the Pacific. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill insisted the 7th Division should be deployed to Burma. But Churchill’s Australian counterpart, John Curtin, furious at the ease with which Britain had abandoned Singapore, argued they should return immediately to defend Australia. The ensuing diplomatic feud, and Curtin’s ultimate success, was a flashpoint for Australia and the realignment of its foreign policy toward the US, rather than to its traditional British partner. With its troops in transit from the Middle East, and its air force and navy still in development, Australia was ill-equipped to counter a Japanese attack. But it did have an under-trained and underprepared civilian militia. So when Japanese forces landed on the northern beaches in New Guinea, and quickly advanced on Kokoda, it was the 39th and 53rd Militia Battalions that were sent to hold the Japanese back from Port Moresby while waiting for the 2/14 and 2/16 Battalions, not yet returned from fighting in the Middle East, to march up from the South to relieve them. The Japanese military’s strategy was to get to Port Moresby, where it could isolate Australia from its US allies and gain a clear advantage in any planned invasion of the Australian mainland. And Japanese troops did, indeed, later get to within sight of Port Moresby, but were ordered to withdraw after a reversal of fortune against the US, who had come to Australia’s aid, at Guadalcanal. What followed was an Australian/US pursuit through the jungle to push the Japanese back out through Buna-Gona.

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Larrikin-Journalists in New Guinea The story about the battles up and down New Guinea’s winding jungle paths is a narrative that holds all the archetypal elements of the Australian national myth: mateship, courage, and resilience against a much larger and far-better equipped enemy. But ‘Kokoda’ (as the New Guinea campaign has become known collectively) is also important for Australian journalism as a ‘memorial narrative’ about Larrikinism and freedom of the news media against propaganda, censorship, and the military authority’s abuse of it. The most significant ‘memorial narrative’ of this time involves a trio of Australian journalists who covered the New Guinea campaign. The stories about filmmaker, Damien Parer, ABC broadcaster, Chester Wilmot, and Melbourne Sun correspondent, Osmar White, have wound their way through journalism’s micro-cultural history. Their eye-witness documentation of battle (in itself Larrikin-like in its risk-taking) are held up as exemplars of best professional practice. But it is the trio’s underpinning defiance of the Australian/US military authorities and the resulting revelations of logistical foul-ups and arrogant attitudes toward the troops during the campaign that make their narrative ‘memorial’ in terms of its contribution to the construction of Australian journalism’s Larrikin tradition and its relationship to freedom of the news media. Parer had already stamped his name in journalism history after covering bombing raids and naval engagement in Syria and Greece with fellow Australian stills photographers, George Silk and, later, Frank Hurley. Importantly, this is also where he met Wilmot. Biographer Neil McDonald describes Wilmot, a Melbourne University graduate and former lawyer, as a “more sophisticated man” than Parer. Wilmot was a “tough, competent” professional journalist, who had a reputation for incisive reporting of underlying battle strategies. Parer used Wilmot as a journalistic mentor to guide him toward the most newsworthy scenes for the visual medium (McDonald 2002: 98). White had also spent years in what was then known as the ‘Far East’ as a freelance writer and journalist, which had given him, what McDonald describes as an “encyclopedic knowledge” of battles in tropical conditions. Each member of the trio made a formidable journalistic whole, with inherent instinct to skirt the periphery of WWII censorship legislation and official propaganda. At the time, censorship was—as White described it in a 1990 interview for the Australian War Memorial—a “necessity”; no one wanted to

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endanger the lives of Australian troops. But, again as White said in the 1990 interview, part of the correspondent’s job was to “watch out” for the public being “deceived” by war propaganda: “The propagandist and the free journalist of course, are natural enemies. You had to fight propaganda under a great handicap,” White said. (Australian War Memorial 1990: S00981)

Larrikin-like in his defiance of the propaganda machine, White had done just that prior to his colleague’s arrival in Port Moresby. Correspondents—including the high-profile Argus journalist George Johnston and ABC reporter Hugh Lennard—had walked out over US General Douglas McArthur’s “confused” attempts at controlling the flow of news: “If the Japanese land in Port Moresby,” said White in a report to the Army Public Relations at the time, “any message will be worthless as factual reports” (in McDonald 2002: 98). As a direct result of the correspondents’ complaints, Army Public Relations set up a new system of information dispersal. So, arguably, the correspondents’ anti-authoritarianism paved the way for the trio’s ability to later disclose the military authority’s “ignorance and apathy” (as privately described by Parer at the time) of the New Guinea campaign. Parer’s Kokoda Frontline (Cinesound) and Road to Kokoda (Movietone) did just that. In 1942 and 1943, his documentaries were on cinema screens all over Australia. They are, clearly, partially propaganda and, to the modern eye, quite twee. But examining their narratives within the 1942/1943 contextual framework, we can see Parer is subtly disclosing the campaign’s mishandling, and its resulting human hardships, by pushing the limits of censorship regulations. In Kokoda’s introduction, a lanky, good-looking young Parer looks directly down the camera: Eight days ago I was with our advance troops in the jungle facing the Japs at Kokoda. It’s an uncanny sort of war, you never see a Jap even if he’s only twenty yards away; they’re complete masters of camouflage and deception.

Then comes two minutes of pure propaganda: Australian troops—the “finest” and “toughest” in the world, “acquitting themselves magnificently.” But he finishes: If only everybody in Australia could realize this country is in peril, that the Japanese are a well-equipped and dangerous enemy …

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It is a clear indictment of the fact that neither General McArthur, nor the Australian Commander-in-Chief, General Thomas Blamey, had shown concern for the near-impossible task for which they had set the Australian troops, or any interest in the unfeasible environment in which they were fighting. And Kokoda shows that the environment was brutal (Fig. 4.2). Parer’s footage is cut (and here we have to acknowledge the input of producer Ken Hall and editor Terry Banks) to emphasize the track’s width (“so narrow that you had to stand aside to let another man pass,” as Wilmot broadcasted), the mountainous terrain, the interminable rain, and the ankle-deep mud that made forward movement more than arduous. Under such conditions, it was impossible for men to carry adequate supplies. Parer’s footage reflects Wilmot’s broadcast that each soldier carried about 60 lbs, and climbed an average 2500 feet a day to get across the “sawtooth ridges.” They carried ammunition, five days’ worth of bully beef, and biscuits. As Wilmot’s broadcast reported:

Fig. 4.2  Members of D Company, 39th Battalion, returning to their base camp after a battle at Isurava (https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C32744)

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Every ounce saved was important and so they didn’t even take blankets or greatcoats and they slept as best they could in rough bamboo shelters with only a groundsheet to keep out the cold. (Kokoda Front, September 7, 1942, in McDonald (ed), 2004: 318–319)

The trio were disgusted at the fact that neither MacArthur nor Blamey had investigated conditions for themselves. But they were more outraged at logistical foul-ups, particularly in relation to food and medical supplies, and how they exacerbated the inhumane conditions. When supplies were dropped from supply planes at Myola—four days late because the enemy had found and bombed the waiting supply transports at Port Moresby— bags of flour and rice exploded on impact, tins narrowly missed waiting soldiers. Parer caught it all on film. Because of censorship rules, the commentary does not overtly say that this was a logistical disaster—but the footage speaks for itself. Then, later, there is footage of Australian troops baking ‘austerity cakes’—a recipe resourcefully made up of flour and water, and fried on a piece of tin over a fire. The fact that this was all the troops had to nourish them during such physical hardship is not lost on the audience. Along with food, medicine was also in desperately short supply. The troops were ravaged by malaria, dysentery, and pneumonia—conditions from which the correspondents also suffered. It was only for the sacrifice and goodwill of the native New Guineans that the troops had stretcher bearers, who faced the same interminable bog, but with the added weight of a wounded man on a stretcher. Many soldiers were forced to walk themselves to the medical headquarters, and some just crawled into the vegetation to die. In his account of the journey in The Melbourne Sun, White described the lines of “walking wounded” and the “wounded walking.” A short conversation between 14th Field Ambulance Captain, Bill McLaren and Parer is a telling verbalization of the correspondents’ overall rationale. When the camera was pointed at McLaren bandaging a soldier’s hand, he said to Parer: “This is not what people want to see. It’s sordid and there’s nothing good about it.” To which Parer snapped: “Well this is what they’re bloody well going to see. The complacency down there; they’ve got to be shaken out of it” (in McDonald and Brune 1998).

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Here, not only is Parer showing us a Larrikin tendency to exceed limits (of the censorship system), but also—as Childs says of the Larrikin in our introduction—a steadfast belief in his ability to render change in a situation made “intolerable” by society. There is no doubt, in Parer’s tone, that he is convinced his actions—exposing the “sordid” nature of war—are legitimate. From Wilmot’s censored dispatches, we know all three correspondents were acutely aware the mismanagement of supplies and reinforcements had made the New Guinea situation far worse than it might have been. Campaigns are often lost by little things. Our troops in the mountains were vitally dependent on air supplies. Ten days before the Japanese made their attack they raided Port Moresby. They found the aerodrome packed with transports and bombers lined up wingtip-to-wingtip on the runway … a perfect concentrated target. They didn’t miss. On the raid to the front our reinforcements were held up four days waiting for supplies to come through. In those four days the Japanese gained the initiative and launched their attack. But for the raid … but for our failure to disperse our aircraft on the ground, our fresh troops would have been in the front in time. They would have been in position to stop the Japanese. They might even have been able to seize the initiative from them.

Wilmot ends the script with a very personal note of frustration: But by this time the chance had been lost, and because of this I felt bitter as I stood on the spur of the Owen Stanley Range looking down on the treetops in the valley that leads to Kokoda. I was bitter for I knew that somewhere under those treetops there were unnecessary Australian graves. (Kokoda Front, September 7, 1942, in McDonald (ed), 2004: 324)

Here Wilmot affiliates himself securely with the troops, and their struggle against a larger, ill-informed—yet all-powerful authority. Positioning himself as such, Wilmot reflects our Larrikin criteria related to emotional attachment to the underdog, and its somewhat idealistic endeavor at creating egalitarianism. Although censorship of Wilmot’s copy could be justified on the grounds that it might affect public moral, it could also be attributed to the fact that it suggested negligence on the parts of Land Forces Headquarters, Sir Thomas Blamey, and the US Air Commander, General Whitehead. It was

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a list of names that led all the way up to US General Douglas McArthur himself. The script was not released publicly until 1943. The propaganda coming out of General MacArthur’s office must have been particularly galling to the correspondents; even normally defiant journalists, such as George Johnston, were reflecting MacArthur’s scathing attacks on the Australian performance in New Guinea. When based in MacArthur’s office, Johnston reported that the Australians had failed to “hold the gap” in the Owen Stanleys—the mountain range sprawling across the Kokoda track. The propaganda omitted the fact that ‘the gap’ was actually a yawning precipice between two jungle-covered mountains, not a fortified position. Wilmot corrected the omission in a later broadcast. In the 1990 Australian war memorial interview, White—almost inaudibly—admitted that Johnston “never tried” to “beat the propaganda gate” (Australian War Memorial 1990: S00981). But what the correspondents appeared most concerned about was the military’s ignorance of how inappropriate—indeed, fatal—light brown uniforms were in a world of dark green jungle foliage. Some of the soldiers had even resorted to dyeing their uniforms in coffee grounds to darken them, which eventually made the material disintegrate. Wilmot reported: “The most important thing is that the men could be given complete uniform and equipment that will merge into the green background of the jungle and then they must be made camouflage conscious.” White made the same point, and The Melbourne Sun took it on in a full editorial (in McDonald 2002: 103). Apparently General Blamey had told the War Council that green uniforms were unnecessary in New Guinea. Later, however, when the US was about to embark for New Guinea, General Robert Eickelburger ordered American uniforms to be dyed mottled green, apparently on the correspondents’ advice (Observations on the New Guinea Campaign, August 26–September 26, 1942, in McDonald (ed), 2004: 367). It is over the camouflage issue that we can see an exemplar of the application of Larrikinism’s anti-authoritarianism in professional journalistic practice. Back in Port Moresby, Wilmot, his impatience with the military’s refusal to provide proper uniforms spilling over into combativeness, stood up in a press conference for the Australian Commander-in-Chief, and asked point-blank if he thought green uniforms were necessary. Blamey replied the uniforms had been designed in India as the ideal camouflage for the jungle and there was “no evidence” the jungle in New Guinea was any different. Wilmot said he had just returned from the front line and

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could offer “several thousand” witnesses who had fought in the jungle, and who would testify otherwise (McDonald 2002: 103). Here we have an episode—one of our ‘threads’ and ‘indications’—that ‘weaves a web’ to make up our overall ‘memorial narrative’ about Larrikinjournalists using egalitarianism (“several thousand” powerless foot soldiers) and anti-authoritarianism (against one of  the most powerful men  in the New Guinea campaign) to “push back that line” toward a freer news media under particularly restrictive conditions of censorship and propaganda. The trio’s defiance of the man suspected of complicity in the death of several thousand Australian troops was to spill over into intrigue. Rumors started circulating in Port Moresby that Blamey was to take over field command of the New Guinea campaign from General Sydney Rowell (1894–1975), a man who had so impressed Parer that he gave him a glowing review in the introduction to Kokoda Frontline (1942): When I got back to Moresby, I was full of beans with the knowledge General Rowell was on the job and now he had a really fine command.

Parer had also experienced a Blamey retreat in Greece in 1941, where he was rumored to be drunk “all the time.” Parer was, at the time, investigating a story about suspiciously large sums of money being paid into Blamey’s account from the distributer contracted to show new release movies to the troops (McDonald 2002: 109). But possibly most galling to the correspondents—who had experienced hardships on the track side-by-­ side with the troops—was Blamey’s misrepresentation of the actions of Australian soldiers to Prime Minister John Curtin, and his personal reprimands, castigating them, to their faces at parade, for “running like rabbits” (McDonald and Brune 1998). So disliked was Blamey that poet and war correspondent Kenneth Slessor was inspired into verse in the piece, ‘An Inscription for Dog River’: Slessor’s poem starts: Our general was the greatest and bravest of generals/For his deeds, look around you on this coast—…

And ends:  Having given him everything, in fact/Except respect.

Slessor was no doubt a skilled journalist. But his Larrikin tendencies, particularly his defiance of military authority, and his frustrations with wartime censorship and military bureaucracy, led to disputes. Later, when

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he learned that the army had sought his disaccreditation as a war correspondent, he resigned in protest against “the whole of the present attitude and working of the Army Public Relations Branch.” From then on, Slessor restricted himself to mainly literary undertakings (Australian Dictionary of Biography 2002, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/slessor-­kenneth-­ adolf-­11712/text20935, accessed October 7, 2019). It appears Slessor, displaying the Larrikin’s emotional innocence, was willing to martyr his mainstream journalistic activities in the name of freedom of the news media. So it is little wonder that when Blamey was given the top-job in New Guinea of field commander, there was widespread outrage among the correspondents. Wilmot approached the Prime Minister, who agreed with his criticisms, but nevertheless would not remove Blamey. Wilmot then helped draft Rowell’s report, and wrote one of his own, outlining the logistical foul-ups he had witnessed in New Guinea under Blamey’s overall command. Blamey retaliated by suppressing Rowell’s dispatch and ordering Wilmot’s report be destroyed. Then Blamey called Wilmot into Headquarters and removed his war correspondent accreditation. So it appears Wilmot, much like Slessor, was willing to sacrifice almost everything to defy censorship legislation and ‘push back that line’ toward a freer news media. Although Wilmot’s disaccreditation effectively ended the trio’s coverage of combat in New Guinea, their anti-authoritarianism, egalitarianism, and propensity for risk-taking ensures their campaign stands out as a significant Australian journalism micro-cultural ‘memorial narrative’. Despite military censorship, the three correspondents exposed the Australian military’s inadequate training in jungle warfare and defiantly lobbied the army to adopt green uniforms—significantly nonconformist acts at a time when journalists were expected to act as compliant propaganda cogs in the Australian war machine. Their narrative’s perpetuated celebration in Australian journalism micro-culture is confirmed in each one’s position in the Melbourne Press Club’s Hall of Fame. Wilmot was in a fortunate position; his employer, the Australian Broadcasting Company (now Corporation), supported its correspondent. When then ABC General Manager, Sir Charles Moses, was later asked why he stood by his journalist against the powerful Australian commander-in-­ chief during wartime, Moses answered: Chester was so level-headed that if he said Blamey was corrupt—he was. (in McDonald 2002: 107)

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So Wilmot was allowed to stay in New Guinea, broadcasting tactful reports that corrected propaganda fed to other reporters by MacArthur’s public relations team. In 1944, he went to work in Europe for the BBC.  On D-Day he flew into France by glider with the British 6th Airborne Division and covered operations there. He covered the German surrender in 1945 and the Nuremberg trials. He died in 1954 when his aircraft crashed into the Mediterranean Sea on his return from broadcasting in Australia. He was 42. Parer’s Kokoda Frontline won Australia’s first Academy Award. But it had also raised many uncomfortable questions about the conduct of operations. So when Allied High Command discovered a small group of Australian guerrillas holding out against the Japanese in Timor, that’s where they sent Parer. The idea was to move the troublesome correspondent to a less controversial arena. But Parer’s work covering Sparrow Force in Timor became irrefutable evidence of exploitation of native Timorese by both Australia and Japan. Parer revealed the debt that Australia still owes to the Timorese to this day; a debt which has bedeviled governments on both sides of the political fence since. In 1943 Parer resigned from the Department of Information. In typical Larrikin-fashion, his resignation was a result of his outrage over the Department’s treatment of his colleagues, George Silk—another Larrikin photo-journalist who covered New Guinea—and soundman, Alan Anderson. From then on he covered US operations only. In September 1944, Parer was filming the invasion of Peleliu Island. He was walking backward behind a tank to capture the expression of soldiers as they went into action. He was killed when a Japanese machine gunner opened fire. He was 32. In July 1943, Osmar White had both legs broken when Japanese dive-­ bombers hit a small vessel he was in while leaving Rendova Harbor for Guadalcanal. The AJA’s trade magazine The Journalist (August 1943) reported White was standing at the door of the wheelhouse. Several members of the crew standing a few feet from him were killed. White used convalescence as an opportunity to write his memoirs on his experiences during the New Guinea campaign. General MacArthur’s censors held up publication of Green Armour (1945/1987) for six months because of its revelations of the inadequate training and equipment of both Australian and American troops committed to jungle warfare in the Pacific (White 1983/1996: xvii). But published it was. Today it stands as a classic account of Australian war history.

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Larrikin-Journalists at War’s End But this was not the end of White’s story as an Australian journalism ‘memorial narrative’. Despite grievous injury, White continued his career as a Larrikin-journalist. His boss, Sir Keith Murdoch, paid for specialist treatment in America, then sent him to cover the Allied liberation of Nazi Germany. Here, White is again remembered for his anti-authoritarianism against General George Patton and his “preoccupation with corpses” (White 1983/1996: 35), and nonconformity against Mill’s ‘tyranny of the majority’ around Germany’s supposed ‘war-guilt.’ In his account of the Allied liberation of Germany, Conquerors’ Road (a manuscript completed in 1945 but was refused publication until 1983), White exposes the hypocrisy underpinning the Allied liberation strategy, and its stated aims as a trilateral occupying force, epitomized in Eisenhower’s victorious call: WE COME AS CONQUERORS. It was an announcement that legitimized, according to White, the abuse of German civilians by the victors (White 1983/1996: 96 & 217). Although White questions the wisdom of many of the military government’s policies, he appears to have particular personal “dislike” for “old Blood-and-Guts” Patton, whom he believed to be a military “genius,” but also a “neurotic and bloodthirsty” general, who was potentially “uncontrollable” if he were “allowed too far upstage”: …his childish love of notoriety, his foul mouth, his preoccupation at his periodical press briefings with corpses. (White 1983/1996: 35)

It was with General Patton’s Third Army that White accompanied to witness the 1945 Allied Winter offensive; the “last massive leaning of American and British might against the ramparts of embattled Germany” (White 1983/1996: 2). Describing the land, air, and water attack as a “slaughter” of already-beaten German troops and vulnerable civilians, White reasons the offensive was more for “old blood-and-guts’” propaganda purposes than for any strategic gain. The crossing in the north was an enormous fist-brandishing to claim the attention of the world and to underscore with new ruin the death sentence already spelled out by bombs. Probably the only people unimpressed by this panoply of lethal might were the men of the beaten German army. (White 1983/1996: 45)

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Here we can see White refused the military’s demands to gloss over the failings of the Allies. In his unrevised 1945 manuscript, White describes how, “with scores of other newspapermen working in Germany,” he received the “inevitable memorandum” suggesting that readers would be “grateful” for stories emphasizing the “humors, the “lighter side of victory.” One can almost hear White’s incredulity: This in a charnel house! There was no lighter side of victory. Victory weighed even heavier on the spirit than fears during conflict. (White 1983/1996: 200)

The memorandum did not stop White’s dispatch to The Herald in Melbourne, that tens of thousands dispossessed German refugees had been expelled from Czechoslovakia: “Unwanted in own land,” the headline read: They are hungry, fear-haunted, hopeless—ejected violently from the country which their nation exploited, but unwanted in their homeland. (June 19, 1945: 1)

Neither did the memorandum prevent White from publicizing his unconventional skepticism concerning supposed German war-guilt. His disgust at the inhuman scapegoating is particularly intense when the military authority forced German civilians to look upon the “rotting remains” of concentration camp inmates: Early propaganda to induce guilt was mistimed and failed entirely to convey the fact that concentration camp prisoners had been systemically tortured and murdered for more than ten years. Torture and murder were the means by which the Nazis silenced all protest within the Third Reich. (White 1983/1996: 93)

Here we can see White demonstrating the Larrikin’s natural defiance, against both Mill’s ‘tyranny of the magistrate’ as well as his ‘tyranny of the majority’. But we can also see White’s perception of the German civilians as the ‘underdog’, whose ‘equality’ he champions in classic Larrikin style: “If the Germans still doubted they were beaten,” White said in his unrevised 1945 manuscript, “they surely could never be convinced by the studied humiliations and childish disciplines devised by politicians” (White 1983/1996: 199–200).

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It is almost eerie to read White’s foreboding about the tripartite strategy for occupied Germany. Despite the official propaganda—proclaiming that “everybody loved everybody else” and “all parties” were cooperating “wholeheartedly”—White was determined to tell the world that conflicting interests could never achieve peace: From the beginning it was apparent that Soviet policy aimed to force the Western powers out of Berlin and concede another propaganda victory … [allied] unwillingness to consult or cooperate in formulating a common policy for dealing with the defeated Germans alarmed even the most optimistic of political observers in the Anglo-American zones. (White 1983/1996: 134–135)

Conquerors’ Road is a memoir that tells an eye-witness story of the end of one of the most momentous conflicts in modern history. Yet it is also an examination of journalism’s essential Larrikin role in defying authorized accounts in order to forge a semblance of freedom of the news media during particularly restrictive times. It is little wonder that White believed the 1945 refusals to publish his Conquerors’ Road manuscript was the result of “some political pressure” exerted on the publishers to “discourage” the marketing of a book that would “irritate” the military establishment (White 1983/1996: xv). White’s status as one of Australian journalism’s most powerful ‘memorial narratives’ is perpetuated in the annual Journalism Education and Research Association’s awards. The ‘Ossie’ Awards are presented to the most outstanding student journalists in Australia each year. In other words, the endurance of Osmar White, as a ‘memorial narrative’ about Larrikin journalism and its relationship with freedom of the news media, is guaranteed. While White’s eye-witness accounts were ‘transgressing’ both the ‘tyranny of the magistrate’ (General Patton) and the ‘tyranny of the majority’ (allied public opinion) in Germany, the partisan Larrikin-journalist from our last chapter, Wilfred Burchett, was about to manifest the Larrikin totem in the Pacific. Burchett’s practice of defying Mill’s ‘magistrate’ is perhaps most renowned in his reportage on the bombing of Hiroshima for the London Daily Express (1945). At the time, Burchett’s colleagues were rushing to cover the signing of the Japanese surrender on the US Naval vessel, The USS Missouri. But Burchett, ever the nonconformist, and seeing the possibility of what he himself described as a “scoop” (Bradbury 1980), defiantly took a dangerous 22-hour train journey to the A-Bombed

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Hiroshima—a city from which all Westerners had been banned (Bradbury 1980). Burchett, with photographer Henry Keys, was the first journalist to report on Hiroshima’s devastation, producing a front-page story that even one of his harshest critics, Robert Manne (2008: 32), regards as “of world historical importance.” In short, without Burchett’s manifestly Larrikin approach to the Hiroshima coverage, it is doubtful whether he could have contributed so significantly to the ‘truth’, with his “scoop” that began: I write this as a warning to the world.

So, in the Burchett narrative, we find quite specific evidence of the relationship between Larrikinism and Australian journalism’s capacity to ‘push back that line’ toward a freer news media. This is particularly evident in Burchett’s performance during a press conference after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The narrative is not unlike that of his colleague, Chester Wilmot, in the New Guinea press conference with General Blamey. An “uninvited” Burchett, “grimy, unshaven and disheveled,” just back from Hiroshima, refused to let go of a line of questioning about the A-Bomb’s “atomic plague” effects. Burchett’s recounting of the briefing emphasizes his Larrikinism. In contrast to Burchett’s “scruffy griminess,” the conference organizers, a group of US officers, were “elegantly uniformed and bemedaled.” In Burchett’s account, we can almost hear the Larrikin’s defiance, mockery of pomposity, and emotional innocence, as the uniformed figure (striving to officially record just one version of events), and the Larrikin-journalist (insisting on his eye-witness account of Hiroshima) contested the ‘truth’ in an open encounter. An obvious first question was whether the briefing officer had visited Hiroshima. He had not, so I was off to a good start. I had described what I had seen and asked for explanations. It was all very gentlemanly at first, a scientist explaining things to a layman. He [the scientist] remained standing, and I [Burchett] remained standing. [According to the scientist] those I had seen in the [Hiroshima] hospitals were victims of blast and burn, normal after any explosion … Eventually the exchanges narrowed down to my demand for an explanation as to why fish were dying in the stream that ran through the city centre … The spokesman looked pained. ‘I’m afraid you’ve fallen victim to Japanese propaganda,’ and with that Parthian shot he sat down. The usual ‘Thank You’ was pronounced and the conference ended. (Burchett and Shimmin 2005: 246)

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Burchett’s radiation story was denied, Hiroshima promptly put out of bounds to correspondents, and General MacArthur expelled the ‘transgressive Adam’ for having gone beyond the boundaries of ‘his’ military occupation. But this did not stop Burchett from going down in journalism history as possibly the most ‘arch-Larrikin’ of its micro-culture. Although most journalists understood the national security justification for information restriction and control, as with the previous Boer conflict and WWI, unwarranted interference in journalistic independence was more than aggravating. Although not all had the same opportunity for open defiance as Burchett, journalism’s trade magazine, The Journalist, gave the community a place to vent its widespread and pervading frustration over information restrictions. Some journalists even felt compelled to put the defiant Larrikin ‘memorial narrative’ into verse. In April 1942, for example, war correspondent and part time bard, William Dunn, penned “To Our Beloved Censors”: Put on your spurs and pick up your whip;/Know ye the pleasures of censorship!/ Take a deep drag on the juice of the poppy/And then cut the hell out of everyone’s copy. Focus your eye of the wayward press -/What they’ll attempt no censor could guess;/Don’t let them put you down for a sap;/They’re probably leagued with the arrogant Jap! Keep on your toes to detect innuendos;/Butcher such stories with fearsome crescendos;/Remember—the journalist doesn’t exist/Who won’t give the facts a bewildering twist! And ignore whatever the press chief might say;/You can’t put your faith in a communique;/The general’s spokesman’s a treacherous man/And probably working for old Tojo-san! Beware of the broadcaster’s libelous scripts -/Such guys should rest in deep marble crypts;/Just give them a mike and a long length of cable -/They’ll pass all the dope to the foe that they’re able! The regular pressman’s an insidious bloke;/Patriotism to him is a joke,/ And he’s merely trying to find, if he can,/A method of spilling our plans to Japan! So put on your spurs and pick up your whip -/Give ‘em a taste of real censorship;/Slash all their copy with vivid red pencil -/Teach ‘em respect for that carmine utensil. (in The Journalist, ‘Censors Inspired Verse’, April, 1942: 3)

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With the restrained ironic tone of Mr Dunn’s rhythm and rhyme, the verse mocks the perceived pomposity of the military authority, its censors, and an apparent contempt for journalistic freedom. In June 1943, a “sub-editor,” upon learning the Navy considered— “not for the first time”— a story he’d set his heart on would be “inimical to security,” penned “a ditty” that is a similar piss-take of censorship and its supposed arrogant attitude toward unencumbered flows of information: For it’s the Navy, the Royal Navy,/ That sinks our news on sight./No matter what we’ve got/Their Motto’s ‘Better Not’/If nothing’s left then all is right. So hail the Navy, the Royal Navy,/HMS-ers—Oh!/Says who?/As they cut and slash and rip/On the good ship Censorship,/The lively little lads with pencils blue. (in The Journalist, ‘To a Naval Cutter’, June, 1943: 3)

Such verse contributes to the consolidation of the defiant, ‘piss-taking’ Larrikin ‘memorial narrative’ within the WWII journalism community, and its determination, even in times of war, to ‘push back that line’ toward a freer news media.

Defying Self-Censorship But it wasn’t just official censors to whom journalists were venting their frustration through the pages of their trade magazine. It is during this era that we start to see increasing awareness of the evils of self-censorship, particularly that which was subtly suggested by management. The July 1943 letter from a “Mr B. Honest (Melbourne)” is a prototypal voice of journalistic frustration. Taking a bitter swipe at journalism’s apparent collective apathy toward proprietorial expectations on reporters during the 1943 federal election between Labor’s John Curtin and the Country/ UAP’s Arthur Fadden), Mr. B. Honest reports: All journalists may be cynical but most of us are honest (this is proved I think, by the vehement daily discussions among journalists inside, and outside, their offices about the distortions and suppressions of the newspapers on which they work), but can anyone say truthfully that there is left one really honest newspaper in any Capital of the Commonwealth? Ask a journalist; he should know.

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Instead of newspapers being published to inform the people, they are published to deceive the people into believing what those who control the Press want people to believe. As those who control the Australian Press are of the capitalist class, they think the people should be told only about the virtues of the UAP [the conservative United Australia Party] and the faults of the Labor Party. There are, of course, some virtues in the Labor Party and some faults in the UAP. An honest Press would assess and admit them. (in The Journalist, ‘Freedom of the Press at Election Time’, July 1943: 4)

Such editorials not only deliver messages of defiance against the workplace’s commercial ideologies, but also strengthen distinctions between the journalistic micro-culture, and the wider macro-culture of newspapers as business entities. Vexation over proprietorial and other interference in journalistic independence was expected to be mitigated by the long-awaited official Code of Ethics, established in 1944. The Code obliged journalists to: 1. To report and interpret the news with scrupulous accuracy 2. Not to suppress essential facts nor distort the truth by omissions or wrong or improper emphasis 3. To respect all confidences received by him in the course of his calling 4. To observe at all times the fraternal obligations arising from his membership of the association and not on any occasion to take unfair advantage or improper advantage of a fellow member of the Association. 5. Not to allow his personal interests to influence him in the discharge of his duties, nor accept or offer any present, gift or other consideration, or benefit or advantage of whatsoever kind that may have effect of so benefitting him 6. To use only fair and honest means to obtain news, pictures and documents 7. Always reveal his identity as a representative of the press before obtaining any personal interview for the purposes of using it for publication and; 8. To do his utmost to obtain full confidence in the integrity and dignity in the calling of a journalist. (Australian Journalists’ Association 1944) The Code was an important step toward articulating a micro-cultural ideology and, collectively, the clauses were designed to relieve pressures on journalistic independence. Bewilderingly, then, there was no overt statement about journalistic responsibility to resist such pressures. This did not come until the Code’s 1983 review, when a preamble was added articulating journalistic independence.

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But at the time, the Code was meeting with much more fundamental problems. Even before it had been established, the Code had offended proprietors, who were somewhat aggrieved at the supposition that their publications didn’t already accord to the highest ethical standards. Attempts to get proprietors discussing acceptance of a code to encompass all news media outlets were unsuccessful and, in 1943, the NSW district committee observed that the AJA would have to pen its codes alone. Without the support of the employers, the Code’s inherent contradictions rendered it almost inoperable. Senior political journalist, Crayton Burns (not to be confused with The Age’s former editor, Creighton Burns), was thinking before his time when he observed: Employers rarely instruct a journalist specifically to do something unethical; they merely expect results and take no excuses. There are some who are not very squeamish about how the reporter, photographer or commentator gets the results. The men who get the results also get the rewards. (in Lloyd 1985: 230)

In other words, without proprietorial support, and in the absence of an established statutory body, the quasi-judicial framework was somewhat powerless in enforcing, what was essentially, a voluntary code. And yet, paradoxically, the enforcement of such a Code could hold issues for freedom of the news media as well. An early example of how this could happen can be found in 1947, when journalist David McNicoll wrote an item in The Daily Telegraph’s Town Talk column. In McNicoll’s own words, Town Talk was a deliberately Larrikin organ: Town Talk had many facets. Investigations, crusades, lifting lids off seamy saucepans. It was also concerned quite a bit with the doings of the elite and the underworld … Town talk was often disrespectful, flippant and plain cheeky. (McNicoll 1979: 118)

With tongue planted firmly in cheek, McNicoll threatened to reveal the identity of a “certain whisky tycoon” involved in a drunken “schemozzle” at a “sedate business get-together,” unless he donated 25 guineas to the Sacred Heart Hospice: If it doesn’t reach me within a week, I’ll reluctantly conclude that the certain party responsible for a most undignified incident prefers publicity to philanthropy. (Daily Telegraph, January 8, 1947: 1)

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The piece was Larrikin-like in its mockery, but the NSW District Committee did not see it that way and fined McNicoll 50 pounds. McNicoll applied to the Commonwealth Arbitration Court, claiming the Code was “tyrannical and oppressive,” and the AJA’s rules “prevented and hindered” members (McNicoll 1979: 124). The Arbitration Court dismissed the application. In other words, the original system of enforcing the Code had potential to cause more hinderance to freedom of the news media than help. However, in the same year that the Code was announced, a more realistic proposal for ensuring freedom of the news media was put forward. In 1944, the Curtin Government put its 14-point postwar Reconstruction and Democratic Rights bill out for referendum. It was designed to alter the Constitution, for a period of five years, to empower Parliament to make laws for the “peace, order and good government of the Commonwealth” in postwar reconstruction, including control over employment, profiteering, and prices. Significantly for our interest in freedom of the news media, Section 2 stated: Neither the Commonwealth nor State may make any law for abridging the freedom of speech or expression. (Commonwealth of Australia 1944: 375)

Prime Minister Curtin wrote to the AJA urging its support of what would be, in effect, some protection for journalistic freedom. It’s little surprise Curtin would include such a proposal; he was, after all, a former journalist and had signed up to the AJA very early in its life, in 1917. He donned the AJA badge every day, even while serving in Parliament, demonstrating he continued to identify as part of the micro-cultural community. He saw the provision for protecting freedom of speech as contributing to the “strengthening of our national resources”: “While striving unflaggingly for world peace, we must retain power to deal with any situation if peace again proves a temporary illusion,” he wrote to the AJA. (July, 1944: 1)

But it appears the nation was not ready for such radical measures. The proposal, including the proposition to enshrine what would effectively be a constitutional protection for freedom of the news media, was not carried by 54 percent.

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Bibliography Australian Dictionary of Biography. (2002). National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. Retrieved October 7, 2019, from http://adb. anu.edu.au/biography/slessor-­kenneth-­adolf-­11712/text20935. Australian Journalists’ Association. (1944). Code of Ethics. Australian Screen. (n.d.). Retrieved July 20, 2020, from https://aso.gov.au/ titles/radio/menzies-­speech-­declaration-­war/clip1/. Australian War Memorial. (1990). Osmar White, War Correspondent, interviewed by Peter Jepperson for The Keith Murdoch Sound Archive, S00981. Bradbury, D. (1980). Public Enemy Number One: A Biography of Wilfred Burchett (video recording). Cinesound, BTQ7, Negative Cutting Services: Sydney; Ronin Films (distributor): Civic Square, Canberra, A.C.T. Burchett, G., & Shimmin, N. (Eds.). (2005). Memoirs of a Rebel Journalist: The Autobiography of Wilfred Burchett. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press. Commonwealth of Australia. (1944). 14-Point Post War Reconstruction and Democratic Rights Bill. Curtin, J. (1944, July). Prime Minister Writes to the AJA. The Journalist, 1. Darian-Smith, K. (1990). On the Home Front: Melbourne in Wartime, 1939–1945. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Hilvert, J. (1984). Blue Pencil Warriors: Censorship and Propaganda in World War II. St Lucia: University of QLD Press. The Journalist. (1942, April). Censors Inspired Verse, 3. The Journalist. (1943, June). To a Naval Cutter, 3. The Journalist. (1943, July). Freedom of the Press at Election Time, 4. Kokoda Frontline. (1942). Cinesound. Road to Kokoda (1943), Movietone. Lloyd, C.J. (1985). Profession: Journalist: A History of the Australian Journalists’ Association. Sydney: Hale and Iremonger. Manne, R. (2008). Agent of Influence. The Monthly, 22–32. McDonald, N. (2002). Getting It Right: Parer, White and Wilmot on the Kokoda Track. The Sydney Papers, 14(2), 96–110. McDonald, N. (2004). Chester Wilmot Reports: Broadcasts that Shaped World War II. Sydney: ABC Book. McDonald, N., & Brune, P. (1998). 200 Shots: Damien Parer, George Silk and the Australians at War in New Guinea. St Leonards: Allen and Unwin. McNicoll, D. (1947, January 8). Town Talk. Blackmail Corner. Daily Telegraph, 1. McNicoll, D. (1979). Luck’s a Fortune. Sydney: Wildcat Press. White, O. (1945, June 19). Unwanted in Own Land. The Herald, Melbourne, 1. White, O. (1945/1987). Green Armour. Ringwood: Penguin Books.

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White, O. (1983/1996). Conqueror’s Road. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. White, O. (1990). Osmar White, War Correspondent, interviewed by Peter Jepperson for the Keith Murdoch Sound Archive of Australia in the War of 1939–45, Australian War Memorial.

CHAPTER 5

Larrikin-Journalists: Conservatism and Communism (1950s)

So Australian journalism continued on into the Cold War still with no guaranteed protection. As we shall see, in a country that eagerly joined the rest of the Western world in ratcheting up anti-communist ideology, Larrikinism as an Australian journalism micro-cultural trait was to become increasingly important in ‘pushing back that line’ toward a freer news media. Robert Menzies, now leading the Federal Opposition Liberal-Country Coalition, started making noises about Communists infiltrating the incumbent Labor Party. Prime Minister Ben Chifley’s agenda to nationalize Australian banking gave the accusation a suggestion of truth. Meanwhile, the Communist Party and various other unions supported a nationally debilitating coal miners’ strike that congested the Sydney docks with ships unable to leave the port. The public mood was such that when Menzies campaigned the next election on an anti-communism platform, a change of government was inevitable. In 1950 Menzies’ Communist Party Dissolution Act was passed under Section 51 of the Australian Constitution. The government argued that, because revolution was central to the Marxist doctrine, Communists presented a threat to national security, giving the Act validity. The High Court, however, disagreed and, in 1951, a referendum was called. Although the Australian public rejected the Act, the damage had been done; any person suspected of having Communist sympathies was seen as part of the traitorous minority. Unions and those in literary © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Vine, Larrikins, Rebels and Journalistic Freedom in Australia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61856-8_5

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circles—including journalists—were particular targets. This was despite newspaper editorials being overwhelmingly in favor of the ban. Only The Argus argued against the Act, and two, The Daily Mirror and The Daily News, did not take a stance.

Larrikin Lefties So it appears the mainstream news media’s macro-culture was, almost without exception, anti-communist and intensely conservative. And yet our ‘threads’ and ‘indications’ suggest pervading—if not overtly pro-­ communist, then at least somewhat leftist—leanings within the micro-­ culture of journalism. For example, in his memoirs, Australian journalism elder, John Pilger, recollects the atmosphere in the newsroom when he joined The Telegraph as a cadet in the 1950s. Proprietor Frank Packer was Menzies’ “most powerful press patron,” and accordingly, his publications were “extremely right wing.” According to Pilger, however, the majority of Packer’s journalists were “vociferous supporters” and members of the Labor Party (Pilger 1986: 41). On the day there was a printers’ strike when Philip Knightley (most well known as the Australian expat journalist who broke the thalidomide scandal in the UK during the 1960s) was a copyboy in the 1950s, the AJA called the reporters out in sympathy. Along with all other copyboys, the teenage Knightley was taken to the Irish Pub on the corner of Sydney’s Park and Castlereagh Streets, to be given a lecture about worker solidarity: “There are only two classes in this world,” he was told by one gnarly old sports journalist. “Bosses and workers, and you lot are workers. When you’re old enough you can join the union. Then you’ve got every bloody worker in Australia behind you, provided you stick together and don’t scab.”

It was made very clear to Knightley that anyone who would stay at work when his “mates” were on strike was a “dirty, rotten bastard”, lower than a “fucking snakes belly”, probably a “Pom” and should “never, ever” be forgiven (Knightley 1997: 12). According to journalist David McNicoll, “as with most newspaper staffs,” The Telegraph during the 1950s contained a “preponderance of Labor supporters” (McNicoll 1979: 130). This appeared to worry proprietors, who tended to be at the other end of the political spectrum. Soon

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after World War II, Keith Murdoch wrote to Frank Packer, warning him about his staff’s political affiliations. Murdoch was “shocked” to discover The Herald and Weekly Times had been nurturing ‘Reds’ in its bosom. He claimed publicity and pressure had flushed most of them out of Melbourne’s Flinders Street, leaving them to go to Sydney to work for Packer’s outlets (McNicoll 1979: 130). This discrepancy between the official, public stances of news media outlets, and the personal opinions of their journalism employees, demonstrates it is erroneous to conflate the ideologies of the two. This is just as true today, anywhere in the world, as it was in 1950s’ Australia. However, the so-called left-wing—apparently even pro-communist— leanings of the micro-culture of journalism have to be judged in light of a prevailing social and political climate that viewed dissenting opinion as having communist sympathies. In other words, many accused of pro-­ communism may have merely been engaging in the Larrikin practice of defiance against Mill’s concept of the ‘tyranny of the majority’ to ‘push back that line’ toward a freer news media. For example, The Argus’ great nonconformist, Peter Russo, was branded ‘Communist’ for his incisive, yet Larrikin-like, criticisms of the somewhat pompous Western foreign policy toward Asia. Russo, who had spent his prewar days in Japan, held empathy for Asian culture and its people, and contempt for Western colonization. Expressing his scorn in his column, ‘Behind the News’, Russo openly declared Western policy was “perilous,” and attempts to stem Asian nationalism demonstrated “dangerous ignorance” during the final throes of China’s civil war in 1949 (Argus, Jan 25, 1949: 2). When the Korean War broke out in 1950, Russo extended these criticisms, picking out American action in particular (see Argus, July 5, 1950, 4 and August 4, 1950, 4). At the time, the normally conservative Argus was altering its editorial stance after Britain’s Mirror group had taken over in 1949 to the point where the more left Meanjin magazine described its editorial policy as “relatively independent” and Russo himself as “one of the few distinguished and courageous commentators on world affairs in this country” (Meanjin, vol 16, No. 1, March 1957, 94). But Russo’s “courage” was not without its repercussions. In 1951, under parliamentary privilege, anti-communist Australian Labor Party founder, Jack Mullens, accused Russo of “enthusiastic” bias in favor of the Chinese Communist regime and described him as a “notorious

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party-­ liner” (Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, vol 213, July 4, 1951: 906.). For journalists, such an accusation is damaging to professional reputation, and considered defamatory, had it not been protected by parliamentary privilege. In 1955, anticommunist Australian Labor Party member, William Bourke, again under parliamentary privilege, accused The Argus, specifically of bias: “the bias being brought about by the fact that it is dominated by a man named Peter Russo” (Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, vol 6, May 18, 1955: 864). And in 1956, Victorian anticommunist Labor party member, Frank Scully, openly accused Russo of Communist Party membership (Argus, Nov 9, 1956: 7, 9). And yet, as journalism historian, Prue Torney-Parlicki (2001) argues, Russo’s frequent criticisms of Western foreign policy did not necessarily indicate sympathy for communism, but rather contempt for those who interpreted Asian independence movements as communist-inspired, and formulated simplistic approaches to deal with the complex upheavals (Torney-Parlicki 2001: 119). In other words, Russo’s Larrikin-like tendency to champion the underdog and mock pomposity to create a space in public discourse where such information could be expressed freely, had resulted, consistently, in damaging attacks on his reputation. But this was an era of Cold War paranoia, and the relationship between Larrikinism’s egalitarianism and journalism’s Enlightenment-informed role, defying Mill’s ‘tyranny of the majority’, was widely interpreted as left-wing ideology and as having Communist sympathies. This interpretation was not helped when, in 1954, Australia experienced what has since been dubbed its own ‘McCarthyist show trial’; the Royal Commission on Espionage. In 1959, a husband and wife spy team, masquerading as diplomats in the Canberra Soviet embassy, very publicly and dramatically, defected. The fallout from what has since been dubbed The Petrov Affair split one of Australia’s major political parties, and sent it to the wilderness of Opposition for almost 20 years. But it also held implications for journalism and its stigma of left-leaning ideology for decades to come. The same day that Evdokia Petrov finally followed her husband, Vladimir, to defect, Prime Minister Menzies announced a Royal Commission into Soviet Espionage. Two key documents were submitted: Documents ‘H’ and ‘J.’ The fact that Document J was written by a prominent Australian communist journalist, Rupert Lockwood, didn’t help journalism’s ‘Red’ reputation. ‘J’ named three members of Labor

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Opposition leader, Herbert Evatt’s staff. Evatt himself fronted the Commission, accusing Menzies of personally orchestrating the whole Petrov affair to smear the Labor party and win the 1954 election—which, within such an anti-communist social environment, he did. After a series of outbursts, Evatt was told he no longer had leave to appear before the inquiry. The 1954 election loss, and Evatt’s behavior in the Commission, led to the split in the Labor party, and the 1955 formation of the Democratic Labor Party. Labor did not win another election until 1972. Meanwhile, document ‘H’ held even more significant implications for the micro-culture of journalism. It was written by former Sydney Morning Herald journalist and then-Evatt secretary of staff, Fegan O’Sullivan. It consisted of biographical portraits of members of the 1952 Press Gallery who, the document claimed, were sympathetic to the Communist cause and, even, receptive to working as Soviet agents. The document named 45 journalists, analyzing their personal appearances and relationships, drinking habits, religion, finances, and, significantly, supposed left-wing political-­leanings. The journalism community was outraged that a former colleague would betray so many. The Canberra AJA kicked O’Sullivan out of the union, and he quickly and quietly disappeared from Australian political life (Lloyd 1988: 178). In 1955, the Commission’s findings said the Petrov documents were genuine. However, because there was no existing Australian law under which to prosecute named persons, no actions were recommended. In 1984, when document ‘H’ was finally made public, its claims were found to be largely inaccurate, and based on gossip and rumor. But the damage had been done—there was now a whiff of ‘proof’ about journalists and their Communist sympathies, a powerful weapon to silence journalists who aspired to ‘push back that line’ toward a freer media. The most conspicuous case of this silencing tactic is in our already-­ recognized Larrikin, Wilfred Burchett. After witnessing the horror of the A-Bomb in Hiroshima, Burchett was convinced another war would result in global annihilation, an inevitable circumstance with Western journalism harnessed into—what he saw as—anti-communism fear-mongering. After his 1950 return to Australia and series of public speeches about the dangers of Menzies’ anti-communist bill, Burchett took up the offer from the left-wing French paper Ce Soir to cover negotiations in Korea (Shimmin 2003: 51). Leaving with one pair of underpants, Burchett expected the assignment to last for about two weeks. But such was the

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story’s apparent urgency that he was not to leave Korea for a further two-­ and-­a-half years (Bradbury 1980). The story would have easily tantalized Burchett. Five years earlier Japanese armies, according to postwar Soviet-American agreements, were disarmed north of the 38th parallel by Russia and south of the line by the US. Lengthy conferences had failed to unify the nation; neither the Soviets nor the Americans wanted to risk a unified Korea moving into the other’s camp. Effectively, Korea was set up as two separate states; in the South, every pro-communist group was eliminated, and in the North, every non-­ communist group was rendered impotent. When armed forces in Korea’s north crossed the 38th parallel on June 25, 1950, and the five-year-old United Nations asked its members to assist in repelling the North Korean attack under US command, Australia eagerly contributed No. 77 Squadron RAAF and the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment. Burchett, again defying both the ‘tyranny’ of his government, and the ‘tyranny’ of his nation’s ‘majority’, covered the belligerency from the Communist side. In doing so, he enjoyed the hospitality of his own country’s enemies. Although Burchett appears determined to report from a partisan point of view, he always refuted being a member of or provider of donations to a Communist or, indeed, any other political party (in Bradbury 1980). Burchett’s denials indicate that, at least in his own mind, his actions did not constitute propaganda, but merely fulfilled journalism’s Enlightenment-informed responsibility to free up the news media with alternative opinion, including that which is deemed as ‘wrong’ by the ‘tyranny of the majority’. But events were soon to make Burchett’s contention appear very weak. In July, 1951 Burchett, accompanied by the London Daily Worker’s Alan Winnington (1916–1983) and six Chinese journalists, arrived in Kaesong, where they were to cover the peace negotiations from the North Korean/Chinese side. In effect, they were to act as publicists for the communists on the peace talks and later in the germ warfare campaign. It is here that Burchett earned himself the label ‘traitor’. He was accused of fabricating a story about the US waging germ warfare against North Korea and China, and of brainwashing American and Australian POWs— accusations an Australian court would later find convincing (Perry 1988: 118), but of which Burchett biographer, Tom Heenan, could find no clear evidence in 2006 (Heenan 2006). As historian Jamie Miller argues, discreditation was an effective silencing tactic:

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The perception that Wilfred Burchett, as a communist agent, interrogated, brainwashed or tortured POWs, has been revealed through painstaking research to be one of the great myths of Australian history, a con pulled by Australian Governments on the public sphere of the day. (2008: 14)

Even so, given Burchett’s determination to report from the ‘enemy’ side, it is unsurprising that much research suggests he spent most of his career actively reporting from an ideologically biased point of view. Even Burchett’s most staunch defenders acknowledge his political leanings. When journalist Russell Spurr was asked to present evidence as a pro-­ Burchett witness in the 1974 trial, he described Burchett as “the last of the revolutionary romantics and true believers of the extreme left” (in Perry 1988). So incensed was Australia at Burchett’s pro-communist reportage that, in 1955, when he misplaced his passport, the government refused its reissue. In effect, Burchett was now exiled from, not only his home country, but also the rest of the Western world. Although the AJA lobbied both the Australian conservative government and the UN for the passport’s reinstatement (The Journalist, December, 1968: 4 & May 1969: 7), it was not until a Labor regime was next voted in, in 1972, that Burchett was again recognized as an Australian citizen. Burchett’s high-profile emotional innocence certainly added to growing perceptions about journalism and links with left-wing ideology. And yet we can see that 1950s’ journalism would combat the left of politics with equal amounts of Larrikin aggression as it did with the right, particularly if it meant ‘pushing back that line’ toward a freer news media. For example, the normally conservative Sydney Morning ‘Granny’ Herald’s open defiance of the state Labor government’s 1953 Disclosure of Allegations Bill suggests 1950s’ journalists were not as politically aligned as some would have us believe, particularly when it comes to confronting restrictions on freedom of the news media.

Disclosure of Allegations In December 1953, police raided the offices of senior editorial management in the imposing and impenetrable beaux-art Sydney Morning Herald building which, at the time, held court over Sydney’s CBD (Central Business District) at the corners of Pitt and Hunter Streets. Police were after paperwork that may have revealed the identities of two unnamed and

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disaffected Sydney City Council aldermen who, having a gutful of graft and corruption in the Labor-controlled local government municipality, had spoken to The Herald and were prepared, under judicial protection, to give evidence anonymously in a Royal Commission. At the time, The Herald was engaged in a rigorous battle with several other Sydney papers for evidence of State Labor Party graft and, based on the information of the two anonymous aldermen, had published the series of allegations of corruption within the council. The Attorney-General announced that if metropolitan papers did not “take steps” to “eliminate” the “journalistic lice that infested their locks,” Parliament would take measures to see that it was done. “Naturally,” said the then Sydney Morning Herald editor Douglas Pringle in his autobiography, “the journalistic lice redoubled their efforts” (Pringle 1973: 107). In response, the State Government publicly refused to hold the requested Royal Commission and, instead, gagged the Council by rushing through the Sydney City Council (Disclosure of Allegations) Bill through the Legislative Assembly. “No Royal Commission on City Graft Charges,” announced The Sydney Morning Herald’s Page 1 headline the next morning. “Instead it approved a Bill to require any person or body of persons to give police any information they may have about graft, bribery, or corruption involving aldermen or employees of the council,” the article continued. “Labor speakers made it clear that the object of the bill was to force the Press to divulge confidential sources of recent allegations about City Council corruption” (November 26, 1953: 1). On the afternoon the Bill received Royal Assent (the method by which the British monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, through an appointed governor acting on the monarch’s behalf), police visited Pringle’s elegant office in The Sydney Morning Herald building, asking him to name the paper’s municipal informants. The story goes that Pringle was given leave to consult Managing Director Rupert Henderson who, during the conversation, phoned his friend, Truth proprietor, Ezra Norton for advice: “Ezra says it’s simple,” reported Henderson after hanging up. “All we have to do is decide who goes to prison” (Pringle 1973: 109).

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There was no question of acquiescing to police demands for the names of anonymous sources. The next day, the stylish fourth-floor offices of Angus McLachlan— General Manager of Herald parent company, John Fairfax and Sons— were also raided, and the 35-year-old executive was ordered to disclose the names of the anonymous aldermen. McLachlan, channeling his inner Larrikin, refused, and later said he would start sleeping on a bare bench at home as a way of getting used to jail conditions (Pringle 1973: 109). Again, revealing the names of the anonymous aldermen never came up in the conversation. The Government promptly charged the Sydney Morning Herald under the Act, and the case was fixed for hearing in the Supreme Court, where McLachlan submitted an affidavit that, in less than 20 words, makes a clear link between Journalism, Larrikinism, and democratic freedoms: “I conceived it to be the duty of the newspaper … to bring and keep such matters before the public.” (In Farquharson n.d., Obituaries Australia, http://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/mclachlan-­angus-­henry-­1566/text1629, accessed 12 May 2020)

Concerns over the imposition the Bill held for freedom of the news media reached across both the nation and the globe. The hon. secretary of the Australia-New Zealand Civil Liberties Society, a Miss R.  Marmach, penned a stiffly worded letter to the NSW Premier, Joe Cahill, advising him of the committee’s “alarm” over the Bill: It is the committee’s opinion that this action by your government is a most serious infringement of our long-cherished freedom of the press, and contravenes the accepted right of the Press to withhold the source of information given in confidence in the public interest and in the interest of freedom of expression. (The Journalist, Feb 1954: 1)

In London, The Daily Mail described the Bill as a “monstrous attack on freedom,” rushed through by the “socialist Government” of NSW: “Let us be clear about the implications of this tyrannous move,” The Mail’s Page 1 editorial said. “If it gained hold and spread it would mean that no newspaper could expose scandals and abuses because no one would be willing to give it information.” (December 4, 1953: 1)

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In Munich, the Suddeutsche Zeitung’s leading article vigorously supported The Herald. Even in the land of the First Amendment, Colombia School of Journalism Professor of Libel Law, Douglas Hamilton, could understand what was at stake: Somebody must stand and refuse to reveal confidential sources even if it means putting himself in jeopardy of police brutality, he told the court. (in Farquharson n.d., Obituaries Australia, http://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/ mclachlan-­angus-­henry-­1566/text1629, accessed 12 May 2020)

“It was, I suppose,” says Pringle in his autobiography, “a minor compensation to find myself suddenly a hero of the world’s press” (Pringle 1973: 109). When the case came before the Supreme Court, Justice William Owen refused to make an order against The Sydney Morning Herald, on the grounds that, although the Act allowed the Government to pursue individuals, it could not proceed against a whole company. The Government, somewhat alarmed at the public uproar the Act had generated, allowed it to lapse and, four months after it was passed as law, was repealed. Although the “ill-considered” Act (as Pringle described it) never achieved its purpose, the ‘threads’ and ‘indications’ about the journalists it affected join those of Chap. 3 Maurice Brodzski and Frank McGuiness to continue ‘weaving’ our ‘memorial narrative’ web about journalism, Larrikinism, and freedom of the news media. Black Friday On January 19, 1957, those in Australia’s media, business, and political communities sat aghast as the Herald and Weekly Times announced the closure of one of the nation’s most solid, well-established news outlets. As The Journalist reported, The Argus fold-up was one of the “best kept secrets” in Melbourne for years (February, 1957: 1–3). The paper’s owning company, the British Mirror Group, had sold its assets to the Herald and Weekly Times. Building, machines, commercial job printing, three country radio stations, shares in television station, GTV9, and two magazines, along with the masthead. Herald and Weekly Times bought the lot. Then promptly closed the lot. The Journalist indicated the grave implications to freedom of the news media in Australia by naming the day the decision was made as “Black Friday” (February, 1957: 1). The Journalist’s headline was certainly not

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denoting the Thanksgiving celebrations with which the US connects the term ‘Black Friday.’ On the contrary. The headline was reflecting the shock and bewilderment of the journalism community that one of the nation’s most politically-influential newspaper outlets could possibly close down—just like that. The immediate threat was to the 139 newspaper workers who suddenly found themselves out of work. But The Journalist soon started speculating about the longer term threat—that to Australia’s rapidly shrinking media diversity. No extensive discussion on the implications the now alarming rapid reduction in ownership had, until now, been seen in the pages of The Journalist. We know today, of course, how serious concentration of media ownership can be, not only to the diversity of voices made public, but also to journalistic freedom. But back in the 1950s, the journalism industry appeared to be just starting to face the implications of such dilemmas. There had been some rumblings about calling for provisions in industrial law to protect journalists from being sacked if they refused to write as their employer asked, as well as establishing a ‘Press Council’ that could go some way toward pressuring proprietors into ensuring their papers held no bias. Throughout 1957, the threat of media monopolies had clearly risen in the micro-­ culture’s consciousness with the Argus’ closure: Merging of newspaper interests and closing down of newspapers constitutes a threat to the full-interplay of opinion and criticism which is the basis of democracy, the Journalist editorialized. The closing of newspapers and the merging of others is a trend towards monopoly and serious threat to the whole industry. (Feb 1957: 7)

At the 1957 Arthur Smith Memorial Lecture, our Sydney Morning Herald editor Douglas Pringle warned of the dangers: The danger, as you have recently seen in Melbourne, is that big papers will continue to get bigger and that small papers will eventually be devoured. (July 1957, University of Melbourne)

What The Journalist could not foresee was how this “trend” was to increase, even as the 1956 arrival of television diversified the number of outlets for journalism in Australia. From the 1950s to the digital revolution of the late 1990s, the Larrikin-journalist would not only be battling for independence from government legislation and prevailing public opinion, but also for independence from increasingly powerful media proprietors.

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Rupert, Larrikin-Journalism, and Freedom of the News Media So it seems somewhat strange then, that our next yarn about journalism, Larrikinism, and freedom of the news media involves one of the most powerful news media owners. Rupert Murdoch has earned the epitaph, “Dirty Digger,” a nickname he acquired after publishing the Christine Keeler memoirs in The News of the World in 1968. Like his father (the same Sir Keith from Chap. 3), Rupert Murdoch has been accused of manipulating journalism for his own political power and commercial ambitions. In 1986, Murdoch supported Thatcher’s political and economic program, which included reducing the power of trade unionism. He thought that the Thatcher regime would enable him to expand his media empire. The result was 12 years of Thatcher austerity, and the beginnings of a new, aggressive British tabloid tradition, the citadel of which Murdoch assembled in the ‘Wapping Fortress.’ The National Union of Journalists had members there, but the union was de-recognized. The print unions (NGA and NATSOPA) were expelled, and the machinery was set up and run by the EETPU, which had entered into a no-strike agreement. Murdoch’s tabloid-style news—a strange mix of conservatism, sensationalism, sex, and sport—now dominates his global media assets, including news, book publishing, and film production. Alarm over the creeping influence Murdoch soon held over journalistic micro-culture and practice climaxed in 2011, when he was hauled in front of the Leveson Parliamentary Committee, investigating journalism ethics in general, and particularly how Murdoch’s News of the World employees could have thought that hacking a dead teenager’s phone—allowing her parents believe her still alive—was an acceptable news-gathering technique. It was, according to Murdoch, the “most humble day” of his career. But to everyone else, it was retribution for decades-worth of dragging journalism into the gutter. No. It’s been a long time since anyone has linked Murdoch to anything as noble as journalistic independence. But, again, like his father, to focus on the “Dirty Digger” caricature negates Murdoch’s status as a significant ‘thread’ that contributes to the ‘web’ we are weaving about Larrikinism, journalism, and freedom of the news media in Australia. In 1953, Murdoch was a young 22-year-old firebrand media publisher, who had inherited his father’s only solely owned media asset, the then modest Adelaide News. Murdoch had also inherited a self-confessed “fairly volcanic” editor, Rohan Rivett (Inglis n.d., https://halloffame.

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melbournepressclub.com/article/rohan-­rivett, accessed May 12, 2020), whose story—in this instance—is inextricably interconnected with that of Murdoch. In 1959, a young Indigenous man, Max Stuart, had been found guilty of the murder and rape of a nine-year-old girl in the isolated beachside community of Ceduna in South Australia. Stuart was sentenced to death by hanging. He had been convicted on the evidence of his initial confession that a linguist would later testify could not have been his, simply because its words and sentence-structure were inconsistent with the Indigenous dialect Stuart spoke. The case went to appeal—twice—and was rejected—twice. Eventually the appeal went to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London—and was rejected—again (Inglis 2002). The Stuart case had great impact on Australian race relations, judicial procedures, and official recognition of the disadvantages Indigenous people face, in general, and in particular, before the courts. But it is with the role of a Larrikin publisher, and his Larrikin editor, in this case that we are most concerned. Stuart’s execution was imminent on six occasions. And on six occasions it was postponed. But, as Justice Michael Kirby said in a 2002 public lecture, these delays were not a result of any court action: It was to the media, to journalists … and an ambitious young media proprietor … who took the case up and went into battle for Max Stuart. Murdoch’s news presented doubts about the evidence. (in Robertson, G. et al. 2009)

All major Australian news outlets were reporting the case; the public mood was both emotional and divided. And it was about to become even more so after The Sydney Morning Herald correspondent in Adelaide published an interview with the priest who was to walk the condemned man to the gallows. Father Tom Dixon had been counseling Stuart while he waited for the noose. Dixon had spent time with Indigenous populations in the Northern Territory, and could speak with Stuart in his first language. Dixon became increasingly concerned that the man waiting for the gallows was not the man who had committed the crime. Dixon claimed several anomalies in the evidence used to convict Stuart; the confession, its expression and structure, was inconsistent with his native Arunta language; key witnesses—the owners of a funfair where Stuart was working on the day of the murder—had not been interviewed. In other words, Dixon was claiming a miscarriage of justice.

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As Stuart’s solicitors flew to London to appeal to the Privy Council, Dixon packed for a journey to Queensland in search of the missing witnesses—a Brisbane newspaper executive had contacted him to say that the funfair had turned up in Cairns. Dixon assumed the Queensland paper would pay his fare. But just as he was about to board the plane, and phoned to say he was ready to leave, he was told there had been a terrible misunderstanding, and the Brisbane paper felt it not appropriate to get involved in a judicial procedure. At the eleventh hour, Adelaide News editor Rohan Rivett agreed to bankroll Dixon’s flight to Queensland (Inglis 2002: 67–69). Whether The News was right to become so entwined with the Stuart case has concerned the legal and journalistic worlds ever since. Although, because The News was not conjecturing on the innocence or otherwise of Stuart, there was never any question of contempt. And yet it was almost as if The News had taken over as defense counsel. Either way, the proprietor and his editor were now exhibiting almost all of our Larrikin characteristics—skirting the periphery of legality, taking on the authority of the state’s judiciary and government, as well as challenging elitist assumptions about race (at the time Indigenous people weren’t included in the national census)—in order to champion the cause of a member of one of the most disenfranchised groups in Australian history. In an editorial published five days later, Rivett justified his decision: Father Dixon said he wanted a chance to search Queensland to find people who might afford him the proofs of Stuart’s innocence. The News thought it was a poor thing that a man should hang in the South Australia of 1959 just because no one would put up a few hundred pounds to investigate the possibility of his being innocent. (in Inglis 2002: 70)

It was true campaigning journalism that expressed the all Larrikin traditions of journalism’s antecedents. Of course, as historian Ken Inglis points out, The News, “no doubt,” thought it was onto a “good story” (Inglis 2002: 70). So much so that the paper sent its police roundsman with “Mr Jones” (alias for Father Dixon) to report on the search. The story certainly triggered skyrocketing circulation figures for The News, which only continued in upward trajectory when “Mr Jones” returned victorious with affidavits that put Stuart working at the funfair during the hours that the murder was said to have occurred (Inglis 2002: 71–72).

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The fresh evidence resulted in a renewed petition demanding the case be reopened, as well as a petition demanding the death sentence be carried out immediately. Stuart dominated The News’ correspondence pages, and its editorials insisted on a Royal Commission. No one quite knows why South Australian Premier, Thomas Playford, chose to appoint Sir Mellis Napier and Mr. Justice Reed as two of the three judges to preside over the Royal Commission. It was perhaps, because he wanted membership limited to South Australian denizens. The problem, however, was that this then limited the names eligible to sit on the Commission. What concerned many—including The News—was that Sir Mellis had also presided over the hearing of Stuart’s appeal, and Justice Reed was his original trial judge. On July 31, the below cartoon by Norm Mitchell appeared alongside an editorial proclaiming: “There’s Still and Long Way to Go,” demonstrating just how unsatisfactory The News found the situation. On the first day, the obvious conflict of interest caused defending barrister Jack Shand to walk out of the hearings in protest (Fig. 5.1). And this is where Messers Rivett and Murdoch had to draw on journalism’s inherited Larrikin characteristics to ensure that significance of the Commission’s “astonishing”—in Justice Kirby’s words—composition was made free to the public (in Robertson, G. et al. 2009). The News reported Shand’s withdrawal with posters and headlines which the government would later accuse of being not only libelous, but also seditious. A poster on the streets before noon on August 21 said: SHAND QUITS “YOU WON’T GIVE STUART A FAIR GO”

A later poster said: COMMISSION BREAKS UP SHAND BLASTS NAPIER

The front page headline on all editions was: Mr Shand QC indicts Sir Mellis Napier “THESE COMMISSIONERS CANNOT DO THE JOB”. (The Adelaide News, August 21, 1959)

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Fig. 5.1  Adelaide News cartoonist Norman Mitchell’s take on the Stuart trial. (Courtesy of Mitchell Estate and AIATSIS)

According to the summons the headlines suggested that “the Chief Justice and judges were biased and unfair in carrying out their duties as Royal Commissioners … and that they were unfitted for judicial office.” The Adelaide News and Rivett were charged with nine counts of libel each on January 19, 1960. This meant they received a total of 18 writs, not only for criminal libel, but also for the rarely used, but more serious,

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seditious libel. If we look at the definition of seditious libel, this meant that the paper and its editor were accused of: “An intention to bring into hatred or contempt, or to excite disaffection against”—among other things—“the administration of justice.” (in Inglis 2002: 279)

In response, Murdoch himself penned the next editorial, which read: The News has AT NO TIME alleged any crime by any member of the government, the Supreme Court, or even the South Australian Police. However, we conceive it as our duty to report all statements in such an important matter … We never claimed that [the accused] is innocent merely that he must be shown to be guilty beyond all doubt before being hanged. The News sees it as its duty to fight always not only for justice to be done but for justice to appear to be done. WE MAINTAIN THIS STAND AND WILL CONTINUE, WITH PRIDE, TO FIGHT FOR THIS IDEA. (in The Adelaide Advertiser, ‘Editorial’, January 20, 1960)

The jury found the accused not guilty of eight of the charges and were undecided on the ninth. Rivett, a former Prisoner of War of Japan on the infamous Burma railway, would later say he found the three months he was on bail while a decision on the ninth charge “grim” (Rivett, interviewed by Hazel De Berg, October 10, 1971, National Library of Australia, bib ID: 613383, Hazel de Berg collection, DeB 544–545). On June 6, 1960, the charge was withdrawn. The Royal Commission upheld Stuart’s guilty verdict, but his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. He served 14 years before applying for parole, after which he became an Arrernte elder in the Northern Territory, and would later fulfill such roles as officially welcoming the Queen. We could argue that the young Murdoch was a Larrikin rabble-rouser, who stood by his editor, campaigning on behalf of the disenfranchised and downtrodden. However, two months after Rivett’s trial, Murdoch gave him his marching orders (albeit with a generous payout). In a 1971 interview, Rivett said he wasn’t surprised when he received his notice, and he felt the breach between himself and Murdoch had been “growing” (Rivett, interviewed by Hazel De Berg, October 10, 1971, National Library of Australia, bib ID: 613383, Hazel de Berg collection, DeB 544–545). But according to Inglis, Murdoch was “certainly unhappy” with some of

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Rivett’s editorial decisions, which had begun to upset some political allies (Inglis n.d., www.halloffame.melbournepressclub.com/article/rohan-­ rivett, accessed May 12, 2020). The 1950s was intensely conservative in both Australia’s political and social spheres. As Schultz comments: Even the popular press was conservative in outlook, and much of the journalism produced constrained by a commitment to reporting the pronouncements of prominent men with little space provided for context, background or comment. (in Cunningham and Turner 2002: 106)

And yet, within the micro-culture of journalism itself, there remained undercurrents of rebellion against the status quo, particularly when it affected freedom of the news media. As we shall see, these rumblings were to erupt into a volcanic roar as journalism joined the massive campaign for a decade of change. With Larrikinism infiltrating into the wider media culture, the 1960s and 1970s would see a new type of journalistic micro-­ culture emerge as Australia headed toward the twenty-first century.

Bibliography The Argus. (1956, November 9). Communist Fifth Column in Croydon, 7, 9. Bradbury, D. (1980). Public Enemy Number One: A Biography of Wilfred Burchett (Video Recording) Cinesound, BTQ7, Negative Cutting Services: Sydney, Ronan Films (Distributor), Civic Square, Canberra. Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, vol 213. (1951, July 4). p. 906. Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, vol 6. (1955, May 18). p. 864. Cunningham, S., & Turner, G. (2002). The Media and Communication in Australia. Crows Nest: Allen and Unwin. The Daily Mail. (1953, December 4). Freedom is Shrieking, 1 Farquharson, J.. (n.d.). McLachlan, Angus Henry (1908–1996). Obituaries Australia, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. Retrieved May 12, 2020, from http://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/mclachlan-­ angus-­henry-­1566/text1629. Heenan, T. (2006). From Traveler to Traitor: The Life of Wilfred Burchett. Carlton: Melbourne University Press. Inglis, K. (2002). The Stuart Case. Melbourne: Black Inc.

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Inglis, K.  B. (n.d.) Rohan Rivett in The Melbourne Press Club Hall of Fame. Retrieved May 12, 2020, from https://halloffame.melbournepressclub.com/ article/rohan-­rivett. The Journalist. (1954, February). Title Unknown, 1. The Journalist. (1957, February). Black Friday, 1–3. The Journalist. (1968, December) Government Refuses Issue of Passport— AJA Fight, 4. The Journalist. (1969, May). Stop Press. The Burchett Case, 7 Knightley, P. (1997). A Hack’s Progress. London: Jonathon Cape Ltd. Lloyd, C.  J. (1988). Parliament and the Press: The Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery, 1901–1988. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. McNicoll, D. (1979). Luck’s a Fortune. Sydney: Wildcat Press. Meanjin. (1957, March). Vol 16, No 1, p. 94. Miller, J. (2008, September). Once We Were Warriors: Wilfred Burchett and Robert Mann and the Forgotten History War. The New Critic, Issue 8, pp. 1–32. Murdoch, R. (1960, January 20). The Adelaide Advertiser, ‘Editorial’. Perry, R. (1988). The Exile: Burchett, Reporter of Conflict, William Heinemann, Richmond. Pilger, J. (1986). Heroes. London: Jonathon Cape Ltd. Pringle, D. (1957). Arthur Smith Memorial Lecture. Melbourne University. Pringle, J. D. (1973). Have Pen: Will Travel. London: Chatto & Windus. Rivett, R., & De Berg, H. (1971). Rohan Rivett Interviewed by Hazel de Berg for the Hazel de Berg Collection. Retrieved May 6, 2020, from http://nla.gov. au/nla.obj-­220869210 (courtesy of the National Library of Australia). Robertson, G., Kirby, M., Leake, H., Lahiff, C., & Lahiff, S. (2009). Duo Art Productions, and Law Foundation of South Australia. Politics, Power, Justice and the Media Controversies from the Stuart Case: Extracts from a Seminar Held at Elder Hall, University of Adelaide on 1 April 2006. Kent Town, S. Aust.]: Duo Art Productions in Association with Law Foundation of South Australia and South Australian Film Corporation, Print. Shimmin, N. (Ed.). (2003). Rebel Journalism: The Writings of Wilfred Burchett. New York: Cambridge University Press. Sydney Morning Herald. (1953, November 26). No Royal Commission on City Graft Charges, 1. Torney-Parlicki, P. (2001). That Luminous Mind: Peter Russo and The Argus, 1946–1957. In M.  Porter (Ed.), The Argus: The Life and Death of a Great Newspaper, 1846–1957. Melbourne: RMIT University.

CHAPTER 6

Larrikin-Journalists: The Swinging Students (1960–1975)

Australian journalism stormed into the 1960s with a healthy rage against the widespread social and political conservatism that had been in place since the 1949 re-election of Menzies—or the “archest of arch conservatives,” in the words of journalism elder Mungo MacCallum (2001). Perceiving this “arch conservatism” as a threat to freedom of the news media, journalism appears to have cultivated its new-found consciousness in the Larrikin’s instinctive habit of ‘taking the piss’ out of pomposity and increasingly developed it into sophisticated professional technique to ‘push back that line’ toward a freer news media. ‘Taking the piss’ was not a new journalistic trait. But during the 1960s and 1970s, its use escalated as the nation emerged from possibly its most conservative era. As then student journalist, Richard Neville said in his autobiography, journalism was developing a consciousness that deliberately went out of its way to ‘take the piss’: In Australia one was responding satirically to the daily diet of pomposity, intolerance and suicidal idiocy, employing, like most satirists, a frame of reference obvious and acceptable to all. (Neville 1970: 139)

Satire’s presence was fast-developing in Australia’s wider media macro-­ culture. The Mavis Bramston Show, Barry Humphries, and of course the irreverent Graham Kennedy contributed to the wider growing momentum of a satirical sensibility in the 1960s. As MacCallum perceptively © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Vine, Larrikins, Rebels and Journalistic Freedom in Australia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61856-8_6

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points out, after “decades of conforming to the most wowserish standards in the English speaking world,” the Australian media was “finally” starting to have a “cautious go” (2001: 106). This “cautious go” was, arguably, conceived in Australia’s alternative student news media, particularly those based in Sydney—Honi Soit, Tharunka, and their later incarnation, Oz. These publications’ youth editors were operating in a climate of over-zealous censorship. Under Australia’s Constitution, the conservative federal government held power over imported publications and broadcasts, while locally produced material was (still is) under State Government jurisdiction. So censorship of Australian journalism varied from state to state. But with conservatism dominating both state and federal spheres of political and social authority, both imported and locally produced material—including journalistic material—was closely monitored for ‘immoral’ influence. Even high-­ literature was not immune: James Baldwin’s 1962 Another Country and William Burroughs’ 1959 The Naked Lunch were among the 15,000 odd titles banned until the early 1970s (Moore 2012). In other words, censorship was emerging as one of the most controversial issues of the decade. And in this environment, it would be the offense of ‘obscenity’ that would become the battleground for freedom of the news media. Oz magazine, founded by former Sydney University students, Richard Neville, Richard Walsh, and Peter Grose, may have appeared to be nothing but a small alternative undergraduate publication when it debuted— perhaps appropriately—on April Fool’s Day, 1963. But its incisive wit, combined with solid news-sense, soon gave it a national profile and popularity—at its height Oz was selling up to 40,000 copies from street corner vendors and specialist bookshops. Naturally, this also attracted the attention of government regulators. At the time, outward displays of sexual exhibitionism had become synonymous with the fight against censorship in general. As University of New South Wales student activist and Tharunka editor Wendy Bacon said in the Monash University student newspaper Lot’s Wife, after being jailed for obscenity in 1971: I … see printing pornography as a just protest in itself … providing pornography is banned, or that it really freaks politicians right out, I’m going to be really keen to keep doing it. (March 18, 1971)

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This was written after Bacon, classically Larrikin, had appeared in court, dressed as a nun, with the slogan: ‘I have been f*cked by God’s steel pr*ck’, headlined across her chest. Bacon was sentenced to a week’s imprisonment in Mulawa Women’s Prison for exhibiting an ‘obscene publication’ with a tendency to ‘deprave and corrupt’. Given that the weapon to defy censorship was now sexual exhibitionism, Oz magazine was determined to make provocative use of explicit words and images. Using the heady combination of nudity and satire, Oz dealt with, not only censorship, but also police brutality, the White Australia Policy, and Indigenous issues. Oz’s messages were umbrellaed by ‘taking the piss’ out of symbols of respectability—up to and including the Prime Minister and the Royal family—deliberately inviting the ire of established society and legislation. The very first issue attracted obscenity charges—it appears the NSW police found the history of the chastity belt and the subject of abortion too provocative to ignore. The three editors were advised to plead guilty— theoretically, as first offenders, this would allow their conviction to go unrecorded. This, of course, didn’t happen—the magistrate EJ Gibson fined each editor 20 pounds, and convictions—according to Neville’s autobiography—were “gleefully” recorded (1995: 31). So when the second lot of charges were inevitably laid just months later (Larrikins just can’t help themselves), Oz appeared in court as a repeat offender. The second lot of charges for ‘obscenity’ came when Oz art director, Martin Sharp, contributed a parodic verse of a northern beaches party. Sharp had previously been prosecuted on the same charge over a cartoon in the student magazine, Tharunka, so he knew the risks. But classically Larrikin, he could not help ‘pushing back that line’ a second, and third, time around. This time with verse. Even by 1960s standards, Sharp’s poem, ‘The Word Flashed Around the Arms’, is quite innocuous. But it is also ‘takes the piss’ out of Sydney high-society, and the discrepancy between its outward show of respectability, and private shows of debauchery. So arguably, ‘The Word Flashed Around the Arms’ was used as a scapegoat for everything polite Australian society was not prepared to tolerate. To help solidify its charge, the NSW police department also found a front page photograph offensive enough to take to court. The image depicts Neville, and two friends, urinating in an elegant water feature (recently opened by Prime Minister Menzies himself) at the front of the

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P&O Shipping Line: “For the convenience of passers-by,” read the caption, “and, despite a nominal charge, you don’t need to pay immediately: Just P&O.” (Fig. 6.1). Neville, Walsh, and Sharp were found guilty of a “tendency to deprave, corrupt or injure” national morals” (Neville 1995: 37). Neville and Walsh were sentenced to six months’ jail with hard labor and Sharp to four months. All three were released on bail pending an appeal, and were eventually acquitted. Despite the drawn out court case, Neville, Walsh, and Sharp defiantly continued producing their magazine. But in a 2020 interview, Walsh says the three never deliberately courted legal action. The editors were merely trying to produce something that was “lively enough” for people to want to read. “We were being provocative because we wanted people to buy it,” Walsh recalls. “But we were poking fun at systems that were very corrupt at the time, a lot of very respectable people were crooks, and the trial happened because the powers that be wanted to crush us … Oz was beginning to nibble away politically.”

The effect was to establish Oz as a significant ‘thread’ in the web we are weaving about journalism, Larrikinism, and their relationship to freedom of the news media in Australia. As MacCallum recalled years later, Oz had significant impact on the both the macro- and micro-cultural spheres. MacCallum describes the obscenity trial as a “watershed case,” with a “serious backlash” in favor of the student editors, “even from the establishment media,” who were “sufficiently far-sighted” to realize the “antediluvian laws” might threaten their own interests if pursued to their “logical conclusion” (MacCallum 2001: 106). The alternative student press can be seen as the cradle for the new up-­ and-­coming major mastheads of the 1970s. With increasingly sophisticated audiences, there was an emerging market for clever, politically astute, and, above all, (over?) confident publications that would laugh in the face of restrictions on their freedom. Because of journalism’s competitive nature, this attitude would quickly spread throughout Australia’s newsrooms. One of the first of these, Nation Review, was actually conceived in 1958, when maverick financial journalist, Tom Fitzgerald, threatened to resign from Fairfax’s Sydney Morning Herald to start his own—independent—publication. The Fairfax board panicked and, despite the significant headaches Fitzgerald had caused—according to the Melbourne Press

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Fig. 6.1  Oz front page that was found obscene (Courtesy of Richard Walsh)

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Club, Fitzgerald “interrupted” Fairfax’s “cosy relationship” with the banks through his journalism—allowed him to keep his job as well as launch Nation with business partner, George Munster. The pair unleashed the careers of a “dazzling group of writers,” including Robert Hughes, Ken Inglis, Maxwell Newton, and Cyril Pearl (Mitchell, https://halloffame.melbournepressclub.com/article/tom-­fitzgerald, accessed May 15, 2020). Names that would reverberate through the next generation of Australian journalism micro-culture. In 1970, independent publisher Gordon Barton purchased Nation and merged it with his own Sunday Review journal. The new Nation Review took on a ferret as its emblem—“lean and nosey”—a symbol of audacity, aggression and, just like the Larrikin, no respect for authority (Fig. 6.2). Under the editorship of our previous Oz Larrikin, Richard Walsh, the merger created a publication that—as scholar David Olds suggests— brought the concept of the alternative press to a broad, mainstream audience: Tom Fitzgerald and George Munster had established Nation as a credible, authoritative source of ideas and comment, although circulation tended to be limited to a contained audience of professionals, experts and intellectuals. For its part, The Review had a respectable circulation, and had penetrated to a larger, more broadly disparate audience, and, although something of a larrikin presence, it had nonetheless earned a reputation for incisive journalism, as well as a strong reach into the arts. (Olds 2015: 73)

In a 2020 interview, our already familiar Larrikin and Nation Review journalist, Mungo MacCallum said the magazine built its success on a reputation for deliberately breaching legality to demonstrate its own freedom: “It was almost part of the job description,” he said. And we can see MacCallum’s point in the below cartoon Michael Leunig drew for The Nation Review’s first anniversary—note the image of Richard Walsh rushing through the newsroom to deal with a writ, as if it’s part of the everyday newsroom rhythm (Fig. 6.3). Author John McLaren suggests Nation Review’s status as a Larrikin link within journalism culture: It consciously adopted the role of an alternative press, publishing news that others ignored and cultivating a brash larrikin style of writing that bruised many

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Fig. 6.2  Nation Review’s ferret (Courtesy of Michael Leunig)

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Fig. 6.3  Nation Review’s first anniversary front page (Courtesy of Michael Leunig) sensitivities but also recalled some of the older traditions of Australian journalism. (1981: 249–250)

According to Walsh in a 2020 interview with the author, those “bruised sensitivities” resulted in between 50 and 100 stop-writs during his 1971–1978 editorship. But only one, reached court, demonstrating how stop-writs could be widely used to restrain freedom of the news media:

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“The idea was never to sue us,” Walsh said. “It was just to stop us from publishing a story now, or at any time in the future. The purpose of stopwrits was to shut us up.”

But one did go to court. All the way to the High Court. And this one can be seen as watershed case for what became known as the Public Figure Test. In 1971, former Labor opposition leader Arthur Calwell sued Nation Review for defamation. Calwell’s reputation was apparently brought into “hatred, contempt” and “ridicule” by an April 25 piece that suggested he, and other party members, had formed a small cabal that was clandestinely working against the new opposition leader, Gough Whitlam, and the left-­ wing Australian Labor Party’s socialist policies: Far from being a grand old conscience, they have deteriorated into a narrow and embittered gerontocracy, whose actions seem motivated by almost anything except the desire to enhance the party’s electoral prospects.

MacCallum wrote under the headline, ‘We that are Left shall not grow old’. This, then, is the grand old conscience of the Left. The government claims to admire them: the government would be mad not to, after they have helped keep it in power for 21 years. (Nation ‘Sunday’ Review, April 25, 1971)

The tone is aggressive and drips with mockery. And the High Court of Australia did, indeed, find the Review had defamed Calwell. However, Justices Barwick, Gibbs, Stephen, Mason, and Jacobs dismissed the case, effectively on the grounds that public figures such as Calwell, should expect that their position, by its very nature, would attract negative comment in the news media. The plaintiff’s stature in political life of this country was such as to make the disclosure of this information a matter of public interest and importance … In short it is a typical exercise in political journalism, written in a fashion intended to attract the attention of the reader, blunt rather than subtle in style, Judge Mason said. (Calwell v. IPEC Australia Ltd. [1975] HCA 47; (1975) 135 CLR321 (October 29, 1975))

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Although Nation Review won the case, as Walsh said, it was somewhat of a hollow victory. Because Calwell died soon after the finding, the only way to retrieve costs was to sue his estate—something, according to Walsh, Nation Review was reluctant to do. It seems the Larrikin’s defiance and aggression is tempered somewhat with compassion. But the case did stimulate concern and debate over whether public figures, because of the public role they play, should have a different position from private citizens in defamation cases. Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, journalists became optimistic about the introduction of a ‘public figure test’ as state attorney generals included the concept in their discussions about defamation law reform. The problem was, however, that there was no “satisfactory” way of specifying what persons would fall within the ‘public figure’ category (in Cole-Adams 1990). At the time of writing, Australia still has no ‘public figure’ defense to defamation actions. But at least discussions are continuing, born from Nation Review’s Larrikin defiance in the 1975 Calwell case. Nation Review can be seen as straddling the gap between the alternative student press and the mainstream news media; a metaphorical ‘bridge’ over which mockery as a professional practice, as means of ‘pushing back that line’ toward a freer news media, was crossing. A symbol of this can be seen in Nation Review’s ‘Ferret Watch’—a regular critique of the Australian media—the concept of which the long-running ABCTV production, ‘Media Watch’ appears to be based (at the time of writing, Media Watch continues to exist as an important vehicle of micro-cultural conversation). Within six months of the Nation Review’s launch, Fairfax launched a very similar weekend paper, The National Times (more on this publication later) and, around the same time, the latest mainstream daily, Murdoch’s Australian newspaper, debuted its Sunday Australian. As Walsh says: Suddenly we showed there was a market; people wanted to read something more substantial, something more thoughtful and analytical, and other papers had to follow suit.

If we think about journalism’s inherently competitive nature, and how when one media outlet succeeds with a certain technique, then others are compelled to follow, we can see how ‘taking the piss’ quickly spread, and developed as a sophisticated professional practice throughout 1960s’ and 1970s’ journalism micro-culture. But not only was this a new motivation

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for political and social authority to restrain the news media, it also pushed proprietors to put brakes on their own journalists.

The Australian When the country’s first mainstream national newspaper, The Australian, was launched in 1964, it was not only groundbreaking in terms of its ambition to hit family breakfast tables every single morning (a logistical nightmare given Australia’s ‘tyranny of distance’), but also in its style, layout, politics, journalists, and—significantly—use of satire. As MacCallum recalls in his autobiography, even its cartoonists and comic strips “seemed to have come from a brave new world” (2001: 107). After a rocky start with the maverick Max Newton, then Walter Kommer as editors, Adrian Deamer took over the reins in 1969 and, according to the Melbourne Press Club Hall of Fame, brought The Australian from “the edge of failure” and transformed it into an “exciting, innovative newspaper” that could claim to be “the best” in the country (Armstrong, https://halloffame.melbournepressclub.com/article/adrian-­deamer, accessed May 12, 2020). Deamer staffed his newsroom with young, up-­ and-­coming journalists—including many female journalists, such as Jane Perlez, Janet Hawley, and Daniela Torsh—and employed the first indigenous reporter on a mainstream daily, John Newfong (Armstrong, https:// halloffame.melbournepressclub.com/article/adrian-­deamer, accessed May 15, 2020). Deamer’s enthusiastic use of Larrikin satirists to ‘take the piss’ out of the politics of the day made The Australian stand out. Not only did Deamer bring on a new wave of pioneering cartoonists such as Bruce Petty, but he also encouraged satirists of the written word to have their nonconformist freedom. The big names of Australian journalistic satire emerged from these pages: Phillip Adams, Ray Taylor, and our self-­ confessed “smartarse,” Mungo MacCallum,1 whose weekly satirical column, ‘The Morning After’, generated regular political fallout:

1  Coincidently, Mungo MacCallum, a contemporary antiauthoritarian, nonconformist Larrikin, also happens to be the great-great-grandson of one of Australia’s first Larrikinjournalists: The Australian’s William Wentworth (MacCallum 2001: 1). It is tempting to see this link between the contemporary MacCallum and the colonial Wentworth as symbolic of a more general Larrikin genealogy within Australian journalism history.

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I used it increasingly to take the piss out of the government in general, and the Prime Minister in particular. Murdoch continually asked Deamer to pull the column. Deamer replied spiritedly that he would not indulge in political censorship. (MacCallum 2001: 159)

The Australian took the piss out of all major concerns of the 1960s: censorship; the White Australia Policy; involvement in Vietnam; Indigenous issues. The Op-Ed sections provided a more serious partner to its satire, demonstrating Deamer’s progressive ideas about feminism, international relations, colonialism, and race-relations. However, although popular with the paper’s readership—or the “thinking men and women of Australia”—Deamer’s stance was, according to biographer, Denis Cryle, a “source of regular tension with [proprietor, Rupert] Murdoch” (2008: 174). According to former colleague, David Armstrong, Deamer’s micro-­ culturally significant innovations were always in defiance of Murdoch’s increasingly interventionist style: Rupert Murdoch had a way of trying to dominate editors. He would pick up copies of their paper, point to different stories, and insist on knowing about them in detail … The tactic did not work with Adrian Deamer …. When Murdoch used it on Deamer, he did not get the answers he wanted. ‘Christ, Rupert,’ Deamer would say. ‘I don’t know. If you stick around while we’re getting the paper out, you’ll find out that kind of thing.’ Deamer was tough, defiant and independent. He was courageous—and undiplomatic.2 (Armstrong, https://halloffame.melbournepressclub.com/article/adrian-­d eamer, accessed May 15, 2020)

In the end, of course, Deamer’s iconoclasm was sacrificed on the altar of journalistic freedom. And it was Deamer’s belief in ‘taking the piss’ as a journalistic practice that precipitated the final encounter. In 1970, Murdoch ordered Deamer to sack satirists Phillip Adams and Ray Taylor and restrict cartoonist Bruce Petty. According to Armstrong, Deamer was “shattered.” So when the irreconcilable clash came during the highly controversial 1971 Springbok tour, Deamer, quite possibly, had just had enough. Symbolizing apartheid’s racism and oppression, the South African rugby team roused violent public protest, the intensity of which was only matched by the Vietnam moratoriums. When unions imposed a travel 2  Deamer once claimed Murdoch would complain The Australian stood for everything he opposed, and opposed everything he stood for.

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ban, Menzies’ successor, Prime Minister Billy McMahon offered the team RAAF planes. On June 25, The Australian’s front-page editorial reported: “Cynical use of RAAF by McMahon” and accused him of being “not fit to lead the government of this country.” According to Armstrong, Murdoch was “furious,” and flew from London to Sydney to tell Deamer: “You’re not producing the sort of paper I want” (Armstrong, https://halloffame. melbournepressclub.com/article/adrian-­deamer, accessed May 15, 2020). Murdoch offered Deamer any job he wanted in News—except the editorship. Deamer declined the offer, but was, apparently, determined to leave in a blaze of glory, rather than a small snuff of triumph. According to Cryle, Deamer was “at pains” to deny rumors he had quietly resigned, and resolutely claimed he had been sacked after refusing another position with Murdoch as boss (2008: 196). Today, The Australian is a firmly established news product. But it was never founded for profit—distributions costs (by plane to Melbourne and Sydney, then trucked to other capital cities) alone sapped that! In hindsight we can see that The Australian was created to be Murdoch’s personal political instrument. This means Deamer spins twin threads in the web we are weaving about Larrikinism, journalism, and freedom of the news media: First, it was Deamer’s belief in ‘taking the piss’ as a journalistic practice that triggered the final showdown; second, it was Deamer’s defiance of Murdoch, and the harnessing of journalism to fulfill proprietorial ambition for political power, that ended the very successful editorship. Deamer’s contribution to journalism’s micro-cultural ‘memorial narrative’ is demonstrated in his status in the Melbourne Press Club’s Hall of Fame. And it is generally acknowledged that, under his editorship, The Australian altered journalistic practice across the country. In his memoir, Age journalist John Tidey, explains that, with the arrival of The Australian, “the game had changed”: A fresh innovative competitor had arrived … Murdoch’s national daily was certainly a threat but for someone in Melbourne with fresh eyes and new ideas it also offered a great opportunity. (2018: 17)

Or, as another ex-Age editor, Mike Smith, told the author in 2020: “When The Australian came on the scene, all the other newspapers had to pull up their socks.”

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Larrikins on the Screen The 1960s watched television make its way into the living rooms of average Australian households. This meant new possibilities for journalism to, not only practice its craft, but also express its Larrikinism and ‘push back that line’ toward a freer news media. Frank Packer had tested the water with television journalism with Meet the Press 1957, and the national broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Commission (now Australian Broadcasting Corporation) started producing its flagship current affairs program, Four Corners in 1961 (more on Four Corners in the next chapter). But it was—in MacCallum’s words—the “irreverent” current affairs program (2001: 107), This Day Tonight, which started discovering how effective ‘taking the piss’ was on television and for journalism’s campaign for ‘pushing back that line’ toward a freer news media. Founded by Ken Watts and Neil Hutchinson in 1967, This Day Tonight was typically Larrikin-like in its anti-authoritarianism, forming several salient professional practices that have since been developed and established as a means of maintaining freedom of the news media. Possibly one of the most significant of these was This Day Tonight’s determination to openly tell its audience when politicians and other public figures refused to appear on the program over sensitive issues—a somewhat unprecedented disrespectful move at the time (Peach 1992: vi). It has since been taken up by journalism as an effective way to ensure that politicians cannot so easily obstruct the public’s right to  free access to parliamentary information. As host Bill Peach pointed  out in his autobiography: TDT took the attitude that politicians were the servants of a democratic nation … if they refused to appear, we said they had refused to appear. We indicated the empty chair where the minister would have been sitting … The missing parties found themselves the subject of sarcasm from their Canberra colleagues, who told them, ‘that was a very good non-appearance last night’. It wasn’t long before the ministers discovered that their other engagements weren’t so pressing. (Peach 1992: 44)

Here we can see that This Day Tonight’s ‘name and shame’ policy was at least partially informed by the Larrikin’s sense of defiance, egalitarianism, emotional innocence (the program believed it could escape penalty), and tendency to ‘take the piss’ out of pomposity. But in Peach’s comments

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we can also see consciousness of the Larrikin-journalist’s role in ‘pushing back that line’ toward journalistic freedom. But This Day Tonight is possibly most remembered for its coverage of student protests against the Vietnam conflict, particularly for the now famous 1969 footage of young Australian journalist, Simon Townsend, resisting arrest and struggling against police who were bundling him into the back of a divisional van (Peach 1992: 64). That same year, another This Day Tonight journalist, Stuart Littlemore, demonstrated the effectiveness of Larrikinism’s defiance and mocking pomposity on freeing up the flow of information, when he challenged the integrity of the then New South Wales Premier, Robert Askin. During a television interview, a rather haughty Askin denied that the removal of Police Identification Numbers was common practice in his state. Littlemore then cut to footage of NSW police breaking up a Vietnam War protest after removing ID numbers from their uniforms. Askin was embarrassed, there was a public outcry, and the practice quickly became less common (Peach 1992: 100). Littlemore’s telling exposé demonstrates how a Larrikin-informed work culture (This Day Tonight), and an individual journalist’s practice of it, came together to ‘push back that line’ toward a freer news media.

D-Notices While Larrikinism continued its evolution as a professional practice within 1960s’ journalism micro-culture at home, it was also progressing among Australian reporters abroad. Australian journalism historiography mirrors the Vietnam conflict’s dominance in the wider Australian historical narrative on international relations. The advancement of Larrikinism as a professional practice, then, among Australian Vietnam war correspondents is particularly significant to the development of Larrikinism in Australian journalism micro-culture. Officially, Australia was not at war with North Vietnam. But the conflict has since gone down as one of the most defining in Australian macro-­ cultural history. At the time North and South Vietnam were divided along the 17th parallel, the North controlled by the charismatic Communist revolutionary, Ho Chi Minh, and the South by a US-supported military regime. The idea was to hold elections to unite the two sides. But when it looked like Communism was headed for a resounding win, the US started getting more than a little concerned. Australia, less than 4000 kms away from the Asian neighbor, also started eyeing the increasing influence of

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Communism with alarm. After the South Vietnamese government’s repeated requests for security assistance from the US and its allies in 1961 and 1962, Australia sent a small contingent, with its involvement increasing, until there were almost 8000 Anzacs in 1965. Freedom of the Australian news media in Vietnam was controlled by a uniquely British/Australian system known as the D-Notice (or Defense Notice) system. Established in Australia in 1952 by Menzies, the D-Notice system involved a strange agreement between governments and newspaper proprietors to refrain from publishing information sensitive to national security. The system was voluntary, meaning there were no legal penalties in the event of a breach. But, with the threat of legal restrictions on journalistic activity (particularly through amendments to the Crimes Act which, as the trade magazine, The Journalist, tells us, was being revamped at the time), very few editors dared defy a D-Notice. Some, such as British journalism professor, Tim Crook (2014), argue D-Notices are an “agreeable early-warning system” which gives journalists security in the knowledge they are not putting lives at risk, or “clumsily blundering” into operations that could save the country from attack. But the majority of journalists see D-Notices as a threat to freedom of the news media: One of the major criticisms of the system is that it has been used for the wrong purposes. D-Notices might be used to cloak government ineptitude, or to hide other matters that have nothing to do with ‘military’ affairs, or to prevent government embarrassment, or even to prevent criticism of government policy. (Sadler 2000)

In the 1960s, the D-Notice system was strengthened by the fact that all Australian passports—including journalists’ passports—were stamped with ‘not valid for North Vietnam’. Between the two, says former journalist John Hurst, North Vietnam was “one of the most difficult places to get into” (Hurst 1988: 120). And yet in 1968, Hurst, then The Australian’s industrial rounds reporter, managed to make his way into Hanoi, the heartland of the ‘enemy’ territory. Hurst, a short 34-year-old Cockney with a lop-sided grin, dodged the D-Notice system by nonchalantly traveling on his British passport. With contacts in the Australian Peace Movement who were trusted by the officials high up in the Viet Cong, he risked suspicion of collaboration and arrived in the ravaged country to spend three weeks

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covering the consequences of a conflict the Australian public knew so little about. Hurst’s series of eight feature articles and accompanying photographs won the 1968 Best Feature Walkley Award, ensuring his name, as a journalist who achieved accolades by skirting the periphery of the D-Notice system, remains as a ‘thread’ that helps ‘weave a web’ of Larrikinism within Australian journalism micro-culture. Hurst went on to teach journalism within the tertiary sector in the 1980s and 1990s, perhaps passing on his Larrikin practice to another generation of journalists (including this author). Indeed, there was even an unwritten rule that there was a D-Notice on the D-Notice system. It was not until 1967, when Tom Fitzgerald’s Nation—itself risking backlash from the government—published ‘D-Noticed Out of Print’. Sparked by The Australian newspaper pulling a promised article on Australian Security Services communication methods, ‘D-Noticed Out of Print’ bluntly told readers: The Commonwealth Government has operated a system of voluntary press censorship on matters which the Government believes affect the country’s security.

But it wasn’t so much the government that came into the firing line for “inhibiting the flow of information”; it was proprietors as well: If censorship on defense matters was a compulsory business, newspapers would probably be the first to attack it. Yet they have done nothing even to let the public know that there is a voluntary censorship. (Farmer in Nation, July 15, 1967: 5)

In 1971, our already recognized Larrikin organ, Nation Review, introduced what it called ‘Ferret’s D-Notices’. It was Nation Review’s section for classified advertising, with a “cheeky twist” (in the words of editor Richard Walsh). Each classified had to be appropriate to one of the Nation Review’s ‘D’ sections—Dalliance, Dealings, Deployment, and so on—and most were submitted with a risqué tongue firmly planted in the author’s cheek. The point, as Walsh, explains in his biography of the Nation Review (1993) was to ‘take the piss’ out of the government’s system of censorship. But the joke had more longevity than the editorial team could have imagined:

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Between our announcements of Ferret’s Corner (13 June, 1971) and the first appearance of classifieds in our paper (20 June, 1971), they became D-Notices and so, in a wonderful little irony, ultimately for a whole generation of Australians that phrase came to mean the somewhat infamous classifieds in the Ferret, rather than the federal government’s highly confidential list of defense topics no self-respecting journalist was permitted to write about. (Walsh 1993: 36)

It wasn’t until 1973 that the D-Notice system was openly defied. In February, The National Times rebuked the original D-Notice No. 3 by publishing a front page article informing readers about the highly secretive Defense Signals Directorate. The article, in explaining why Australian troops remained in Singapore, openly told readers the location of DSD Melbourne Headquarters, as well that of ASIO and ASIS. Readers were also told of the DSD’s data collection and analysis methods, its relationship with the NSA, and its partnership in the 1947 UK–US treaty (Brenchly, in The National Times, Feb 12–17, 1973: 1–3). It was a deliberately defiant breach of the D-Notice that forbade information of official cyphering, but it was also throwing down the gauntlet to the Commonwealth, mainstream media proprietors, and the D-Notice system itself. Even the trade magazine The Journalist was curiously silent on the system every industry professional knew about anyway. That was until 1978, when high-profile political correspondent, Laurie Oakes, discovered Australian intelligence had intercepted messages coming out of Indonesia about the deaths of five Australian newsmen at the hands of the invading Indonesian army in the former Portuguese Colony of East Timor (The Journalist, D’ Notice Suppressed Timor Deaths, March 1978: 2, 3, 4). The 1975 Indonesian invasion of East Timor is a flashpoint in Australian macro-cultural history. It marks the beginning of Australia’s post-colonial complicity with powerful Asian neighbors and punctuates its fear of Communism and the ‘domino effect’ throughout the Asia-Pacific. It also demonstrates how successive Australian regimes—on both sides of the ideological fence—can go to remarkable lengths to restrain freedom of the news media. Australia knew in advance Indonesia was planning an East Timor invasion. But Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, fearing a pro-communist East Timor would fill the power vacuum left by the Portuguese colonial powers, feigned ignorance of the Indonesian military build-up off the coast

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near the village of Balibo. But because non-intervention would cause havoc in Australian public opinion, the government really didn’t want witnesses to the invasion. According to investigative journalists Desmond Ball and Hamish McDonald after the initial August coup, Australia’s Defense Minister, Bill Morrison, secretly ordered navy and air-force commanders in Darwin to “do their best” to block anyone leaving for Timor. This meant that the “desperate scramble” of journalists trying to get to Dili was somewhat thwarted (2000: 31). At the Timor end, the Dili airport was closed, and the interior ministry security agents warned local bus and car operators against transporting journalists from Kupang into Portuguese Timor. At this point, media mogul, Kerry Packer, famously hired a “suitably disreputable” fishing trawler for an up-front payment of $6000 and, himself, set sail with this somewhat bemused Nine Network news director, Gerald Stone, and cameraman Brian Peters toward East Timor (2000: 117). With the huge bulk of a media proprietor dodging bullets with his news director and cameraman, it was, according to Stone, “the strangest assignment” of his career (2000: 114–115). It was with typical eccentricity and insistence, that Packer refused to provide the money unless he joined the adventure. The fact that the government was taking—as described by Stone—“all possible steps” to prevent journalists entering the area did nothing to inhibit their plans. In fact, as Stone recalled in his account of the journey: “… forbidden stories are all the better for the telling” (2000: 116). It was at about this time that our ‘arch-Larrikin’, Wilfred Burchett, returned to Australian headlines. In 1970, after 15 years of refusing appeals for a replacement passport (including from the AJA), the Australian Government could do nothing more than watch as its exile, quite publicly, flew into Brisbane airport on a plane chartered by Melbourne paper, The Sunday Observer. As Australia’s most famous “transgressive Adam,” he was met by boos, jeers, and placards that read: “Burchett Back to Hanoi”; “Burchett Traitor”; Burchett Better Red and Dead” (Bradbury 1980). Burchett was in town to argue his case for a new passport. But when Australian Democratic Labor Party Senator, Jack Kane, accused Burchett of being a KGB agent, the trip turned into a roller-coaster court case, with Burchett suing Kane for defamation. What the case turned into, however, was effectively a trial for treason. Although the jury found that Burchett had indeed been defamed, it also found the article in question was a “fair report” of parliamentary proceedings and therefore protected by parliamentary privilege, leaving the verdict to the judge. Judge Taylor entered a

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verdict for the defense (Kane) and ordered Burchett to pay legal costs. Kane’s costs approached $100,000. Burchett, with very little cash of his own, managed to raise $4700 (Perry 1988: 233). In effect, Burchett was again exiled until he could raise the funds. A cynic could argue that, if not a political conspiracy, then at least Australia’s tangled web of legal processes, had firmly yanked the reins of Burchett’s journalistic freedom.

More to a Drink than a Drink The 1950s and 1960s was the era of the ‘6 O’clock Swill’. A peculiarly antipodean phenomena, the ‘6 O’clock Swill’ is almost a term of endearment for a part of Australian history that saw a rush to buy—and drink—as much beer as possible before bars were obliged to close. ‘Six O’clock Closing’ legislation was introduced by referendum 1917, as means to improve public morality and partly as a wartime austerity measure. It was meant to be a temporary restriction. But it lasted for the next 50  years (Reeves 2016). We know that the consumption of alcohol was a feature of journalism culture from colonial times (Vine 2010). Indeed, Bulletin founder, Jules Francis Archibald is known to have said: “If I must die, let me die drinking at an inn” (in Lindsay 1973: 19). And, according to biographer, Sylvia Lawson, Archibald’s “last bills” were for “whisky and newspapers” (Lawson 1987: x). And yet, as Vine (2010) found, there was more to the consumption of alcohol than mere inebriation; it was more an expression of Larrikin defiance against the perceived ‘wowserism’ of prevailing attitudes to temperance, manifested legislatively in bills such as Victoria’s The Intoxicating Liquor (Temporary Restriction) Bill 1915. Indeed, in his autobiography, Burchett claims that alcohol was used as a collective sign of journalistic freedom, when General Ridgeway issued a ban on “fraternization, consorting and trafficking” between correspondents and Communist journalists during the Korean conflict. The morning after it was issued, the “whole press corps,” as an expression of defiance, made an “extra ostentatious display of fraternization, including some drinking of alcoholic beverages” (Burchett and Shimmin 2005: 386). This Day Tonight, memorably, utilised alcohol to—almost literally— ‘take the piss’ out of dubious political activity. This Day Tonight had just finished reporting on an incident in which a pen on Prime Minister Harold Holt’s desk turned out to be a concealed microphone. Host Bill Peach finished the program by saying:

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If you have things on your desk, they should do things they’re supposed to.

The phone on Peach’s desk then rang. He picked it up, poured beer out of it into a glass and wished the audience good night (Peach 1992: 50). The act may appear as a fairly innocuous prank today. But we have to remember the ‘beer telephone’ was broadcast during a time when Australia was still debating whether citizens could be trusted to legally purchase alcohol after 6 p.m. So when we examine the culture of drinking in Australian journalism history, it is quite conceivable to interpret it as a Larrikin expression of exceeding the limits. In this context, the ‘beer telephone’ was an audacious performance of classic Larrikinism to demonstrate journalistic freedom. But alcohol as an expression of independence wasn’t only used against political authorities. It was also used as an expression of independence against managerial interference in the newsroom. For example, in the 1970s, The Age had a ‘no-drinking’ policy on the newsroom floor, after an empty beer can was found blocking the pneumatic tube which carried copy from the newsroom to typesetters. But, according to one former Age cadet, there existed a deliberately ignored “bog bar” in the locker room, where staff could imbibe: But it was a benefit, cause if shit hit the fan, you had a pile of half-drunk subs ready to drag out and we would often rewrite the paper with half a dozen subs who should have knocked off hours ago, and then you had to buy them more beer, but it worked. (former Age cadet, interviewed 2003 in Vine 2010)

According to biographer Keith Dunstan, early attempts at setting up the Melbourne Press Club were solely concerned with circumventing Victoria’s “grip of wowserism and 6 o’clock closing” (Dunstan 2001: 1). It was not enough for post-war Melbourne journalists to have the Phoenix and Astoria—known as The Herald and Weekly Times’ watering holes; or the Hotel Australia and Hosie’s—similarly known as The Age’s watering holes. Melbourne journalists during this era wanted a “permanent club” (Dunstan 2001: 1), and were, according to Dunstan, “obsessed with getting a liquor license” (Dunstan 2001: 3). This obsession resulted in the establishment of the Melbourne Press Club in 1971, and which has since developed into a valuable vehicle for Australian journalism’s micro-­cultural

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‘memorial narrative’ about Larrikinism and its relationship with freedom of the news media. One of the carriages hitched to the Melbourne Press Club micro-­ cultural vehicle is the Graham Perkin Journalist of the Year Award. Honoring—who Tidey describes as “perhaps” Australia’s “greatest editor” (in The Age, October 17, 1975)—the ‘Perkin Award’ is given annually to an individual journalist to “reward work that is consistent with the journalism practiced by Graham Perkin” (1929–1975) (https://www. melbournepressclub.com, accessed March 12, 2020). One of these consistencies is, of course, a commitment to ‘pushing back that line’ toward a freer news media. Under the Perkin editorship, Larrikin-journalists were strategically trained, armed, and formed into crack fighting units, expertly prepared to go into battle for freedom of the news media. In Australian journalism’s competitive environment, Perkin’s newsroom set the standard that many others were then compelled to follow. We shall see how this was done in the following chapter.

References Armstrong, D.. Adrian Deamer. Retrieved May 15, 2020, from https://halloffame.melbournepressclub.com/article/adrian-­deamer Bacon, W. (1971, March 18). ‘Sex and Censorship’ in Lot’s Wife. Retrieved May 18, 2020, from http://www.takver.com/history/aia/aia00033.htm Ball, D., & McDonald, H. (2000). Death in Balibo Lies in Canberra. St. Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin. Bradbury, D. (1980). Public Enemy Number One: A Biography of Wilfred Burchett, (video recording) Cinesound, BTQ7, Negative Cutting Services: Sydney; Ronin Films (distributor): Civic Square, Canberra, ACT. Brenchly, F. (1973, February 12–17). Why Our Troops are Staying in Singapore. The National Times, 1–3. Burchett, G., & Shimmin, N. (Eds.). (2005). Memoirs of a Rebel Journalist: The Autobiography of Wilfred Burchett. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press. Calwell v. IPEC Australia Ltd. [1975] HCA 47; (1975) 135 CLR321 (29 October, 1975). Cole-Adams, P. (1990). In Defense of the ‘Public Figure’. Defense in Communications Law Bulletin, 11(1), 35–36.

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Crook, T. (2014). Why Journalists Should Rally in Defense of the D-Notice in The Conversation. Retrieved May 18, 2020, from https://theconversation. com/why-­journalists-­should-­rally-­in-­defence-­of-­the-­d-­notice-­22970 Dunstan, K. (2001). Informed Sources: A History of the Melbourne Press Club, 1971–2001. Melbourne: Melbourne Press Club. Farmer, R. (1967, July 15). D-Noticed Out of Print. Nation, 5. Hurst, J. (1988). The Walkley Awards: Australia’s Best Journalists in Action. Richmond: John Kerr. The Journalist. (1978, March). D’ Notice Suppressed Timor Deaths. The Journalist, 1, 2, 3. Lawson, S. (1987). The Archibald Paradox: A Strange Case of Authorship. Ringwood, VIC: Penguin Books. Lindsay, N. (1973). Bohemians of the Bulletin. Sydney: Angus and Robertson. MacCallum, M. (1971, April 25). We That Are Left Shall Grow Old. Nation (Sunday) Review, in Walsh, R. (1993). Ferretabilia: Life and Times of Nation Review (pp. 28–29). St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. MacCallum, M. (2001). Mungo: The Man Who Laughs. Potts Point, NSW: Duffy & Snellgrove. McLaren, J. (1981). Book Reviewing in Newspapers, 1948–1978. In B. Bennett (Ed.), Cross Currents: Magazines and Newspapers in Australian Literature (pp. 249–250). Melbourne: Longman Cheshire. Melbourne Press Club. Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year Award. Retrieved March 12, 2020, from https://www.melbournepressclub.com Mitchell, A.. Retrieved May 15, 2020, from https://halloffame.melbournepressclub.com/article/tom-­fitzgerald Moore, N. (2012). The Censor’s Library. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Neville, R. (1970). Play Power. London: Paladin. Neville, R. (1995). Hippie Hippie Shake: The Dreams, the Trips, the Trials, the Love-­ ins, the Screw Ups … The Sixties. Port Melbourne: William Heinemann Australia. Oakes, L. (1978, March). D Notice Suppressed Timor Deaths. The Journalist, 2, 3 4. Olds, D. (2015). Rediscovering Nation Review: An Independent Media Voice in Australian Political and Cultural Affairs, 1970–1980. PhD thesis, Flinders University. Peach, B. (1992). This Day Tonight: How Australian Current Affairs TV Came of Age. Sydney: ABC Enterprises. Perry, R. (1988). The Exile: Burchett, Reporter of Conflict. Richmond: William Heinemann.

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Reeves, D. (2016). Liquor, Temperance and Legislation: The Origins of Six O’clock Closing in Victoria during WWI.  Parliamentary Library and Information Services, Department of Parliamentary Services, Parliament of Victoria, No. 2, October 2016. Sadler, P. (2000, May). The D Notice System. Australian Press Council News, 16–17. Stone, G. (2000). Compulsive Viewing: The Inside Story of Packer’s Nine Network. Ringwood: Penguin Books. Tidey, J. (2018). Stories From a Bygone Age: A Newspaper Memoir. North Melbourne: Arcadia. Vine, J. (2010). If I Must Die Then Let Me Die Drinking at an Inn: The Tradition of Alcohol Consumption in Australian Journalism. Australian Journalism Monographs, Griffith Centre for Cultural Research, Griffith University, vol. 10. Walsh, R. (1993). Ferretabilia: Life and Times of Nation Review. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press.

CHAPTER 7

Larrikin-Journalists: Post-Whitlam (1975–1985)

Graham Perkin’s editorship coincided with the beginning of what is generally remembered as journalism’s ‘Golden Age’ (Summers 2018; Tidey 2018). In the US, two young Washington Post journalists had brought down a President . In the UK, The London Times had hauled a major pharmaceutical company to account over the harmful effects of its morning-­ sickness drug. Journalism—globally—was developing a keen sense of its own professional possibilities. At home, a new generation of journalists was populating the industry. An increasingly educated and politically aware public had appetite for journalistic investigation and analysis, made possible by the ‘rivers of gold’ pouring into media companies, mainly through classifieds, but also through a more sophisticated advertising industry in general.

Perkin: A Walking, Talking Memorial Narrative In this atmosphere, Graham Perkin made his way to the position of editor at one of Australia’s biggest metropolitan dailies, The Age. In the words of Age managing director Ranald Macdonald, Perkin was a “strong, big man” with “great presence.” Macdonald’s description appears to be both literal and, when it came to ‘pushing back that line’ toward a freer news media, symbolic. Perkin came to prominence during the 1960’s great debate over capital punishment, with his defiance of Victorian Premier, Henry Bolte and his © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Vine, Larrikins, Rebels and Journalistic Freedom in Australia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61856-8_7

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determination to hang convicted murderer, Ronald Ryan (the last man to be execute by the state in Australia) as part of his ‘tough-on-law-andorder’ policy. In his biography of Perkin, Age journalist Ben Hills (2010) recalls in the months after cabinet confirmed the death penalty in 1965, up until Ryan was led to the gallows in 1967, The Age published nine editorials opposing the hanging, three of which Perkin wrote himself. Bolte’s attempts at constraining Perkin not only involved refusing The Age’s repeated requests for his right of reply, but also campaigning both the paper’s board, and its chairman, personally, to control its editor. Ryan did hang. Twelve weeks later, Bolte went to election and was returned with, what Hills recalls as, a “thumping majority.” Although it appears Perkin had lost his campaign, Australian journalism historiography constructs the event as the opening shot in his crusade for freedom of the news media. Says Hills: He [Bolte] may have crowed over winning this opening encounter with Perkin, but Bolte would soon discover that this was just the beginning of a war that would last five long years. (Hills 2010: 290)

In the years following the hanging, Perkin pursued Bolte over conservation issues, corruption among senior public servants, and the rorting of housing commission land sales. In the process, Perkin developed a bold new type of investigative reportage that changed Australian journalism’s knowledge and skills in ‘pushing back that line’ forever. As Macdonald told the author in 2020, Perkin “set the example for other newspapers to take the decision-makers on and fight.” It all started when Perkin commissioned The London Times’ ‘Insight’ stories on Thalidomide and defector, Kim Philby. But it wasn’t long before Perkin decided to develop his own, Australian, ‘Insight’ team. The Age’s ‘Insight’ pages were launched in 1967, with John Tidey and John Larkin as founding editors. In 1969, the Insight team discovered a 25-kilometer sealed access road on 80,000 hectares of bushland, marked for ‘opening up’ and sold in parcels for farming, led to the property of the Lands Minister’s brother-in-­ law. The next day, The Age headlined with the story and, in its editorial called for the scheme to be abandoned, particularly after this “undesirable conflict of interest.” According to Hills, Bolte “flew into a rage,” telling a whole press conference the story was the “lowest, filthiest piece of journalism” he had

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“ever seen” (Hills 2010: 299). The Lands Minister, Sir William McDonald sued. Three years later, McDonald settled, with The Age paying his legal costs. Although The Age lost the legal battle, it appears to have won much more; the libel action inspired Perkin’s determination to find ways to publish stories that would have previously been considered too risky. Although The Age’s lawyers had advised against running the “undesirable conflict of interest,” Perkin had consulted a QC, who saw no problem in publishing it (Hills 2010: 299). So, from then on, every story that was worth the effort was painstakingly made legally watertight. This involved an expectation that journalists would gain an understanding of media law, and lawyers would appreciate journalism. As former Age editor, Mike Smith told the author in a 2020 interview, in this environment the roles of journalist and lawyer began to morph: The real magic was the journalists became more like lawyers, and the lawyers became more like journalists, I saw many cases where often the journalist were more conservative than the lawyers, the lawyers wanted to be more aggressive.

The end result was the production of game-changing journalism. Thumbing his nose at defamation legislation, Perkin armed himself for legal war over any story he thought worth the effort. It proved to be an effective tactic against both writs and threats of writs. But the outstanding stories that it produced also meant competitors were compelled to follow suit, resulting in a widespread confident and courageous style of investigative reporting across much of the nation’s news media. Part of Perkin’s game strategy was a pioneering use of ‘team-­journalism’. Inspired by Perkin’s idol, The Sunday Times’ Harold Evans, investigative journalism at The Age was no longer a job for the lone wolf; whole teams of journalists and lawyers, with complimentary skills and experience, would be obtaining, analyzing, interpreting, cross-checking, and, most significantly legalling documents, previously considered too precarious to publish. Again, competitors had to sit up and take note of the methods by which The Age seized the day’s news agenda. Big data—or “truth serum” in the words of Smith—was just emerging as a journalistic tactic, and new newsroom structures meant journalism micro-culture began ‘pushing back that line’ toward a freer news media with increased self-assurance.

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Traditionally, proprietorial influence may have impeded such reportage. But Managing Director Ranald Macdonald would lobby the board for investigations Perkin saw were in the public interest: “Graham, as editor, knew that I had his back at Board meetings so he could continue to develop The Age as a small ‘l’ liberal paper and pursue investigative journalism however uncomfortable it made the directors. Circulation growth showed Graham’s editorial leadership was in tune with what the community expected from an independent newspaper,” Macdonald said. Comments from Smith stand as testament to the importance of Larrikin management, as well as Larrikin editors, to courageous journalism: “I was never scared of defamation,” Smith told the author, “because I knew the paper would always back me.” Perkin’s pioneering tactics marked the beginning of an era of increased self-confidence within journalism micro-culture about its own role and responsibility. According to Smith, journalism’s attitude began to change, not only at The Age specifically, but within the news media in general. With the abolition of university fees, tertiary education was now the norm, rather than the exception, meaning the media was wooing a more educated audience. And the more educated audience could only be courted by more educated journalists, who not only had knowledge of the law and evidence-based argument, but were also backed up by lawyers with an understanding of journalism. And it was this increased self-confidence that, at least partially, precipitated possibly the most momentous event in Australian political history: the fall of the Whitlam Government.

The Dismissal The story centres around an elusive Pakistani finance broker called Tirath Hassaram Khemlani. He had, apparently, been raising finance for the progressive and dynamic Whitlam Government’s big-picture infrastructure plans. The charismatic silver-fox politician Gough Whitlam had been voted in on policies of free higher education, national healthcare, and various other ambitious national infrastructure projects which were later revealed to include petrochemical plants, gas pipelines across the country, uranium mining, and coal-export ports. Fantastic projects all. But no one could work out where the money was coming from.

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Early in July 1975, The Age discovered from just where the Government was getting its funds. Acting on an anonymous source—the name of whom Perkin took to his grave in 1975—the editor asked Ben Hills to investigate what appeared to be a case of nepotism involving the already-­ disgraced lothario deputy Prime Minister, Jim Cairns, and his son, Philip. But what Hills actually found was a warren of furtive deals with overseas finance brokers and mysterious Saudi Princes, the main tunnel of which led to Khemlani. It turned out the previous year Cairns—then treasurer, before his affair with his married secretary was revealed—and the bullish minerals and energy minister, Rex Connor, were covertly trying to by-pass official loan-­ raising channels and raise money, through Khemlani. But the Attorney General and treasury weren’t so keen and ordered a halt to the plans. Connor, however, continued to negotiate secretly. Tidey, who was part of The Age’s investigation explains: “If he [Connor] had succeeded it would be a triumph, and if he didn’t no one would know, or so he thought” (2019: 88–89). Perkin’s anonymous source led Age London correspondent Peter Cole-­ Adams to an office in Mayfair. He met Khemlani, who offered telexes detailing the clandestine negotiations between Connor, Cairns, and Khemlani—involving commission of US $180 million on a US $4000 million loan—and five checks for US $20  million. In exchange, Khemlani wanted money—6000 pounds-worth (a fortune in 1975). The money element to our ‘thread’ is somewhat problematic; although paying sources is sometimes an accepted procedure in many areas of the world, Australian journalism micro-culture frowns on the practice on the basis that it encourages exaggeration and, even, fabrication. But in a 2020 interview with the author, Tidey, the then Age London Bureau manager and the person in charge of delivering the cash, insists Perkin wasn’t paying a source—he was purchasing the documents (albeit, as far as The Age was aware at the time, may have been forgeries). It is telling that, although acting on an anonymous source was an incredible legal risk—potentially resulting in contempt charges, punishable by up to two-years goal—there is no hint Perkin was reluctant to dive head-first into, what would prove to be, the story to bring down a government. Throughout Hills’ biography (2010), and confirmed by interviews with those who knew Perkin at the time, his only concern was whether the documents were genuine. Which, as history tells us, they were.

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On July 4, 1975, The Age ran on its front page, under the headline, ‘Guttersnipe Government’: London July 3 The Australian Government would have paid commission of US $180 million on a US $4000 million loan, according to documents now in the hands of the Age.

Whitlam called an ‘extraordinary session of parliament’, where he dismissed the Age’s report as “misinformation” and accused the paper of “drumming up” an “orgy of trivia” (can we hear echoes of Donald Trump’s ‘fake news’ campaign, used to intimidate freedom of the news media in more modern times?). According to Perkin, writing in the Methodist publication, New Spectator, The Age had been “assaulted,” “insulted,” “railed against,” and “threatened”: We had perpetuated, it is true, an ‘uncomfortable’ piece of journalism. Without that piece of journalism, it is true, there would not have been an emergency sitting of parliament. Yet none of that dismayed us in the least. (in Hills 2010: 461)

Demonstrating smear campaigns do nothing but encourage Larrikin journalists, mainstream news outlets sent their toughest investigative reporters into a mad scramble to find Khemlani. Despite frantic efforts— including from the tenacious John Tidey who staked out Khemlani’s office in Belgravia—the Pakistani loans broker was nowhere to be found. That was until three months later when Melbourne Herald reporter, Peter Game, painstakingly tracked him down in Sydney. Khemlani had a suitcase full of documents, showing that Connor had lied to Parliament about their negotiations. Game ran his story, outlining the continued negotiations between Connor and Khemlani. Connor, under parliamentary privilege, stated Khemlani was lying, Game was unreliable, and the Melbourne Herald had no credibility. Then Connor announced he would sue the lot of them. Rather than back down, Herald editor, John Fitzgerald sent Game on a global pursuit to retrieve the documents and prove Connor was again lying to Parliament, and had, indeed, been negotiating with Khemlani after Treasury had revoked authority to raise funds (Hurst 1988: 52–53). The next day Connor was forced to resign. It was an embarrassment that encouraged the Opposition to block supply, leading to the dismissal of a

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democratically elected government by the unelected representative of the Queen. Needless to say, Connor’s bid to sue the Melbourne Herald never succeeded. Game won a Walkley Award for his historical 1975 Khemlani interview, meaning his defiance and audacity would reverberate through subsequent generations of journalism and contribute to the cultural construction of the Larrikin values within Australian journalism micro-culture.

National Security and Diplomacy In 1980, the efforts of our Larrikin-journalists, lawyers, and news-outlet managers achieved a significant win for freedom of the news media that would build upon their already-healthy confidence in ‘pushing back that line’ for the next decade. Our previous Larrikin, Richard Walsh, along with his colleague, George Munster, had compiled and self-published the book, Documents on Australian Defence and Foreign Policy 1968–1975 (1980). The manuscript made public details of several classified documents, the most sensitive of which described the Government’s desire to maintain “good relations” with Indonesia, and its decision to not dispute the imminent 1975 invasion of East Timor. Given Australian public opinion opposed the annexation, and was still smarting over Vietnam, the Fraser Government was keen to keep the documents’ details secret. On November 8, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age published what would have been the first of three installments of the book. But Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser moved quickly to obtain an injunction to halt publication. In later editions the page was left blank. The Government, anxious about reactions in Washington and Jakarta, invoked Section 79 of the Crimes Act and Sections 41 and 42 of the Copyright Act. The injunction failed on the grounds of national security (Crimes Act Section 79) but succeeded on the grounds of copyright (Copyright Act Sections 41 and 42). (UNSW, Companion to East Timor, accessed May 2020). Although the book was withdrawn, and unsold copies were surrendered and later destroyed, the comments of High Court Judge Anthony Mason indicate the case was a significant win for freedom of the news media:

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It is unacceptable in our democratic society that there should be restraint on the publication of information relating to government when the only vice of that information is that it enables the public to discuss, review and criticize government action. (Commonwealth v John Fairfax & Sons [1980] HCA 44; 1980 147 CLR 39, 1 Dec 1980)

In other words, Judge Mason was setting a precedent for the legal weighing up of public interest in revealing information, with public interest in maintaining its secrecy. According to long-term maverick journalist, Brian Toohey, Judge Mason’s decision changed the game for freedom of the news media for years to come: That opened up the strongest possible defense in a court case [public interest], so I don’t think you could argue there was a ‘chilling affect’ on [journalism independence during the ‘80s] to the same extent as there was previously, or the same extent that there is now, Toohey told the author in a 2020 interview.

And Toohey would know. He’s been in court over freedom of the news media more times than he can remember. But it was his revelations of Australia’s complicity in Britain’s testing of nuclear weapons at Maralinga, and his resulting high-profile stoush with Defence Minister Jim Killen, that most establishes Toohey as one of our ‘threads’ of the ‘web’ we are weaving about Larrikin-journalists and their relationship with freedom of the news media. In 1978, acting on a leaked Defence Department Cabinet submission, Toohey published the first of many stories that would shatter the decades-­ long wall of silence over Britain’s nuclear tests in the South Australian desert. As historian Elizabeth Tynan describes the British nuclear test bomb program held in Australia in the 1950s and early 1960s is “a fascinating tale of nuclear colonialism” and a revelation of “generational change” in Australian journalistic practice (2011: 131). The Government had slapped a D-Notice on the tests. As described in the previous chapter, D-Notices were largely voluntary, only enforceable by proprietorial concern for political reprisals and the general deference of mainstream journalism. But not only was coverage of the tests suppressed, it was also actively media-managed to produce such laudatory copy as: British genius has developed the atomic weapons … as part of the free world’s efforts to defend itself. (Sunday Herald, October 4, 1953: 2)

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And: [At Maralinga] will be tested the latest type of atom bombs which have been developed by Sir William Penney and his brilliant team of British scientists. These will incorporate the latest devices of British skill and ingenuity. (Sydney Morning Herald, May 17, 1955: 2)

And that’s how the Australian public understood the nature of Britain’s use of Australian land as part of its participation in Cold War politics for more than 20 years. Toohey was a mere 33-years-old when he received Killen’s secret cabinet submission, tabled in September 1978. In it, Killen outlined the security threat the secretly buried plutonium at Maralinga posed, and the proposed clandestine reconnaissance mission. The following article in The Australian Financial Review not only revealed the “plutonium pile” at Maralinga, and the “terrorist threat” it potentially posed, but also the veil of secrecy surrounding the tests: It is now 20 years since the tests finished. The fallout, however, is still a very live issue in British-Australian relations however much both governments want to keep negotiations entailed in last Thursday’s cabinet submission a closely guarded secret. (Australian Financial Review, October 5, 1978a: 1 & 6)

Toohey followed up this article six days later with a headline: “Maralinga: The ‘do nothing solution” (Australian Financial Review, October 11, 1978b: 1). This, apparently, was too much for Killen, who used parliamentary privilege to accuse Toohey and The Australian Financial Review of a “criminal act” against national interest. Further, he denied the contents of the submission to The Sydney Morning Herald and denounced Toohey as “pernicious, wicked and odious”: The person concerned with this report [Toohey] wouldn’t be capable of accurately reporting a minute’s silence. (in Sydney Morning Herald, October 12, 1978: 9)

Toohey parried the smear campaign with two more stories, in which Killen accused Toohey of “selected distortion” and “contriving” to “create a sensational impact” and “alarm the public” (in Tynan 2011: 141).

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By 1982, Toohey had moved to Fairfax’s investigative weekend magazine, The National Times. Here, Toohey got hold of a leaked classified report written by the head of the British Maralinga cleanup team. The cleanup, according to Toohey in a 2020 interview with the author was: ...  a complete and utter terrible disaster. It just refused to acknowledge that plutonium was blowing around in the dust and so forth, yet the [Australian] Government then absolved it [Britain] from doing anything to clean it up.

Toohey’s reportage marks the beginning of more aggressive journalistic investigation into Maralinga and Australia’s relationship with Britain. As Tynan found, a “strong and growing workforce” of specialist science journalists meant there was a “better job” of “finally” placing the “momentous events” at Maralinga on the public record (2011: 141). This was certainly so. But speaking to Toohey, a pervading new Larrikin culture among the news media in general, including newspaper management, played a significant role. When Toohey initially took on the National Times editorship, he was asked by then chairman James Fairfax—who apparently had an abhorrence for corruption—to “take a more progressive view.” In other words he was giving me an open go at breaking some of these sorts of stories … so I felt I had the proprietor’s backing—he wanted the National Times to have a more distinctive tone and approach than his other papers. As it happens, the other papers also started taking on more adventurous journalism too.

The Commonwealth of Australia may have charged Toohey with more crimes than he can remember, but in 1999, the journalism micro-culture celebrated his Larrikin tendency toward exceeding the limits of regulation with the Walkley Award for Journalistic Leadership.

The Age Tapes It was perhaps this Larrikin attitude pervading from the top floor management offices, to the fourth-floor newsrooms, and on into the printing press basements that facilitated what is considered to be the story most comparable to America’s Watergate revelations. Although the story became known as ‘The Age Tapes,’ it really belonged to several mavericks

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of the news media, demonstrating the spreading Larrikin confidence throughout Australian journalism in general. At the time, independent journalist Bob Bottom was in the middle of a related, but separate furor, where he had demonstrated strong Larrikin tendencies. Going public with taped phone conversations indicating well-­ established crime figures were buying their way out of jail, and conspiracy to subvert the course of justice in the NSW court system and bribery of police (1984: 104), Bottom was subjected to the rushed-through Special Commissions of Inquiry Act. In effect, the legislation meant Bottom—or indeed any journalist called to give evidence—would be forced to reveal their anonymous sources. And, as Bottom says, such legislation forces journalists to breach it: Under no circumstances would I disclose the identity of any informant. Thus under the Special Commission of Inquiry Act I faced a fine or multiple fines of $1000 for refusing to answer a question or questions. (1984: 111)

In the end, because the onus was on the ‘accused’ to provide admissible evidence and, as Bottom points out, this would breach a journalist’s professional responsibility, the investigation was closed and the presiding judge, Justice Ronald Cross, wrote his report. Any references to the tapes—20 out of 80 pages, or a quarter of the report—were, quite literally, sliced out with a razor blade before publication and, rather than call for an inquiry into the allegations, the report attacked the journalist who made them: Impetuousness bordering on irresponsibility on the part of Mr Bottom led to a respected magistrate being subjected to gross humiliation and embarrassment, to the undesirable and unwarranted undermining of public confidence in the administration of justice. (in Bottom 1984: 118–119)

But what was bubbling beneath the service would smash ‘public confidence’ in the administration of justice much more. Undeterred by the Cross Inquiry, Bottom was briefing Marian Wilkinson and Brian Toohey at The National Times. So when he came across tapes and transcripts about how high-profile organized crime figure Robert Trimboli had been tipped off to flee the country, The National Times was primed. On November 25, under Wilkinson’s by-line, The National Times published ‘Big Shots Bugged’. The story outlined how a secretive police

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surveillance operation had revealed relationships between a lawyer, an organized crime figure, and a senior judge. The story’s contents included casino operators bribing public servants, crime figures attempting to influence coronial inquests, and attempts to influence the courts and the NSW Parliament itself (Wilkinson 1983: 3–5). The day after the Cross Commission had sat for the last time, Bottom got a call: “savage” new laws were about to be announced. It would be an offense to be in possession of transcripts or recordings of private conversations illegally obtained. Penalties could include five years jail and fines of up to $50,000. “In light of the Cross Inquiry,” says Bottom, “I no longer felt comfortable or secure in NSW” (1984: 133). Overnight, Bottom had spoken to The Age’s Lindsay Murdoch, now edited by Creighton Burns. After receiving a further call from police sources saying his Sydney home was about to be raided, Bottom gathered the phone tap material and fled to Melbourne. Here, the now well-­ established Age ‘Insight’ team got to work on verifying what would be— as described by Bottom—“probably” the “closest” Australia has come to a situation justifying comparisons with America’s Watergate scandal (1984: 127). And the Australian Nixon? The most powerful—and well-liked—judge in the nation: Justice Lionel Murphy. Mike Smith remembers the story arriving at The Age: Bob Bottom was hounded out of NSW, he thought his life was in danger, so he moved to Melbourne and brought material to the Age, and the Age sifted through it for months, there were hundreds of hours of tapes and transcripts … and after sorting through it for months, a picture emerged.

This “picture” told three stories about a “network of influence.” In a series, ‘Insight’s’ David Wilson and Lindsay Murdoch reported on conversations between a “senior judge” (Murphy, at this stage, was not named) and a solicitor involved with organized crime figures; connections between magistrates, judges, police, organized crime figures and race-fixing; and attempts by Trimboli to lobby a judge and his escape from Australia (Murdoch and Wilson 1984: 1–5). The Age was lambasted from almost every quarter, and blamed for bringing down a popular and progressive former politician and current High Court judge.

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But Creighton Burns won the 1984 Graham Perkin Journalist of the Year. In other words, although the rest of the world was outraged that a bunch of journos could bring down a High Court Judge, the journalism micro-culture celebrated the achievement. As such, the names Creighton Burns, Bob Bottom, Mike Smith, Lindsay Murdoch, and David Wilson are embedded as ‘threads’ and ‘indications’ in the web we are weaving about the relationship between Larrikinism, journalism, and freedom of the news media in Australia.

The Rise of the Larrikiness Although women had existed in newsrooms since colonial times, it was only during the 1970s and 1980s that the Larrikiness appears to be in a position to join her male counterparts in ‘pushing back that line’ toward a freer news media. There had been several female Larrikin-journalists—the feisty Louisa Lawson and the elegant Charmian Clift—who rebelled against the ‘tyranny of the majority’, but evidence of women defying the ‘tyranny of the magistrate’ within Australian journalism history is occasional (remember our Clara Seekamp from Chap. 2, and Dulcie Deamer in Chap. 3). But all this was to change during the 1970s and 1980s. The Age Tapes pressured the Hawke Government to set up a commission of Inquiry into the allegations against Murphy. Here, former Chief Magistrate Clarrie Briese, testified that Murphy had applied pressure to exonerate his “little mate,” Sydney Lawyer Morgan Ryan, who had been charged with involvement in immigration rackets. But because Murphy was contesting the charges, the Inquiry chose to hear Briese’s evidence in-camera, away from public view. But for The National Times, the Inquiry’s decision was a just another stab at freedom of the news media. Journalists David Marr and Wendy Bacon were given the story once the leaks had reached their editor, our previous Larrikin, Brian Toohey. Both Marr and Bacon were well aware of the risks and, if we remember our previous chapter on the student press, Bacon was sent to prison in 1971 for appearing in court wearing a nun’s habit and an “obscene” placard. But classically Larrikin, Bacon agreed to take on the Murphy story anyway because this was a “really strong attempt” to “cover up” what they realized was “very important information” about “corrupt networks,” she told the author in a 2020 interview.

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Not just one case of corruption, but corrupt networks, in NSW and spilling over federally, and it was being suppressed. Now, it was a pretty risky thing, I agree, to publish, and we knew there would be consequences.

And consequences there were. Both Bacon and Toohey were charged with Contempt of Parliament, and were facing a full senate hearing in Canberra. But it wasn’t the legal charges that concerned Bacon most. It was the kick-back from friends and associates outside the journalism community. Lionel Murphy was a champion of the Left, and had instituted several important progressive legal reforms as Attorney General in the previous Whitlam Government. Bacon, too, was a champion of the Left, and had also achieved several important progressive reforms through her previous activism. But now, her friends on the left saw her as a traitor: I lost a lot of friends over [the story],” Bacon says. “People wouldn’t speak to me, and that was sort of a shock, and quite painful, but the thing is, when you’re in a situation like this, and you’re a journalist … so there were those personal repercussions, and I found it difficult, but not something I was going to change. I think if you say ‘well I’m not going to do the story because it doesn’t suit my political interests’, you’re bowing out really.

Bacon also felt pressure from her employer, Fairfax, who asked her to walk into the hearing claiming she was naïve of the consequences: “I explicitly refused to do that,” she says. “I did not read the statement they wanted me to read … I wasn’t prepared to pretend I didn’t know what In was doing, that I was some sort of innocent person … that’s not my sort of scenario at all.” Attacked from both inside and out, Bacon was certainly put in the position of Milton’s ‘transgressive Adam’. But what she did have was the support of her journalistic colleagues. When you’re a journalist … you are in a culture, and that culture is a very supportive one, and there was a very strong feeling of solidarity at the National Times, she said.

Which is lucky, because only a few months later, Bacon was charged with Contempt of Court over Detective Sergeant Roger Rogerson and his alleged efforts to bribe Detective Michael Drury while he lay in his convalescence bed recovering from an attempt on his life. These events were

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immortalized in the wider Australian macro-culture through the ABCTV series Blue Murder. In 1999, Rogerson was convicted of perverting the course of justice and lying to the Police Integrity Commission. In September 2016, he was sentenced to jail for life for the murder of 20-year-­ old student Jamie Gao, and supply of drugs. Murphy had consistently denied Briese’s allegations through two Senate inquiries and two criminal trials. He was acquitted of attempting to pervert the course of justice in 1986, but fresh allegations surfaced, and the Hawke Government set up a parliamentary inquiry to investigate whether he should be removed from the court. The Commission of Inquiry was cut short when Murphy announced he was dying of cancer. Bacon’s Contempt of Court charge was later dismissed, and the Contempt of Parliament charge was abandoned. Bacon lost friends, was threatened with punishment by Australia’s legal system—she’s been arrested about 18 times, and sent to prison twice—been refused permission to join the Bar as a lawyer, at one time was refused an American visa, and has been variously described as “manifestly loony” and “foul-­ mouthed” (Carlisle, https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl e=2432&context=alr, accessed May 20, 2020.). But she has also won a Walkley Award for her articles about police corruption in NSW, demonstrating just how much the journalism micro-culture values her Larrikinism. At the time of writing, Bacon had recently retired as head of the Journalism Program at Sydney’s University of Technology, meaning her Larrikin style may, theoretically, reverberate through the next generation of Australian journalism micro-culture. Bacon wasn’t the first Larrikiness to be nurtured through The National Times. Launched just months after Chap. 6’s independent Nation Review, The National Times was also chasing the increasing market for brave, sophisticated, and analytical reportage, and had employed a lineup of active, politically savvy Larrikin-journalists. Arguably, one of the most prominent of these was a young academic called Anne Summers (although, in her job interview with editor Max Suich, Summers insisted she was “no fucking academic”!). The author of seminal feminist text, Damn Whores and Gods Police (1975), Summers had already made a name for herself as an activist for women’s rights when she started in journalism. But that name was about to get bigger. More significantly, for our interest in the relationship between Larrikinism, journalism, and freedom of the news media, Summers would go down in journalism history for ‘pushing back that line’ toward a freer news media.

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Summers started her career with a series of feature articles on the conditions in the New South Wales prison system. There had been riots in the archaic, convict-era Bathurst Gaol in 1970, and again in 1974, the details of which the government, and the Justice and Corrective Services Minister had gone to—in Summers’ words—“great lengths” to “cover up” (2018: 15). The details were widely known within media, legal, and law-­enforcement circles, but the Government had hidden the evidence. Part of its endeavor to restrict freedom of the news media involved secreting former inmate, Dennis Bugg, made paraplegic during the riots, in an eastern suburb residential care-home, and hoping he would disappear. Summers, using academic research skills—“[l]ooking up facts, interviewing people, scouring old records, making educated guesses”— found Bugg and reported the first eye-witness account of the 1974 Bathurst riot. Using the same methodology, Summers unearthed prison officers and long-term jail-birds who could also attest to prison conditions that would—again in Summers’ own words—have “given Stalin’s gulag a run for its money” (2018: 16). When the 75-year-old proprietor, Sir Warwick Fairfax, summonsed Summers to his elegant 14-floor office, she was expecting to be told to cease all stories on prisons. So, Summers went prepared like a lawyer going into battle: with her experience in academic research, Summers was able to hand Sir Warwick two pages, on which her articles were pasted, and marked-up with scrupulous annotations, footnotes, and sources of cross-­ checking for “every single assertion.” Sir Warwick must have been convinced: After this, I was free to pursue prisons and did so with zest. (2018: 18)

In 1976, the series of features on the NSW prison system won Summers her first Walkley Award, ensuring her status as a new type of Larrikin-­ journalist, with skills and abilities in scholarly research, defied not only a government’s attempts to restrict freedom of the news media, but to also dare—and convince—a proprietor to support a bid to ‘push back that line’. In 1978, Summers obtained a taped police transcript of interview with a recently deceased prostitute. The transcript named 34 police officers for accepting bribes, collusion, obtaining money by fraud, blackmail, and accepting free sex in a well-known Sydney brothel (2018: 31). The problem was, of course, the story was highly defamatory. There was only one way to avoid the restrictions on The National Times’ freedom to publish,

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and that was to get the details aired in parliament, and therefore protected by parliamentary privilege. But it wasn’t easy finding a politician willing to bring the tapes to parliament. Eventually Summers called on an old Uni friend, and SA Attorney General, Peter Duncan, whose zeal in keeping organized crime out of Adelaide  meant he was willing to table the tapes,  which  linked allegations of police corruption and political bribery to high-profile Sydney crime figure, Abe Saffron. Even tabled under parliamentary privilege, the allegations were so explosive, and involved so many powerful people, that National Times was reluctant to publish and took the story to Fairfax Lawyer, Frank Hoffey—whose “genius,” says Summers, was his ability to “always provide the legal reasoning that allowed our story to be published.” Indicating the trend toward the merging roles of lawyer and journalist to defend freedom of the news media, Summers says Hoffey “shared the journalist’s enthusiasm for getting the story into print and his role was to ensure it was legally defensible” (2018: 32). The story was published. But it wasn’t the writs—one from the Commonwealth Police Chief Superintendent—that were intimidating; it was the thinly veiled threat from Saffron’s son when he phoned the paper “just to let us know we were on the radar,” says Summers: “It was then that I realized I did not have the stomach for this particular type of journalism,” she admits in her memoir (2018: 34). After the ‘Saffron papers’, Summers didn’t exactly leave journalism, but she did take a break to concentrate on books, including the macro-­ culturally significant memoir about the exploits of two teenage girls growing up in Sydney’s beachside suburbs, Puberty Blues (1979). It appears freedom of the news media not only needs legal protection from governments; it also needs physical protection from powerful and ruthless figures in the not-so-underground world of organized crime.

Four Corners And yet, Chris Masters—who possibly spent more time in court than any other journalist defending defamation actions during the 1980s and 1990s—says the psychological damage of litigation does “nearly as much damage” to freedom of the news media as any physical danger. And Masters should know; after his 1987 exposé of ‘the Joke’—a widespread systemic arrangement involving bent cops and networks of graft and corruption—for the ABC current affairs program, Four Corners, Australian

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Federal Police were so concerned for his safety that they assigned him bodyguards. However: “I was certainly in physical danger,” Masters told the author in a 2020 interview, “But that wasn’t nearly as grueling as spending day-­ after-­day for 13 years in court.” Masters calls the 1990s his “defamation decade,” because for that period of time, his attention was taken with little else. ‘The Joke’ was reported in an episode entitled ‘The Moonlight State’. It resulted in the Fitzgerald Inquiry—a “Commission of Inquiry into Possible Illegal Activities and Associated Police Misconduct”—which was extended to further investigate evidence of political corruption. After two years, prosecutions included jail time for four ministers and numerous convictions of other police. Former Police Commissioner Sir Terence Lewis was convicted of corruption, jailed, and stripped of his knighthood, and former Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen was charged with perjury for evidence given to the Inquiry. The Inquiry report made more than 100 recommendations, including the establishment of the Electoral and Administrative Review Commission and the Criminal Justice Commission (CJC) and the Queensland Police Force’s reform (Queensland Crime and Corruption Commission 2019). In other words, ‘The Moonlight State’ could be considered as one of the most significant pieces of journalism in Australian history; it is certainly celebrated within the professional micro-culture, with acknowledgments of its impact on every decennial anniversary. And yet, for his Herculean efforts Masters was in-and-out of court for more than 13 years, and is still, at the time of writing, called to give evidence in a range of related judicial matters. As Masters says, ‘Moonlight State’ may be the epitome of journalism’s ‘reason for living’, but it also “just happens” to be the piece of journalism for which he has been “most punished.” It’s not as if Masters went into investigating Queensland’s graft and corruption naively; he knew what he was getting himself into. In 1983, his first year at Four Corners, Masters and producer Peter Manning uncovered the misappropriation of funds in one of Australia’s most lucrative sports, Rugby League. ‘The Big League’ implicated NSW’s Chief Stipendiary Magistrate, Murray Farquhar, and then NSW’s Premier Neville Wran, in perverting the course of justice to keep League President Kevin Humphreys out of jail. Wran responded the next day by announcing he would sue the ABC. This meant that not only was the ABC restrained in rebroadcasting

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the episode, but it was also unlawful for any other outlet to repeat its details. But the Four Corners team wasn’t surprised. In a 2020 interview, producer Peter Manning told the author that they were “expecting” legal backlash: “We knew this would cause a riot, and an uproar, and that we would be condemned by Neville Wran,” Manning said. “And we knew we would have to face the consequences, and in that frame of mind, we went to air.” Despite the inevitable aftermath, Manning said the Four Corners team “felt good” as the program was beamed across the country: Every TV in every pub in Sydney was absolutely trapped on the ABC—normally you wouldn’t find many people watching Four Corners in pubs—but this one was about their favorite sport and a pretty popular premier, so we were pretty pleased, knowing that [Wran] wouldn’t like it.

‘The Big League’ led to the Street Royal Commission in which NSW’s most senior judge was found to have influenced the criminal prosecution of his mate, who just happened to be the most senior official in the state’s biggest sports. Farquhar was tried, found guilty, and served four years. Humphreys was convicted of his original offense and fined $4000. But NSW Chief Justice, Sir Laurence Street, found that although Farquhar had claimed the Premier’s authority, there was no evidence that Wran had actually given that authority. In other words, the Premier was exonerated. Although Four Corners’ solicitor, Jenny Harris, was confident of winning the Wran defamation case, two years later, a new ABC board settled Wran’s libel suit out-of-court. According to biographer, Robert Pullan (1986), none of the program makers were consulted or given a chance to argue against the settlement. Part of the agreement was that the ABC would say publicly it “unreservedly” accepted Wran was in no way involved in the Humphreys’ case: “The ABC regrets embarrassment to the Premier that resulted from the telecasts” (in Pullan 1986: 119). Journalism micro-culture, to this day, celebrates ‘The Big League’ as an exemplar of professional practice. And yet, according to the legal records, the ABC “regretted” what was one of its most significant Four Corners’ episodes. It’s lucky that, as we said in the opening chapter, Larrikins are compelled to continue their ‘defiant  behavior, despite wider social condemnation.

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The ‘Big League’ was a big story. But of even wider significance—at least, to freedom of the news media in Australia—was Masters’ report on the then new laser technique to remove tattoos, pioneered by flamboyant medical entrepreneur and millionaire, Geoffrey Edelsten. The program would be as much about Edelsten as it would be about the laser treatment. But pinning down an interview was like trying to catch a wild rabbit; he was tantalized by the carrot (potential publicity), but could never really agree to its terms and conditions (journalistic independence). He did allow Four Corners to film in his surgery waiting room, and himself in his corporate box, watching an AFL game involving the team he owned—the Sydney Swans—and at the Sydney Cricket Ground. But for months Edelsten vacillated on an interview; there was always another commitment that conveniently popped up just hours before the scheduled discussion. Finally, on Friday September 8, Executive Producer Jonathan Holmes told Edelsten he had until the following Monday to agree to an interview or the program—made up of the waiting room and corporate box footage—would go ahead irrelevant the following Saturday, September 15. “Edelsten did not call Holmes on Monday morning,” says Pullan, “but he did call his lawyers with instructions to apply for an injunction preventing the ABC from screening ‘Branded’ …” (1986: 143). Federal police armed with search warrants visited Masters home, seized notes and his personal diary, then raided ABC Gore Hill studios, where they faced extensive negotiations with ABC management. Edelsten’s master stroke posed more long-term threat to journalistic freedom than a mere stop-writ. He had two arguments: first, the episode was defamatory, and second—and this was the more serious claim—that Four Corners had agreed to give him veto powers before it went to air. As Pullan points out: The second argument contained extraordinary dangers not just for Masters, Four Corners and the ABC, but for all Australian journalists … If [Justice David] Hunt accepted the argument, it would mean that anyone interviewed for television, radio, newspaper, magazines or books could delay, often stop, publication merely by asserting, without proof, that the reporter had agreed to give them veto power. (1986: 144)

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Although Justice Hunt agreed the story was “a matter of the greatest public importance” and he “wished to emphasize” that “no one could overemphasize the importance of freedom of speech,” he granted a temporary injunction anyway. As Pullan points out, the ‘freedom’ rhetoric is a “pattern in Australian censorship cases since the 1820s” (1986: 144). In other words, such rhetoric masks social authorities’ underlying determination to curb journalistic independence. Complicating Justice Hunt’s decision was the archaic and long-forgotten ABC policy to “kill” any interview at the request of the subject. In his consequent memo to staff, Holmes’ pointed out that Hunt’s ruling made the ABC policy “fatal.” This historic memo was finished with a slogan, written in Italian: La Lutta Continua (in Pullan 1986: 146). The message translated as “meanwhile, the fight goes on” and reverberates through Australian journalism history as a rallying cry to continuously ‘push back that line’ toward a freer news media. In the end—the day after Masters had again established his journalistic credentials by winning yet another Walkley Award—a court heard the agreement for veto powers could not possibly be true, evidenced by the personal diary Federal Police had formerly seized from Masters’ home. Edelsten’s barristers approached ABC counsel, the injunction was dissolved, the case dismissed with costs, Edelsten agreed to an interview, and ‘Branded’ went to air on November 3. On December 22, the Federal Court ruled the warrants under which Masters’ home and ABC offices were raided were illegal (Pullan 1986: 146). In 1987, Four Corners won its fifth consecutive Walkley Award with an edition called ‘Horses for Courses’. Here, journalist Tony Jones and researchers Shaun Hoyt and Deb Whitmont showed viewers the seamy side of Sydney gambling. As a result, horse-racing royalty, Bill Waterhouse and son, Robert, brought criminal libel action against Jones and producer Peter Manning. So it wasn’t just money at stake—the Waterhouses wanted Joyce and Manning in jail. As Manning said, the family “very much hated” having its name “splashed across” Australia’s television screens. As Jones explained to the court, conviction for criminal libel would set a dangerous precedent: “I shudder to think of the implications for all people in my position and for the very nature of free speech if this case is allowed to set any precedent.” As Manning pointed out in court before being committed, if the principles the action sought to be established are enshrined then “every journalist, public commentator and public official is endangered” (in The Journalist, February 1987: 3).

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The case spread over a year, with endless writs and endless court appearances. At one point, as Jones and Manning were emerging from the court, they were met by a media scrum. The journalists wanted to know how the pair felt about winning the 1987 Walkley Award: “I was speechless,” Jones said in the Four Corners 50th anniversary documentary (ABCTV 2011, accessed May 20, 2020). Again, the ‘thread’ spun by ‘Horses for Courses’ demonstrates how, although Larrikin-journalists may be condemned by wider macro-cultural institutions, they are, more often than not, applauded for their determined anti-authoritarianism. In June 1988, The Journalist reported that the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions, Reg Blanch, had decided not to proceed with the ‘Horses for Courses’ prosecution (June, 1988: 3). He said the “lawful excuse” of qualified privilege was a “strong argument”: The material before the magistrate’s court does not indicate to me any public welfare which would be served by such a criminal prosecution that it outweighs (sic) the public harm caused by restriction by criminal sanction of the right to free speech. (in The Journalist, ‘They’re Off’, June, 1988: 3)

Although Four Corners appears to dominate our examination of Larrikins on the small screen during 1980s and 1990s, there is one more Larrikin ‘thread’ that we cannot ignore, this time on commercial television. In 1980, then Treasurer John Howard was watching evening cartoons on Channel 10, with his daughter on his lap. One can only imagine how far his jaw dropped when the news came on, and lead story was the fact that political roundsman Laurie Oakes had obtained the entire contents of the federal budget, and was about to announce its details to the nation two days before it was to be released (Nine Network Australia, August 3, 2017). The story goes that Oakes met his source in a hotel car park on the Sunday morning. Oakes had 15 minutes to read it. He spent that precious few minutes speaking the entire document into a tape recorder, which he transcribed once back at the office. That night, in a metaphorical two-­ finger Larrikin salute to the government, he told his Channel 10 television audience the budget was “meant to be top secret,” but he—and the nation—were about to “look” at the detail (Nine Network Australia, August 3, 2017). The next night, it was reported the Federal Police were going to investigate the leak. When asked what information he would have for such an investigation, Oakes replied: “Very little. Under the journalists code of

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ethics I am compelled to protect my sources and I’ll do so” (Nine Network Australia, August 3, 2017). In the following press conference, Treasurer Howard expressed “disgust” at coverage of the leak and singled out Oakes particularly. The Melbourne Press Club Hall of Fame, however, describes him as the “greatest political news breaker in Australia journalism,” and “the only journalist” to have “pre-empted an entire federal budget” (Grattan, https:// halloffame.melbournepressclub.com/article/laurie-­oakes, accessed July 10). Although Oakes is responsible for some of the biggest scoops in Australian journalism history, it is for the 1980 budget that he is most celebrated. He has won four Walkley Awards, including one for journalistic leadership (1998), and the coveted Gold Walkley (2010). The 1980 budget leak symbolizes the increased Larrikin confidence during the 1970s and 1980s. This facilitated some of Australian Journalism’s most well-embedded memorial narratives that perpetuate an ideology around ‘pushing back that line’ toward a freer news media. But as we shall see in the next chapter, this was all about to change, as the social and political environment evolved to encourage, what is now, one of the most concentrated media environments in the world.

References ABCTV. (2011). Retrieved May 20, 2020, from https://abcmedia.akamaized. net/news/fourcorners/50years/video/50yrs_compile_80s_288p.mp4 Bottom, B. (1984). Without Fear of Favour. South Melbourne: Sun Books. Carlisle, W.. Briefings: Profile: Wendy Bacon. Retrieved May 20, 2020, from https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2432&context=alr Commonwealth v John Fairfax & Sons [1980] HCA 44; 1980 147 CLR 39, 1 Dec 1980. Grattan, M.. Laurie Oakes. Retrieved July 10, from https://halloffame.melbournepressclub.com/article/laurie-­oakes Hills, B. (2010). Breaking News: The Golden Age of Graham Perkin. Carlton North: Scribe. Hurst, J. (1988). The Walkley Awards: Australia’s Best Journalists in Action. Richmond: John Kerr. The Journalist. (1987, February). Four Corners Trial Sets Off Criminal Libel, p. 3. The Journalist. (1988, June). They’re Off, p. 3. Munster, G., & Walsh, R. (1980). Documents on Australian Defence and Foreign Policy 1968–1975. Sydney: JR Walsh & GJ Munster.

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Murdoch, L., & Wilson, D. (1984, February 2). Secret Tapes of Judge, Lawyer. The Age, 1–5. Nine Network Australia. (2017, August 3). It’s Time: Nine Network Political Editor Laurie Oakes Retires. Retrieved July 14, 2020, from https:// www.9news.com.au/national/nine-­n etwork-­p olitical-­e ditor-­l aurie-­o akes-­ retires/5a27a607-­36a8-­4d70-­b926-­17735099a1c7 Pullan, R. (1986). Four Corners: 25 Years. Sydney: Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Queensland Crime and Corruption Commission. (2019). Retrieved May 20, 2020, from https://www.ccc.qld.gov.au/about-­us/our-­history/fitzgerald­inquiry Summers, A. (2018). Unfettered and Alive: A Memoir. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin. Sunday Herald. (1953, October 4). Atom Bombs in Our Arro Lands, p. 2. Sydney Morning Herald. (1955, May 17). Australian Atomic Test Site, p. 2. Sydney Morning Herald. (1978, October 12). Killen Attacks Review Report, p. 9. Tidey, J. (2018). Stories From a Bygone Age: A Newspaper Memoir. North Melbourne: Arcadia. Toohey, B. (1978a, October 5). Killen Warns on Plutonium Pile. Australian Financial Review, 1 & 6. Toohey, B. (1978b, October 11). Maralinga: The ‘Do Nothing’ Solution. Australian Financial Review, 1, 10 & 37. Tynan, E. (2011, December). Maralinga and the Journalists: Covering the Bomb Tests over Generations [online]. LiNQ, vol. 38, 131–145. Retrieved from https://search-­informit-­com-­au.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/documentSummary; dn=201202930;res=IELAPA ISSN: 0817-458X [cited 8 May 20]. Wilkinson, M. (1983, November 25–December 1). Big Shots Bugged. The National Times, 3–5.

CHAPTER 8

Larrikin-Journalists and the Media Moguls (1986–2001)

Who can forget Frontline? The fictional commercial current affairs program that satirized the Australian news media industry in such a life-like way that journalists, across the country, would squirm to the point of turning the TV off. In Episode 1, Series 3, high-profile host Mike Moore “puts” his “dick on the line” over journalistic independence, and threatens to leave the high-rating, lucrative program, for the more modest public broadcaster. The episode’s conclusion, when disillusionment and money sees Mike re-sign his Frontline contract, is soul destroying (Frontline Television Productions Pty Ltd. 1994, Ep1, S3). Frontline may be nothing but satire, but in satire there is an element of truth. Produced from 1994 to 1997, Frontline reflected growing macro, and micro, cultural alarm over the effects Australia’s increasingly concentrated news media ownership was having on journalistic independence. But the 1980s and 1990s were the decades of the commercial imperative, and this wider macro-cultural shift would impact on large sections of the Australian journalism micro-culture. It was not long before this situation revealed more serious underlying micro-cultural tensions bubbling away within this community that was filled with rebels and idealists. As we shall see, the era of the media mogul would split the journalism community between—in the words of Frontline’s successive fictional executive producers—the “soft cocks” (professional idealists) and the commercial rebels of journalism (Frontline Television Productions Pty Ltd. 1994).

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It’s not as if Australian journalism was unfamiliar with hardline proprietors using their position to further their own political and economic ends. We know from biographer Cyril Pearl that late colonial newspaper proprietor John Norton was among the “aggressive and accomplished demagogues” who made “little or no attempt to conceal their complex villainies” (Pearl 1958: 7). And we also know of the very public 1940 feud between John Norton’s heir, Ezra Norton, and media dynasty patriarch, Frank Packer, because it was carried out through their respective publications (the row culminated in fisticuffs at the Randwick races, which was triumphantly covered by a third competitor, Smith’s Weekly (Young 2019: 344)). We also know that Frank’s son, Kerry, would get so involved in the story, that he would even accompany his journalists on—sometimes—very dangerous assignments (such as when Kerry insisted on travelling with his journalists to cover the violent Timor resistance against Indonesia in 1975 (Stone 2000: 114–115)). And when Wilfred Burchett was exiled from Australia, The Sunday Observer, thumbing its nose at the Government, chartered a private jet to fly him in, thus creating its own exclusive (Burchett and Shimmin 2005: 639). And establishing a national newspaper in a country as far-flung as Australia was possibly Murdoch’s greatest risk, yet he was determined. The aggressive, never-back-down style is all very Larrikin-like behavior. But arguably, very little of it was done in the name of anything as noble as journalistic independence. This could possibly have all been tolerated—even encouraged (at the time, the AJA applauded Murdoch’s gamble on The Australian). But when, in 1987, News Ltd finally made its attack on the Herald and Weekly Times (the company Rupert’s father, Sir Keith, had built up to be one of Australia’s most lucrative media organizations as Managing Director in the 1920s and 1930s), and the break-up of Fairfax as a defense against Murdoch’s encroaching dominance, the Australian journalism community was more than a little alarmed. Murdoch had been circling The Herald and Weekly Times for almost a decade. In 1979, his proposed $126 million takeover was thwarted when The Fairfax Group and QLD Newspapers acquired almost a 15 percent interest in the HWT (The Journalist, February 1980b: 1–2). The AJA called for a Royal Commission. Our, previous Larrikin Managing Director at The Age Ranald Macdonald demanded a commitment from Fairfax, which now owned 71 percent of David Syme, that it would not interfere in Age editorial content (The Journalist, January 1980a: 1). And, the Victorian Government called the Norris Inquiry into the ownership and control of

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Victorian newspapers (The Journalist, May 1981b: 6). And all this, smack in the middle of the first and, to this day, only national strike by journalists over training, conditions, and compensation as the new Visual Display Terminals made their way into newsrooms. Then, in 1981, after Murdoch had become a US citizen to further his media interests in America, the Fraser Government changed the Foreign Ownership restrictions. Under what became known as the ‘Murdoch Amendments’, News Ltd was able to acquire ATV-10 (The Journalist, February 1981a: 1, 3). The alarming aspect for journalists appeared to be Murdoch’s other business interests—in airlines and energy resources—and the conflict in  interest they posed. Bruce Muirden’s comments in The Journalist epitomize the Australian journalism micro-culture’s concerns: If Rupert Murdoch’s present rate of growth of influence continues unchecked, he could well rival the Prime Minister within a matter of years in his direct power. It could get to that stage when no politician would dare stand up to him. We are close to that already … Rupert Murdoch is one man in very great danger of growing too big. (June 1981c: 12)

But it appears the calls went unheeded. In 1987, after the Herald and Weekly Times takeover, Murdoch owned nearly 60 percent of the Australian media, triggering a complicated round of sales and acquisitions. In the end, the newly privatized Fairfax owned the majority of David Syme, while Alan Bond and Kerry Packer ruled in the television broadcast space, as well as interests in print. Our Larrikin-journalists now had a new focus of rebellion, as we can hear in The Journalist’s February coverage: ... this industry of journalism is not the property of these corporate cowboys busy ransacking through the foundations for a quick buck. It is our industry, and it is up to journalists to ensure that whoever wins this takeover war, we do not become a forgotten casualty. (February 1987a: 1)

The AJA’s defiance extended to walking out of the Press Council. It appeared that the very institution the union had lobbied so hard for, somewhat naively believing it could protect journalistic independence, had failed to deal with the implications of The Herald and Weekly Times takeover (The Journalist, February 1987b: 1). Chairman Hal Wooten had drafted a proposal, calling for the Government to establish a tribunal where further concentration of ownership had to be justified in the public

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interest. The proposal was rejected. Wooten explained in The Journalist why he resigned in the face of the council’s refusal to deal with, what was seen as, the “greatest threat to freedom of the press”: The Press Council is a noble ideal, but it has foundered on unwillingness to allow it to become a genuine public body. (February 1987c: 8)

The core issue with voluntary self-regulation with which, to this day, the journalism community is grappling, had come to the fore. The journalism micro-culture reacted by serving a claim for charters of editorial independence on all media proprietors. Fairfax journalists formed the ‘Fairfax and Friends’ group, and The Age formed an editorial Independence Committee. But, in the face of what was to evolve into— what journalism scholar and 1980s’ practitioner Mandy Oakham described as—“rampant commercialism” (in Tapsall and Varley 2001), these efforts proved to be, like our Larrikin, somewhat idealistic. In her memoir chapter of The Content Makers, former Age journalist and union representative, Margaret Simons reflects on how emotionally-innocent these defiant demands actually were: The campaigners for editorial independence at Fairfax in the 1980s and early 1990s were losers. We were naïve ever to think otherwise. (2007: 17)

The truth was that Australia was experiencing an evolution in its wider national macro-culture. Both sides of politics embraced market-economy principles and commercial imperatives were priority. Simons’ contextual explanation goes something like this: “Now we can see that the 1980s were not about declarations of idealism, but rather about the triumph of free markets” (2007: 15). And it wasn’t long before the results of, as much the new media ownership structures as the new culture of commercial priorities, were revealed. In 1986, the company that had recently acquired QTQ9  – owned by business tycoon Alan Bond – paid out $400,000 for an inherited 1983 defamation action to the former Queensland Premier Sir Joh Bjelke Petersen. The issue was examined in a 1986 QTQ license renewal hearing, and may well have ended there. But then Channel 9 A Current Affair host Jana Wendt— whose forensic interviewing skills earned her the nickname, the Perfumed Steamroller—asked her boss, on screen, whether the payout was part of reciprocal relationship between the media and politicians, Bond replied:

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… certainly the Premier made it under no doubt that if we were going to continue to do business successfully in Queensland then we  – he  – expected that matter to be resolved. (The Journalist, January 1989a: 6)

The tribunal was on again, and this time it widened its terms of reference to look at whether Bond had threatened an AMP Society executive with some sort of blackmail. The accusation was that Bond had, personally, directed his journalism staff to gather material on AMP share transactions, and that material would be broadcast unless AMP – a large financial services company – stopped acting against Bond in his proposed election to the Board of one of his other business interests, Bell Resources (The Journalist, January 1989a: 6). Bond stood defiant. In a June 1989 interview with The Bulletin an angry, defensive Bond “hit back” at his “destroyers”: Journalists who have never taken a risk in their lives stride about in a cloak of self-righteousness as if they are the font of all wisdom, as if they and they alone are the font of truth and justice. Half of them wouldn’t know night from day and yet they set themselves up as the conscience of the nation. (Stannard in The Journalist, June 1989: 12)

But the real proprietor-villain was perceived to be Murdoch. But with almost 60 percent of the journalism community employed by News, this demonization exposed widening rifts within the journalism micro-culture. In 1989, The AJA announced it would host the International Federation of Journalists’ ‘News Unlimited’ conference in Sydney. It was a line-up of 50 high-profile local and international journalists, authors, and politicians “examining” Murdoch’s News Ltd as “the most extensive and sophisticated example of international media empire” (The Journalist, January 1989b: 1). The conference was, in effect, an attack on News, its leadership and its non-union-member journalists themselves (and included, as gala dinner entertainment, a send-up of Prime Minister Bob Hawke doing a mock Murdoch testimonial by then popular comedian Max Gillies). The conference concluded with a “declaration” on a global campaign to “alert public opinion” about the “dangers of concentration of media ownership” (The Journalist, March/April 1989d: 1). It was aggressive rhetoric that suggested complicity among News Ltd journalists and their employer. It is little wonder that News journalists— now, theoretically, making up 60 percent of the journalism community— went of the defensive: “Conferences devoted to attacks on Mr Rupert

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Murdoch, chief executive of News Ltd, are viewed sourly by News Ltd journalists,” The Australian newspaper responded in its editorial the day after the conference ended. We are customarily portrayed as craven lackeys of The Great Satan, whereas we like to think of ourselves as the gallant Knights of the Little Aussie Battler. (The Australian, February 14, 1989)

The 1991 merger between the AJA and Actors Equity did nothing to help divisions in journalism ideology. At the time, several aspects of the union were refreshed: there was the formation of today’s Walkley Foundation, with a new lucrative awards sponsor in AMP (The Journalist, January 1989c: 1). The long-awaited higher education degrees in journalism were becoming established, with four universities now offering a Masters in Journalism (The Journalist, March 1990: 11). But concern over a watering down of the AJA’s influence and becoming swamped by other unions disillusioned large sections of the membership base enough to abandon the union entirely. (Many journalists were also none too happy about the fact that the amalgamation meant they would be represented by the same organization that also represented, among other entertainers, clowns). The schism meant that there were now whole cohorts of journalists who applied their Larrikin tendencies to practices that were very effective at turning a buck, but produced stories of little public benefit. And any who condemned these practices were dismissed with the epitaph made so famous by Frontline’s executive producers: “soft cock.” Checkbook journalism, intrusions into private grief, sensationalism, and the elevation of reporters to celebrity status were perceived to be all part of the journalist’s professional practice during the 1980s and 1990s. This was not helped by high-profile commercial current affairs journalism, which nurtured aggressive professional practices (see Stone 2000). And with one segment of the industry condemning such practices on one side, and another reacting by redoubling its efforts with them on the other, it is little wonder the public started rating journalists as less trustworthy than used car dealers, and with morals only marginally better than prostitutes (Harcup 2015: 6). In 1993, current affairs host Mike Willesee managed to get phoneline into a farmhouse siege, where two gunmen were holding two children hostage. He interviewed both the gunmen and one of the hostages live on television. The public was outraged. The various sections of the journalism community were either revolted, or envious that a colleague had snared such a good story. According to Willesee:

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The critics, most of whom missed out on the story, came running in because someone did, I think, too well with that story. (in Gillespie 1993)

The incident sparked public demands for new, written guidelines, for journalists. Some even went as far as calling for those guidelines to be legislated (Gillespie 1993). The specter of legal regulation on Australian journalistic independence now looked very real. Then South Australian Attorney General, Chris Sumner, started lobbying the state’s parliament for a statutory tribunal to regulate journalism, and Labor Senator, Barney Cooney, headed a federal committee to come up with recommendations on how to improve journalistic ethics. Documentary-maker Iain Gillespie’s 1993 comments tell us just how alarmed journalists were becoming over the potential threat to news media freedom: If you think government control of the media only exists in military dictatorships and could never exist in Australia, then think again. The threat is real and perhaps only a few votes away from reality. (Gillespie 1993)

The AJA—now part of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance— reacted to the threat with a revised Code of Ethics. Higher education journalism programs placed more focus on journalism ethics and regulation. And ABC TV started screening ‘Media Watch’, a 15-minute weekly segment reflecting on the ethical or otherwise activity of the media, hosted by our previous This Day Tonight Larrikin-journalist, Stuart Littlemore. Reminiscent of our previous Larrikin organ, The Nation Review’s ‘Ferret Watch’, ‘Media Watch’ developed into what is, at the time of writing, an important self-regulatory tactic to maintain journalism’s freedom from government interference. It could be argued the public humiliation of unethical journalistic behavior is a more effective deterrent than any statutory regulation could hope to be. In 1999, Media Watch earned two Walkley Awards for revealing the ‘Cash for Comment’ affair, in which influential talkback radio hosts Alan Jones and John Laws were found to have been paid to provide favorable on-air comment about companies such as Qantas, Optus, Foxtel, and Mirvac, without disclosing these arrangements to listeners. It also slammed the then Australian Broadcasting Authority (superseded by the Australian Communications and Media Authority in 2005) for failing to properly regulate broadcast media figures such as Jones and Laws.

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The journalism micro-culture gave the program the catchphrase: “Everyone loves ‘Media Watch’ … until they’re on it.” The program was—and at the time of writing, still is—Larrikinism epitomized, taking gleeful satisfaction in its recipients’ condemnation. One episode opened with a proud montage of its various criticisms, including the description of original presenter Stuart Littlemore as a ‘pompous git’. When host David Marr received a dead fish from then Daily Telegraph editor Campbell Reid (who made regular appearances on the program), producers decided to make it into the ‘Campbell Reid Perpetual Trophy for the Brazen Recycling of Other People’s Work’, and award it to the most blatant case of plagiarism every year. Media Watch had a wealth of fodder from which to feed. It was the 1980s and 1990s, the era of commercial current affairs. There is  little doubt that proprietors did not hold back from interfering in editorial content (Little 1994; Stone 2000), but journalists in print and public broadcasters had to deal with this too. It was more the influence of the perpetual chase for high(er) ratings and the increase in value of advertising space with which the journalism micro-culture was becoming concerned. Although there is little doubt some sections of print journalism were indulging in dubious ethical practices, television was the medium that brought such activities into people’s loungerooms every night. The new glitzy (and flush) programs—Channel Nine’s 60 Minutes, Channel Seven’s Today Tonight, Channel 10’s Hinch—attracted some of the most well-trained and skilled journalists from the more sedate print medium and public broadcasters. Ray Martin and Jeff McMullan had both come over from quality current affairs programs on the public broadcaster, ABC. George Negus had come from broadsheet print media, The Australian and The Australian Financial Review, while Jana Wendt had started as a researcher for the public broadcaster, and Jennifer Byrne had trained as a cadet and later San Francisco correspondent for The Age. We cannot reduce commercial current affairs journalism as “nothing but premasticated pap” (in the words of former Media Watch producer, David Salter (2004)). But the new set of commercial current affairs news-­ values—where victims or villains take precedence over events or facts (Little 1994: 10)—did start to grate on the Larrikin-journalists who had been trained the so-called ‘soft cock’ media. According to original 60 Minutes field producer, John Little, although commercial current affairs liked the aura of kudos surrounding broadsheet journalists, it was asking them to “unlearn” the basic conventions of their craft (1994: 10). It is

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little wonder the harder push for ratings and advertising dollars, and the now-overt influence business concerns were having on journalistic ideology, would eventually see some commercial current affairs journalists— who, after all, had been immersed in a culture of defiance against encroachments on journalistic independence—start to question where all this glamour was taking the industry. In 1987, 60 Minutes journalist, George Negus, left his high-profile, but demanding, television current affairs position. He had been with 60 Minutes since its inception in 1979, but now he was leaving—in his words—the “perpetual jetlag” (Negus 2001: 91) to host Channel Nine’s The Today Show. Negus was now getting up at 5 a.m. to prepare for breakfast television, but at least he was in the same country as his young family. At the same time, Negus was contributing columns to various newspapers, including The Bulletin and the Sunday Age (Negus 2001: 91, 208). Here, Negus’ knock-about, tongue-in-cheek authorial voice is almost audible. Using his jocular, self-depreciating Larrikin-style, Negus pokes fun at the ludicrous within various political, social, and economic issues, including the commercialization and glamorization of his own professional culture: For reasons best known to the collective mass audience and readerships in surveys that ask questions like, ‘Which occupation do you have more or less time for?’, journalism invariably rates just above grave digging and sewerage work, but well below anything that pays a wage. Despite this inglorious bucketing, given despite the popularity of television current affairs programs, has led to some of us – for our sins – being turned into so-called ‘celebrity journalists, with our mugs splashed all over the covers of magazines and the intimate details of our personal lives featured in gossip and social columns. (Negus 2001: 214)

In 1992, Negus became founding host of the public broadcaster’s foreign affairs program, Foreign Correspondent. The departure from commercial to public broadcaster was probably unsurprising to those within the industry, but to those on the outside, it may have seemed a little strange that a ‘celebrity’ journalist such as Negus would disappear from one of the highest-rating, most glamorous commercial current affairs programs to the world of public broadcasting. Given his tendency toward self-depreciation, it was appropriate that Negus popped up in a cameo on a Frontline episode, mocking the

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perceived pomposity of commercially driven current affairs and its power over journalistic independence: Negus (to Mike): So really are thinking of jumping ship then? Mike: Aww, I’m sick of it. Negus: Sure Mike: I mean that’s why I wanted to speak to you, you’ve done it. You had all the fame, you turned your back on it, I mean, you went from the big ratings, big name, to nothing … Negus: yeah, yeah, alright Mike: Well right up there, you know what I mean, I mean from 60 minutes to the ABC, I mean that’s fantastic… Negus: Yeah, yeah, I know, but you do realize what you’re giving up don’t you? Mike: Yeah, it’s not about money, it’s about current affairs, right Negus: So you’re fair dinkum are ya? Because I know someone … (Frontline Television Productions Pty Ltd 1994, Ep1, S3) It is almost as if Negus is speaking to his alter-ego as it weighs up the pros and cons of walking away from commercial current affairs. There were some who complained that Negus had, in his words, “bitten the hand that fed him” (in Stone 2000: 213). But, in general, Negus’ cynicism of the Packer network’s expectations—“they talked about loyalty all the time, loyalty, loyalty, loyalty,” he told former 60 Minutes producer, Gerald Stone in his biography of 60 Minutes—was applauded within the journalism community. However, when his colleague, Jana Wendt, made a similar move from commercial current affairs to public broadcasting, the transition was not so smooth. Wendt was the superstar of commercial current affairs. She was young, glamorous, and appeared to have no qualms about going into dangerous situations—at one point, Colonel Gaddafi locked her and her film crew up in their Libyan hotel so she could ‘consider’ his offer of a place in his harem (Stone 2000: 192). Her appeal even made it to the title of an academic research project, examining why young people chose to study journalism. The “Jana Wendt Factor” (Alysen and Oakham 1996) was, indeed,

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an influence on the author of this book to enter the profession back in 1994! Wendt left 60 Minutes in 1987, to host Channel Nine’s nightly current affairs program, A Current Affair. In 1991, Wendt showed one of her earliest public critiques of what she described in the Andrew Olle Lecture as a “soul-destroying” distortion of “news priorities” and the “expansion of entertainment values” in information output (Wendt 1997). The story was about topless shop attendants. Wendt walked out for two days. But of course, her popularity meant she could do this in relative security. As journalist Bob Kearsley pointed out in The Melbourne Press Club’s Hall of Fame: “Reportedly among the highest paid presenters on Australian television at the time, she was in a strong position to have her views heard” (Kersley n.d., https://halloffame.melbournepressclub.com/article/jana-­ wendt, accessed July 10, 2020). Wendt herself admitted that she may have reported some stories of dubious news value, but the resulting “handsome” and “extravagant” rewards “bought” her “the most valuable commodity of all”: freedom (Wendt 1997). Wendt’s freedom meant she could now walk out on the commercial current affairs entirely. After a two-year stint with the competing Seven Network to host Witness (from which she left, again accusing management of not living up to its promises about pursuing quality journalism), she signed up for the public broadcaster’s ten-part $1.1 million series, Uncensored. At the same time, Wendt delivered the iconic Andrew Olle Lecture. Titled after one of Australian journalism’s highly revered members, The Andrew Olle Lecture is considered, within the micro-culture of journalism, up there with The Walkley Awards in recognizing best professional practice. Here, Wendt delivered her parting shots at commercial current affairs, and the commercialization of news in general: There is nothing more destructive of a journalist’s talent than subordinating it to goals that have nothing to do with journalism. And yet more and more, journalists are asked to distort their values to the perceived dictates of the markets. (Wendt 1997)

The move to the public broadcaster may have meant a pay-cut from her current affairs roles at Nine and Seven, but it was apparently more than what her public broadcaster colleagues were getting. It was unfortunate that the first episode of Uncensored was aired in the middle of a

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controversy about the ABC, its use of outsourcing to commercial companies and the Howard Government’s budget cuts to the public broadcaster. All this meant that when Uncensored was given $100,000 to spend on episodes, and Wendt given four researchers and a brief to seek international interviewees, eyebrows were raised. As Rod Kirkpatrick pointed out in News Media Chronicle, “all this compared unfavorably” with other ABC interview programs, which were allocated less than $30,000 per episode, employed three researchers and restricted to local talent. It didn’t help when the ABC revealed four of Wendt’s ten interviewees had been paid (Kirkpatrick 1999: 197–198). By the end of 1998, Wendt was hosting the nightly current affairs program, Dateline, on Australia’s other (partially) publicly funded broadcaster, SBS. It may have appeared there was a level of envy within the journalism community that such a commercially driven journalist could defect from tabloid current affairs to broadsheet programming so seamlessly. But her persistent criticisms of the system that allowed market forces to dictate news could not help but endear her to the broader journalism community. In 2014—after she made a short-term return to commercial current affairs in 2003—Wendt was inducted into the Melbourne Press Club Hall of fame. Her biography in the Hall of Fame constructs her as a crusader for journalistic independence, and celebrates her outspokenness. Here, journalist Bob Kearsley describes her as a “powerful contributor” to television current affairs, who made her own first name a “byword” for the genre and “provided a role model for many aspiring young female journalists along the way” with her “ability, her style and her refusal to play by the boys’ club rules of the day” (Kearsley, https://halloffame.melbournepressclub.com/article/jana-­wendt, accessed July 10, 2020). The journalism micro-culture, at the time, was portraying commercial ideology, and its impact on professional values and beliefs, as the villain in the narrative of freedom of the news media. Meanwhile, those who abandoned the world of market-driven forces were acclaimed as heroes. As such, Negus’ self-depreciative mocking voice, and Wendt’s powerful eloquence can be interpreted as ‘threads’ that help ‘weave’ our ‘web’ of the relationship between Larrikinism, journalism, and freedom of the news media. In this instance, freedom of the news media in the context of what Oakham described as “rampant commercialism” (in Tapsall and Varley 2001: 71).

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Journalists in Jail On December 11, 1989, Perth reporter, Tony Barrass became the first journalist in Australia to go to prison for refusing to reveal a source for a story. As we already know, there is a long Larrikin tradition of exceeding the limits of the law within Australian journalism micro-culture, particularly when said law gives judges the ability to punish journalists who do not reveal a source when requested. We have already met several journalists, from Chap. 2 onward, who, in the face of the threat of jail, continued to refuse the judge’s direction. But the end of 1989 marked a turning point. As The Journalist reported, until now no one really thought the court would first push a journalist to the point of refusing to answer, (given journalism’s overt stated ethical standards), and second, to give such a harsh penalty as jail (January 1990: 1). Barrass, a Sunday Times police reporter, had obtained confidential tax details of former Rothwells head, Laurie Connell. The 28-year-old reporter then wrote a story in which he used the tax-leak to highlight poor security in Perth’s taxation office. Later, Barrass was called as a witness in a preliminary hearing after a tax office clerk was charged with leaking the documents. Barrass refused to say who gave him the documents when asked by magistrate Peter Throbaven, and was jailed for seven days for Contempt of Court. He was given the option of paying $25 a day for the seven-day period but, Larrikin-like in audacity, Barrass chose incarceration (Australian Press Council News, February 1990: 9). The journalism micro-culture was outraged. The West Australian published an editorial the next day, saying the principle of a free press had been dealt a “savage blow” and called for a review of the law to include privileges for journalists (in The Journalist, January 1990: 1). A meeting of Sunday Times AJA members called on Barrass to be released and the law changed. The Federal Executive meeting of the AJA sent a statement to the WA Attorney General condemning the courts actions and called for the contempt laws to be changed. The matter was raised in the Senate by the Deputy Opposition leader, Fred Chaney, who asked the Justice Minister to get the Attorney General to look into the Barrass case. And in Perth a meeting of 250 journalists heard statements read out by Branch Secretary, Chris Smythe, from journalists in country towns, state branches, federal executive, and the International Federation of Journalists. In an open letter published in The Journalist, Barrass thanked well-­ wishers from WA, Australia, and around the world: “I knew it was going

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to kick up a stink,” he said, “but I didn’t realize to what extent.” Calling for a ground swell to push for a change in law, Barrass said the “time was right”: We have managed to grab the attention of the world’s press, but more importantly, we have shown up these laws for that they are: outdated and restrictive. (January 1990: 1)

Although Attorney General, Joe Berinson, agreed to meet the AJA to discuss amendments to the law, it is still, at the time of writing, contemptuous for a journalist to protect a source when asked to disclose his or her name in a court of law. In July 1993, Sydney Morning Herald journalist Deborah Cornwell refused to give the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption the name of the police officer she had quoted anonymously. The Commission pursued the matter to the Supreme Court, where Cornwell was given a two-month suspended sentence, including 90 hours of community service (Turner 1994: 394). The same year, Christopher Nicholls of the ABC was given a four-­ month jail sentence; the longest ever handed down in Australia for protecting a source. Nicholls was also charged with impersonation, false pretenses, and forgery as a result of his investigations into allegations that a South Australian Cabinet Minister had assisted her partner to obtain commercially valuable information (McWilliams 1993: 19–20). According to the prosecution, Nicholls had impersonated the partner over the phone. Nicholls denied making the calls, but refused to reveal the identity of the person who did. Strangely, the jury acquitted Nicholls of the more damning other charges, but it was for refusing to name his source that he shared a maximum-security cell with a murderer for a reduced sentence of 12 weeks (Australia’s Right to Know 2009: 3). The Federal Attorney General, Michael Lavarch, suggested the possibility of a qualified shield law for journalistic activity, and in November the State Attorneys General adopted ‘in principle’ support for the protection of sources, but deferred any action until the industry showed willingness to tighten its own ethical codes (Turner 1994 : 394). The main issue the Attorneys General had was with self-regulation which, as we have discussed, is one of Australian journalism culture’s nonnegotiable principles. But in 1994, the AJA section of what was now the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA), began a review of its ethical code and

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self-­regulatory systems—including the possibility of having non-journalist members (MEAA 1993: 6). The massive 20-clause code was whittled down to 12 clauses, but remained virtually unchanged. The preamble, setting out the micro-culture’s four nonnegotiable values, still included ‘Independence’. Further, that same year, the MEAA adopted a Charter for a Free Media in a Democratic Society. The Charter set out a series of “aims,” the very first of which read: An amendment to the Australian Constitution to provide that everyone has the right to freedom of expression. (MEAA 1993: 8)

In effect, protection for Australian journalistic activity. The issue of journalistic independence was certainly on the public agenda. With commercialism “dictating” basic news values and practices, and the increase of contempt of court cases, we could interpret the 1990s as a step backward from the previous decade for freedom of the news media. But the issue was being taken seriously, as we can see in the historic legal victories for freedom of the news media during this time.

Small Victories In 1992, the High Court interpreted an implied right to freedom of political communication when Australia’s eight commercial television broadcasters rejected the Hawke Government’s 1991 Political Broadcasts and Political Disclosures Act 1991. Under the Act, the broadcasting of politically related material on radio and television during the period leading up to a State or Federal election (except in news, current affairs, or talkback programs) was banned. The High Court found this was contrary to the constitutionally protected Australia’s system of representative government and “common citizenship of the Australian people.” Judge Anthony Mason commented: The consequence [of the Act] severely impairs the freedoms previously enjoyed by citizens to discuss public and political affairs and to criticize federal institutions. Part IIID impairs those freedoms by restricting the broadcasters’ freedom to broadcast and by restricting the access of political parties, groups, candidates and persons generally to express views with respect to public and political affairs on radio and television. (Australian Capital Television PTY.  Limited and

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Others and The State of New South Wales v. The Commonwealth of Australia and Another (1992) 177 CLR 106, 30 September 1992: 16)

The decision may have related to political advertising, but the interpretation of an implied right to freedom of communication within the Constitution’s protection of representative government was significant. Later that year, Nationwide News, the holding company of The Australian newspaper, was sued under the Industrial Relations Act over a 1989 article written by well-known Larrikin, Max Newton. The article, headlined “Advance Australia Fascist” apparently committed the offense of “bringing the Australian Industrial Relations Commission into disrepute”: Nevertheless, Australian workers clearly recognise, through the use of their manifest common sense, the corruption and inequity of the ministry of labor regulations and controls. They are fleeing to freedom through the route of abandoning jobs where unions have the power to deprive them of their right to work, and are individually opting out of the entire State-sponsored labor control and wage-fixing apparatus. Newton (n.d.) wrote. (https://economics.org.au/2010/12/ advance-­australia-­fascist-­max-­newton/, accessed July 15, 2020)

The High Court held the Industrial Relations Act was “within the conciliation and arbitration head of power” but, significantly, “infringed on the implied freedom of political communication,” again interpreted from the constitutionally protected right to representative government and common citizenship of the Australian people: The ‘doctrine of representative government’ is one of the three doctrines found in the Constitution – the other two and federal government and separation of powers. All citizens who are not under a special disability should be able to share the benefits of the right to political discourse. If not, then the citizenry would not be able to participate in the representative government system. (Nationwide News Pty Ltd v Wills (1992) 177 CLR 1)

The concept that the right to representative government and common citizenship of the Australian people meant there was an implied right to freedom of communication within the Constitution was expanded upon two years later in Theophanus v The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd (1994) 182 CLR 104. Australian Labor Party member and Joint Parliamentary

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Standing Committee on Migration chairperson Andrew Theophanus was suing The Herald and Weekly Times, and then Returned Servicemen’s League President Bruce Ruxton for defamation. The Herald and Weekly Times had published a letter in its Sunday Herald Sun on November 8, 1992, from the RSL President, titled ‘Give Theophanus the Shove’, which said, among other things, that the Parliamentarian “appeared” to want a “bias shown towards Greeks as migrants”: If reports coming out of Canberra are true about the alleged behavior of Dr Andrew Theophanus, then it is high time he was thrown off Parliament’s Immigration Committee, the letter said.

The publication could clearly be read as defamatory. However, the High Court concluded there was, indeed, implied in the Constitution a freedom to publish material discussing government and political matters and, further, this implied right stretched to a right to discuss members of parliament, their performance and duties, and their suitability for office. This implied right, however, was one related to communication. As noted in the Theophanus v The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd (1994) 182 CLR 104 case, that implication did not extend to freedom of expression generally. But just three years later, with a change in the High Court’s composition, this implied right was unanimously reversed in the Lange v Australian Broadcasting Corporation case. Here, the High Court held no direct right to free speech could form a defense to defamation (Lange v Australian Broadcasting Corporation (“Political Free Speech case”) [1997] HCA 25; (1997) 189 CLR 520; (1997) 145 ALR 96; (1997) 71 ALJR 818 (8 July 1997)). Despite this, let’s just imagine for a moment that Nationwide News had backed down from The Industrial Relations Commission. Let’s imagine the Herald and Weekly Times had backed down from Theophanus. Let’s imagine there was no Larrikin tradition of defiance underpinning the Australian journalism community. Let’s imagine there were no ‘threads’ and ‘indications’ weaving a web of micro-cultural values and beliefs that said it was worth the effort to defy authority. In the Theophanus and other cases, the Larrikin-journalist had achieved significant victories for freedom of the news media in Australia. But as the world entered a new millennium, all this was about to change.

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Bibliography Alysen, B., & Oakham, K. (1996). The Jana Wendt Factor: An Empirical Study of the Myths and Misconceptions Among Journalism Students. Australian Journalism Review, 18, 39–52. The Australian. (1989, February 14). The Pravda Solution. Australia’s Right to Know. (2009, April). Submission to the Inquiry into Evidence Amendment (Journalists: Privilege). Bill. Australian Capital Television PTY.  Limited and Others and The State of New South Wales v. The Commonwealth of Australia and Another. (1992). 177 CLR 106, 30 September 1992, p. 16. Australian Press Council News. (1990, February 9). Burchett, G., & Shimmin, N. (Eds.). (2005). Memoirs of a Rebel Journalist: The Autobiography of Wilfred Burchett. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press. Frontline Television Productions Pty Ltd. (1994). Frontline: Dick on the Line. Ser. 3, Episode 1, Australia. Gillespie, I. (1993, September 21). Fear or Favour, SBS-TV Broadcast. Harcup, T. (2015). Journalism Principles and Practice (3rd ed.). London: Sage Publications. January. (1990). Jail Term Rage, 1. The Journalist. (1980a, January). Union Supports Age Independence, 1. The Journalist. (1980b, February). Executive Presses for Inquiry into Control of Media in Australia, 1–2. The Journalist. (1981a, February). AJA Moves on Media Bias, 1, 3. The Journalist. (1981b, May). The Norris Inquiry, 6. The Journalist. (1981c, June). Murdoch Fast Becomes an Untouchable, 12. The Journalist. (1987a, February). Corporate Cowboys Ransack Industry, 1. The Journalist. (1987b, February). AJA Set to Leave Press Council as Commercialism Triumphs, 1. The Journalist. (1987c, February). A Noble Idea Founders on Self-Interest, 8. The Journalist. (1989a, January). Road to File Spice Bond Inquiry Days, 6. The Journalist. (1989b, January). Speakers Give News on News, 1. The Journalist. (1989c, January). Awards Study Planned, 1. The Journalist. (1989d, March/April). A Bold Step, 1, 7. The Journalist. (1990, March). Universities Boost Courses in Journalism, 11. Kersley, B. (n.d.). Jana Wendt. Retrieved July 10, 2020, from https://halloffame. melbournepressclub.com/article/jana-­wendt. Kirkpatrick, R. (1999). News Media Chronicle in Australian Studies. Journalism, 8, 197–238. Lange v Australian Broadcasting Corporation (“Political Free Speech Case”) [1997] HCA 25; (1997) 189 CLR 520; (1997) 145 ALR 96; (1997) 71 ALJR 818. (1997, July 8).

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Little, J. (1994). Inside 60 Minutes: The Story Behind the Stories. St Leonards: Allen and Unwin. McWilliams, E. (1993). Shield Laws for Journalists. Reform, Autumn, 19–23. MEAA. (1993). AMP WG Walkley Awards Directory and Diary, 6. Nationwide News Pty Ltd v Wills. (1992). 177 CLR 1. Negus, G. (2001). By George! Twenty Years Behind The Typewriter. Sydney: ABC Books. Newton, M. (n.d.). Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://economics.org. au/2010/12/advance-­australia-­fascist-­max-­newton/. Pearl, C. (1958). Wild Men of Sydney. London: W.H. Allen. Salter, D. (2004, October 5). The Trouble with Journalism. Paper presented at Melbourne Press Club Annual Conference. Simons, M. (2007). The Content Makers: Understanding the Media in Australia. Camberwell: Penguin Books. Stannard, B. (1989, June). Bond Hits Back at Destroyers. The Journalist, 12. Stone, G. (2000). Compulsive Viewing: The Inside Story of Packer’s Nine Network. Ringwood: Penguin Books. Tapsall, S., & Varley, C. (Eds.). (2001). Journalism: Theory in Practice. South Melbourne, Victoria: Oxford University Press. Theophanous v The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd. (1994). 182 CLR 104. Wendt, J. (1997). Andrew Olle Lecture. ABC Radio Sydney. Retrieved July 12, 2020, from https://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/1997/11/15/ 285549.htm. Young, S. (2019). Paper Emperors: The Rise of Australia’s Newspaper Empires. Sydney: UNSW Press.

CHAPTER 9

Larrikinism.com: 2001 Onward

September 11, 2001. The perceived bastion of Western democracy attacked. Suicide bombers hijacked four domestic aircraft and flew three of them into the—until now— supposed most secure location in the world, killing more than 6000 and bringing middle east-style terror tactics to the US mainland for the first time. The Western world was possibly the most alarmed it had been since September 1939. As Australia rose to equal third on the list of terrorist targets, and every envelope appeared to contain anthrax spores, an upsurge in public support allowed for increasingly tougher state-sanctioned restrictions on freedom of expression, including freedom of the news media. As Pullan (1984) points out, anti-terror laws have been impacting on freedom of the news media in Australia since colonial times. But in the post-September 11 environment, increasingly greater powers were given to security agencies and police in the name of detecting terrorist activity. Arguments against these powers weren’t helped when, in 2002, three bombs were detonated in the tourist area of Bali—two at busy nightspots, and one right outside the American consulate—killing 202 people, including 88 Australians. The terrorism threat now appeared very close to home. The problem was, the powers combating the evidently all-too-real threat were also criminalizing accepted journalistic practices. In 2005, the MEAA published its inaugural Report into the State of Press Freedom in Australia. The debut publication covers changes in legislation affecting journalistic practice from 2001 and 2005 and, as an © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Vine, Larrikins, Rebels and Journalistic Freedom in Australia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61856-8_9

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official organ of Australian journalism’s professional association, it is a useful indicator of the micro-cultural conversation about freedom of the news being held in those first few years post September 11. Since the 2001 terrorist attacks in the US, the report said, Australia had seen “the most significant tightening of laws restricting coverage in peace time” (Warren et al. 2005: 5). In 2003, eight days after being introduced in Parliament, amendments were made to the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) Act 1979. Reflecting the seriousness with which the journalism community regarded these amendments, the MEAA, in its very first section of its very first report on press freedom analyzed their consequences of ASIO’s new powers on journalistic practice. The amendments, the MEAA reported, set out two offenses for those who disclose ‘operational information’ relating to ASIO warrants. The two offenses, in the words of the MEAA, “raised the greatest alarm among journalists” (Warren et  al. 2005: 5). The first, in practice, according to the MEAA, prohibited anyone who has caused a blip on the ASIO radar (including their lawyers) from speaking to journalists for at least 28 days after questioning. This meant (still means) no public scrutiny or criticism of the intelligence agency’s actions toward persons of interest. So, journalists reporting on an ASIO warrant, which for example, they believed to be illegally issued and enforced in contravention of international human rights conventions (in other words, fulfilling journalism’s democratic responsibility) were in breach of the Act and risked a five-year prison term. The second offense under the Act was to make it illegal to report on the issuing of a warrant—in itself defined as ‘operational information’—for two years after its expiration. The MEAA reported there was no specific public interest defense against knowingly disclosing such ‘operational information’ for the purposes of informing the public or generating debate about ASIO activity. The definition of ‘operational information’ covered “sources of information” and “operational methods or plans” of the ASIO organization. “It is hard to see what information or plans that ASIO has that would not fall under this definition of ‘operational information,” the MEAA reported, arguing that this section effectively gagged any debate about ASIO’s activities when a warrant has been issued; “an untenable situation,” the MEAA concluded.

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To inoculate ASIO from public scrutiny about their activities—and to have the potential to jail journalists who attempt to shed light on ASIO’s activities is fundamentally undemocratic. (Warren et al. 2005: 6)

A year later, the Senate passed the Telecommunications (Interception) Amendment Stored Communications Bill 2004. It was designed to allow the seizure of stored communications—sms, email, voicemail, and so on— that may indicate terrorist activity, but it also posed (as described by the MEAA) a “serious threat” (Warren et  al. 2005: 6) to the anonymity of journalistic sources. As discussed in previous chapters, a situation that, in itself, threatens freedom of the news media. However, almost concurrently, the government also passed the Criminal Code Amendment (Terrorist Organizations) Bill 2003 and the Anti-Terrorism Bill (no. 2) 2004 (which prohibited “associating” with terrorist organizations). As the MEAA pointed out, exposing journalists’ electronic communications not only threatened source anonymity, but also potentially meant journalists could go to jail for researching groups ASIO suspected of nefarious activity. The MEAA report’s rhetoric could be read as hyperbole maybe, but when we listen to experienced and well-regarded journalists, such as Brian Toohey, we can hear how concerned the journalism micro-culture really was (is) about the “raft” of national security amendments: After Sept 11, 2001, [the Government] went on this frenzy of new law making, nearly all of which just completely jumped basic civil liberties … They have now introduced criminal sanctions across just about anything if it upsets a government, or if it upsets intelligence officials who are far more important these days than they were back then. I think that’s the core change … and the way they’ve written the new laws is to make defenses almost impossible, it varies from law to law, but they will not argue the public intertest should be given equal weight as—what they describe as the public interest—which is never exposing anything they do.

In 2001, the Howard government proposed the Criminal Code Amendment [Espionage and Related Offences] Bill 2001, which would, in effect, criminalize both the giving and receiving of leaked information. More than 20 years previously, there were rumblings the Fraser government would put forward a similar proposal. At the time, possibly the “greatest political newsbreaker in Australian journalism”—as described by

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the Melbourne Press Club’s Media Hall of Fame—Laurie Oakes, manifesting the Larrikin ‘thread’ of audacity, had embedded the characteristic in journalism micro-culture after revealing the entire leaked federal budget two days before the treasurer (Grattan n.d., https://halloffame.melbournepressclub.com/article/laurie-­oakes, accessed July 6, 2020). In other words, the use of leaks, rather than seen as obstructive, is lionized within Australian journalism micro-culture. As Oakes said in the 1980 Melbourne University Arthur Smith Memorial Lecture on Journalism: Almost all important political stories [use leaked information]. Any attempt to use the Crimes Act to prevent the publication of leaked information would have serious implications indeed, not only for the media but for the political system as a whole. (in The Journalist, January, 1981: 6)

The government held off introducing such a bill in 1980 and, after campaigns by media organizations and press freedom groups, it did so again in 2001 by removing the provision directed at journalists. The problem, however, was that the bill failed to provide protection for whistleblowers. Further, as reported by the MEAA: Since then, the Government has embarked on a significant campaign to intimidate whistleblowers by using the full investigatory powers to identify confidential sources. (Warren et al. 2005: 10)

It started in 2002, when the Senate Privileges Committee investigated the leaking of a report to then Age journalist, Annabel Crabb. Although the Committee found Crabb was not in contempt (Warren et al. 2005: 10), two years later, when Herald Sun journalists Michael Harvey and Gerard McManus wrote an embarrassing article about the Commonwealth’s plan to clampdown on veterans’ entitlements, the AFP was able to find and charge the person it suspected of being the source of the leak. In the end, there was not enough evidence that public servant Desmond Kelly had leaked anything (R v Kelly [2006] VSCA 221 (17 October 2006)). But this did not help Harvey and McManus who, refusing to reveal their source in Kelly’s pre-trial hearing, were charged with contempt of court and each fined $7000. In sentencing, Judge Michael Rozenes said journalists should not consider themselves above the law:

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...  journalists remain in no different position than all other citizens. A determined and sustained stance not to comply with a lawful requirement demonstrates the need for general and personal deterrents and the need for denunciation of contempt. (R v McManus and Harvey [2007] VCC 619)

The incident precipitated increased public discourse about news media freedom, and eventually resulted in Tasmanian independent member of the House of Representatives, Andrew Wilkie, and Queensland Liberal Senator George Brandis respectively introducing Private Member’s Bills in 2009 to provide greater protection for journalists and their sources. The Senate passed Wilkie’s amendments to the Commonwealth Evidence Act in 2011 (Evidence Amendment (Journalists’ Privilege) Act 2011(Cth)), and other Australian states—New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia, the Australian Capital Territory—also introduced a version of shield laws. It all looked highly promising. But as we shall see in the final chapter, the laws, leaving it up to the judges’ discretion whether to exempt journalists from revealing their sources during trials, is no guarantee of freedom of the news media. The year 2004, however, was a significant one for precedents for freedom of the news media in Australia. Not only did Harvey and McManus publish the revelations about the inconsistencies in the Federal government’s policy on funding for war veterans and widows that they were eventually punished for, the Federal Police were also able to obtain a warrant to raid The National Indigenous Times in their search for two leaked cabinet in-confidence documents. According to National Indigenous Times publisher and editor, Chris Graham, the documents demonstrated that the government “wasn’t telling the truth publicly” about abolishment of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (more on the significance of this later in this chapter). The raid started at 8.30  a.m. on November 11  in Graham’s home office. When Graham heard the knock on the door, he thought the AFP officers were real estate salesmen (“because they were wearing really cheap suits,” he said in a 2020 interview). They interviewed Graham and his partner at the breakfast table, then proceeded to search the premises for more than two hours, eventually leaving with six documents: “Yeah they took the documents,” Graham recollects. “They searched the house, the home office, the cars, the backyard, they went through everything.”

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The AFP was not obliged to reveal who ordered the raids, but the Prime Minister’s office said this was not the first time the unauthorized disclosure of cabinet documents were referred to the police (Warren et al. 2005: 10). Six days later, the secretary of the department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Peter Shergold, made the government’s position on leaks to journalists very clear. Describing the news media’s freedom to use leaks as “democratic sabotage,” Shergold said: Leaking blows apart the Westminster tradition of confidentiality upon which the provision of frank and fearless advice depends. So if some people seem surprised that I have called in the police to deal with leaks, they shouldn’t be—I always have and I always will. (in Warren et al. 2005: 10)

Although the government may have regarded Graham as a “saboteur,” the Australian journalism micro-culture hailed his actions as quality professional practice when it conferred the ‘Coverage of Indigenous Affairs’ Walkley Award for the leaked cabinet documents story in 2005. The government eventually dropped the charges. Although Graham had an inkling he was being watched, when the time came he “honestly couldn’t believe it”: At the National Indigenous Times, we traded in leaked mater, and we knew we’d been under investigation previously, so we were always prepared for it, we always went forward on the presumption that we would be raided.

And so why does Graham, like Milton’s “transgressive Adam,” continue to work with leaks? Well, yeah, I dunno, I just don’t give a fuck really. I don’t care what the government thinks or does or follows through with—I just think it’s irrelevant … in terms of repercussions, we added a zero to the value of the business and we won a Walkley … I was personally disgusted and professionally delighted, which is still the case today.

Indigenous Issues and the Larrikin The National Indigenous Times incident touches on what is traditionally one of the most fraught areas of journalistic ethical practice. The coverage of Indigenous issues has always been complex for Australian journalism. In a philosophical sense, Australian journalism is committed to have ‘respect

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for the rights of others’ (MEAA Code of Ethics 1944, updated 1999). And yet, paradoxically, in order to fulfill its other major commitments to ‘truth’ and  freedom  of opinion, journalism will, inevitably, show some level of ‘disrespect.’ This is a philosophical dilemma inherent in coverage related to many social issues—mental health, gender identity, welfare policy—how does the industry champion freedom of opinion, when that very opinion is likely to cause harm? Because each story of this nature will have its own individual and multifaceted contextual considerations, responsibility for mediating the two values of the same ideology has largely been left to the industry’s self-regulatory processes and the journalism micro-­ culture itself. But through the first decade of the twenty-first century, legislative frameworks and prevailing public opinion started impacting journalism’s independence in the coverage of Indigenous issues. Australian journalism has much to be embarrassed about, and apologetic for, in its coverage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. But it also has inherent micro-cultural Larrikin elements of egalitarianism that have resulted in championing Indigenous concerns. We can find evidence of this well before the 1967 referendum that saw more than 90 percent of Australians vote to change the Constitution so that Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people would be recognized in the national census, meaning Indigenous issues would be recognized when developing social policies. As far back as 1961, Four Corners was bringing into Australian loungerooms images of the inequality that successive government policies had established. Four Corners’ footage of, what was described as the “living cemetery” at the Aboriginal reserve in the isolated NSW outpost of Box Ridge are not only an indelible reminder of national shame, but also of Australian journalism’s micro-cultural belief in the Enlightenment Larrikin ideal of ‘egalitarianism’. Then, if we recall our narrative about The Adelaide News’ 1960 coverage of the Max Stuart case (Chap. 5), we can see journalism’s egalitarianism stretches into championship in a court of law. The fact that both proprietor, Rupert Murdoch, and editor, Rohan Rivett, were prepared to face charges of seditious libel over the coverage embeds further Larrikin characteristics of anti-authoritarianism and egalitarianism within the history of the relationship between Australian journalism and Indigenous Australia. The 1960s and 1970s were the era of the Yirrkala bark petitions, when the Yolgnu people presented the Australian Parliament with a bark petition, protesting to have their land and their rights returned. The protest culminated in the Milirrpum v Nabalco Pty Ltd case, where the Northern

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Territory Supreme Court acknowledged the Yolgnu people’s ongoing relationship with the land but, because the Australian courts were still bound by discriminatory legal principles the case was lost. About the same time Vincent Lingiari, of the Gurindji tribe, led the Wave Hill Walk Off, a strike over pay and conditions for cattle station workers, but also over Indigenous land rights. The image of then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam symbolically ‘giving back’ the land as he poured the sand into Lingiari’s palm is embedded into the history of reconciliation. The Woodward Commission was set up to hold an inquiry into Aboriginal land rights, which later led to the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues gathered momentum. In the 1992 the High Court dispelled the idea that Australia was terra nullius (land belonging to no one) prior to colonization, and ruled that Indigenous people had ancestral rights to lands. The Mabo case led to the Native Title Act 1993 and a Tribunal to manage Native Title claims. Then in the 1996 Wik case, the High Court found that native title rights could coexist with statutory pastoral leases. By this time, however, the Howard era had begun. Arguing the Wik decision “pushed the pendulum back too far in the Aboriginal direction,” the Howard government’s response was to come up with a “Wik 10-point plan” to “return the pendulum to the centre” (Horrigan 2004: 176). The Native Title Amendment Bill 1997, drawn up to implement the plan, went through 217 amendments before being returned to the lower house, where half the changes were agreed on, then given to the Senate again. It was eventually passed one year later on 8 July 1998 by the Senate after the longest debate in its history. One commentator described the amendments to native title law as using a “legal sledgehammer to crack a political nut” (Horrigan 2004: 199). It was against this emotional backdrop that the ‘Stolen Children’ national inquiry tabled its report. The 700 page Bringing them Home report (1997) made 54 recommendations to help the nation move forward on a journey of reconciliation. Among these recommendations were official acknowledgments of, and apologies for, past policies of forced removal of Aboriginal children from their family and communities, and guarantees against repetition, including the documentation of history and education among the non-Indigenous populations. In 2000, about 250,000 Indigenous and non-Indigenous people marched across Sydney Harbor Bridge, in support of a “united Australia

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that respects this land of ours; values the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage; and provides justice and equity for all.” On the day, a skywriter wrote the word ‘Sorry’ in the clear Autumn sky. The then Prime Minister John Howard did not attend. The Prime Minister said he would not issue an apology. It was a sensitive time. Indigenous relations were (still are) a sensitive issue. The journalism micro-culture was becoming increasingly concerned about what it was doing to freedom of the news media and, in turn, the ability to shine a light on the plight of some Indigenous peoples in Australia. As Townsville-based freelance journalist John van Tiggelen reported in The Walkley in 2001, subtle shifts in thinking in academia and ethnographic anthropological circles had resulted in a “silencing discourse” of “political correctness” (Morgan cited in van Tiggelen 2001: 11). And so, social problems such as domestic violence, incest, and alcoholism within some Indigenous communities were being ignored in the expected, balanced policy-making processes (i.e., journalistic reportage, policy development, policy implementation): “Political correctness, dreamy city-based reporting and a conspiracy of silence have left indigenous issues in a black hole,” was the caption running alongside van Tiggelen’s piece.

The implication is that it would require certain levels of Larrikin sensibility to defy, what Mill called, the ‘tyranny of the majority’, for journalists to fulfill their democratic role in the journey toward the Enlightenment ideal of ‘egalitarianism’. In June 2001, senior Age journalist, Andrew Rule, published allegations against the chairman of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC)—the body that was set up post-Mabo to formally involve indigenous people in political processes affecting their lives. Four women had come forward, saying they had been raped by ATSIC chairman, and possibly the most senior Indigenous political leader of the time, Geoff Clark. The story caused a storm in race relations. On the one hand, some saw the story as initiating a “smear campaign” against Indigenous leadership (Grant 2001: 12). Meanwhile others argued that Rule’s article was nothing to do with race relations, but was journalism doing its job in publishing “grave and damaging accusations” of a prominent public figure:

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“It is in the public interest that these serious claims against him are revealed,” The Age said in its editorial that accompanied the Clark story. (The Age, June 14, 2001)

The fallout from power and rape was certainly considerable. Clark was, at the time, one of the most influential Indigenous politicians. He was the first ATSIC chair, previously government appointed, to be voted in by the Indigenous community, and was adept at delivering public speeches that inspired and led whole populations toward reconciliation. In other words, he could be seen, at the time, as the personification of Indigenous self-­ determination. So it was an undignified fall from grace. First, Clark vehemently denied the allegations, and police did not chase criminal charges. But the damage to his reputation was not helped when, in 2002, he was convicted for obstructing police during a brawl at a Warrnambool pub. A 2003 review of ATSIC was commissioned, which recommended widespread reforms. The commission was eventually dismantled in 2004, to be replaced by an Office of Indigenous Policy Coordination within the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs. In other words, elected representation had been taken out of Indigenous hands. As high-profile Indigenous journalist Stan Grant said in The Walkley Magazine in 2001, Rule’s revelations had stimulated a debate that “stigmatized and traumatized” the Aboriginal community (Grant 2001: 12). In a 2020 interview with the author, Rule said there was “certainly a backlash” against the story when published. “People I knew very well were uncomfortable with it,” he said, “because it didn’t reflect the stories that had been written about [Clark] in the past. The ‘cardigan left’ were very wounded by it, and some were fairly hostile.” But Rule was not too concerned about the criticism. He was confident that, in the process of researching what was expected to be a fairly straightforward profile, he had discovered a story that needed to be told. The voices of the victims were silenced in both non-Indigenous and Indigenous public spheres, through political correctness in the former and, according to Rule, sheer fear in the latter. Growing up as a white kid at a Gippsland Aboriginal mission where his father had been raised, Rule was an both an objective outsider, and an involved insider, familiar with the norms and practices of Indigenous cultures. In other words, straddling both worlds, he was in a unique position to ‘push back that line’ toward facilitating an unencumbered platform for the, until now, voiceless victims. He says,

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matter-of-factly, that probably no other metropolitan journalist would have been comfortable writing the Clark story at that time. “I wasn’t fazed or embarrassed,” he says, “I didn’t feel like I was this outsider looking in, waving a microphone … I could talk to Aboriginal people with knowledge and confidence, and I think this meant I could do this [story] frankly and be informed.” Rule may have been judged by many in Indigenous and non-­Indigenous academia, politics, and the media. But like our Larrikin who continuously defies the ‘tyranny’ of both authority and the majority in the face of social condemnation, Rule says would do it again: “Yeah, no worries,” he told the author. Rule was presented with the 2001 Gold Walkley Award for his story on Clark. The judge’s comments, describing it as a “courageous and controversial story,” show how the professional micro-culture approves of, and commemorates, the Larrikin sensibility among its members. Part of the complexity of reporting on Indigenous issues is that it is met with a raft of other norms and practices related to Indigenous cultural conventions which, at the time, behaved as somewhat of a deterrent to news media freedom. However, as long-term Indigenous issues reporter for The Age, Russell Skelton, told the author in 2020, journalism during the early 2000s was beginning to develop certain cultural competencies to negotiate such taboos. The much bigger “risk,” says Skelton, is in avoiding the reportage of serious issues within Indigenous communities. In 2006, while he was researching for his book King Brown Country: The Betrayal of Papunya (2010) in the Northern Territory, Skelton heard a story. It was about a teenage Aboriginal girl in Alice Springs who had been bashed, dumped outside a school then, after several people had seen her, but failed to call police or ambulance, she was gang-raped by a separate group of youths. It wasn’t until the caretaker of the local school arrived early next morning that an ambulance was called, and she was taken to an Adelaide hospital, where she died. No one seemed interested in reporting the incident. The result was an extensive feature in The Sunday Age that investigated the circumstances surrounding the young girl’s death so well that it won the Melbourne Press Club’s 2006 Grant Hattam Award for investigative journalism. Skelton says he was able to write this story because he already had an extensive network of contacts in the Aboriginal community, and because he had background knowledge to negotiate Indigenous taboos, and avoid “stamping all over their culture.”

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Despite the journalism micro-culture applauding Skelton’s reportage of Indigenous issues, he says there were some who argued he should not be shining a light on negative aspects within indigenous societies. But archetypally Larrikin, Skelton was “totally outraged” there was an element within society thinking he should “somehow not write about this”: There was this feeling that you shouldn’t really write about disfunction in Aboriginal communities, they’d already suffered so much, why highlight terrible things going on in there right now, and they had enough to deal with in their lives. Then there was another stream of thinking that all these things were a result of dispossession of their lands, and so they’re not to blame for what’s going on, and therefore don’t talk about it … for many, many years that sort of attitude prevailed in the mainstream media … I think there is a lot of guilt attached to that sort of reporting, writing about the noble aspects of a male-­ dominated society, praising it, but we didn’t want to write about the negative aspect.

In current journalism micro-culture, however, Skelton “honestly” thinks “that’s all changed.” With greater cultural competence, and an ideological commitment to ‘do no harm’, it became increasingly acceptable for journalism to seek out Indigenous involvement and be guided through “sensible” reporting without “breaking some terrible taboo.” The problem, of course, is that there is discrepancy in journalism’s ideological commitments, particularly between ‘respect for the rights of others’ and the basic Enlightenment-informed principle of freedom of opinion, and the freedom to publish that opinion. This discrepancy, and the danger inherent in this discrepancy, was startlingly apparent through the 2000s. In 2011, Indigenous activist Pat Eatock brought a civil action against conservative columnist Andrew Bolt1 under Section 18C of the Commonwealth’s Racial Discrimination Act 1975. Bolt had written two columns in 2009, suggesting fair-skinned Indigenous people were falsely claiming Aboriginality because it was “so hip to be black” (Bolt 2009). Eatock and 17 others were mentioned in the article. Justice Mordecai Bromberg said that the columns were unlawful because they were: ... reasonably likely to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate some Aboriginal persons of mixed descent who have a fairer, rather than darker, skin and who by 1

 Andrew Bolt declined an interview for this book.

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a combination of descent, self-identification and communal recognition are recognized as Aboriginal persons. (Eatock v Bolt [2011] FCA 1103; 197 FCR 261; 283 ALR 505)

Bolt and his publisher were defending the action under Section 18D of the Act, saying the columns were published “reasonably and in good faith” that: In the making and publishing of a fair comment on any event or matter of public interest: or In the course of any statement, publication or discussion, made or held for a genuine purpose of public interest. (Racial Discrimination Act 1975, Section 18D)

The defense failed because the articles were found to have contained “errors of fact, distortions of truth and inflammatory and provocative language,” as well as being racially discriminatory. Justice Bromberg, quoting from a Privy Council case, said “the public deserve to be protected from journalism” (Eatock v Bolt [2011] FCA 1103; 197 FCR 261; 283 ALR 505: 388). Bolt was (still is) a conservative commentator whose career in outspokenness has long attracted censure from the journalism community. He personifies the ambivalence inherent in the theory of Larrikinism and journalism; on the one hand, the professional micro-culture applauds anti-­ authoritarianism and defiance in the face of Mill’s ‘tyranny’ of the majority. Meanwhile, on the other, when that defiance is against the ‘tyranny’ of the journalistic majority, it is reproached. But in this particular case, although Bolt’s opinions were arguably flying in the face of ‘respect for the rights of others’ and far from the accepted concept of ‘egalitarian’, the journalism micro-culture saw his conviction as an outrage to freedom of the news media. ABC TV’s Media Watch captured the journalism community’s reaction in a nutshell (April 4, 2011). Host Jonathan Holms describing the columns as “typical snide Boltism” and: Much as I’d like to see Andrew Bolt apologise for his columns, I think it would be bad for our freedoms if he were told to do so by a court … To my mind, to declare something unlawful just because it causes offence—on the grounds of race or anything else—is an unjustified curtailment of our freedom of speech. (Media Watch, April 4, 2011)

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And writing in Crikey, Margaret Simons said “you don’t have to like Andrew Bolt” to find the notion of making “irresponsible” journalism illegal “worrying”: Justice Bromberg quotes a phrase from a Privy Council case. It should strike a chill into the hearts of journalists and media organizations in Australia, particularly at this moment in our history. (Simons 2001)

So, it appears reconciling the dilemma between journalism’s ideological commitments, ‘respect for the rights of others’, and the basic enlightenment-­informed principle of freedom of opinion, and the freedom to publish that opinion, could, in part, possibly be mediated by other inherent micro-cultural values such as ‘accuracy’ and ‘honesty’. Or, in Skelton’s words, the “essence of good journalism”: ... be led by the facts, go wherever the facts take you, you shouldn’t be led by what you think is appropriate or inappropriate.

Asylum Seekers Van Tiggelen had reported in the 2001 Walkley Magazine the reluctance to engage with Indigenous issues had left rational public debate in a “black hole,” allowing the right wing of politics to “slip right in” and “make sense” (Van Tiggelen 2001: 10–11). We can see that a very similar thing was happening in the coverage of asylum seeker policy. Although, here, we can see that government ideology and the resulting regulations being introduced to control media messaging was more to blame than political correctness. In the 12 months preceding the attacks on the US, an increasing number of tightly packed, unseaworthy boats were arriving on the tiny Australian-owned Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. In August, conservative Prime Minister, John Howard, refused entry into Australian waters of the Norwegian freighter Tampa, which was carrying 438 refugees, mostly Afghanis fleeing the Taliban, rescued from a sinking Indonesian boat and asking to be taken to Christmas Island. After a complicated process lasting several days—involving distress signals, refugees threatening mutiny, Australian Special Forces boarding the vessel, censure from Norway, a rushed ‘Border Protection Bill’ going through the Australian Parliament that, theoretically, overrode Australian obligations

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under International Law and half the nation outraged, while the other half cheered the government’s actions—the asylum seekers were taken to tiny nation of Nauru. The government had got its way; refugee status was processed outside Australia, and Howard confirmed Australian sovereignty with the words: “We shall decide who comes to this country, and the circumstances in which they come” (Howard, Federal Election policy speech, October 28, 2001). For Howard, preparing for his third concurrent federal election in November, the timing could almost not have been better. With pervading public fear of terrorism, his ‘tough on asylum seekers’ policy saw his domestic popularity rise to almost 90 percent. So when, in October 2001, a wooden SIEV (Suspected Irregular Entry Vessel) sank just north of Christmas Island while the HMAS Adelaide was towing it back out to sea, leaving its 223 passengers and crew floundering in the water, it was easy to claim the asylum seekers had deliberately sabotaged the boat. In subsequent media coverage, Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock, Defense Minister Peter Reith, and Prime Minister Howard himself insisted passengers of SIEV4 had threatened to throw children overboard, and the images obtained from the Australian Navy appeared to demonstrate they had carried the threat out. The personalities involved were all seasoned politicians, who appeared to know how to employ the well-worn tactic of attacking the professional credibility of those who disputed their evidence. It wasn’t until three years later that David Marr and Marian Wilkinson published their extensively researched ‘Dark Victory’ (2004), detailing how the misinformation was magicked to alter perceptions of the incident, and it wasn’t until a year after the incident that a Senate Committee found: No children were thrown overboard from SIEV4.

Further: Despite direct media questioning on the issue, no correction, retraction or communication about the existence of doubts in connection with either the alleged incident itself or the photographs as evidence for it was made by any member of the federal government before the election on 10 November 2001. (Select Committee for an Inquiry into a Certain Maritime Incident, October 23, 2002)

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But in those first few days following the sinking of SIEV4, not many in the news media were willing to question the veracity of the government’s claims. The Melbourne Herald Sun’s front page headline was typical of the initial coverage: Overboard: Boat People Throw Children Into Ocean. (October 8, 2001: 1)

At 3.50 p.m. on October 10, host of ABC radio 774’s Drive program, Virginia Trioli, received the photos the government claimed were of asylum seekers throwing their children overboard. This was about 20 minutes before she was due to go live-to-air with an interview with Defense Minister Peter Reith. The interview transcript demonstrates the tactics that the government had developed to control the flow of information about asylum seekers: TRIOLI: … Mr Reith, there’s nothing in this photo that indicates these people either jumped or were thrown? REITH: No, well you are now questioning the veracity of what has been said. Those photos are produced as evidence of the fact that there were people in the water. You’re questioning whether it even happened, that’s the first point and I just want to answer that by saying these photos show absolutely without question whatsoever that there were children in the water TRIOLI: Hang on a minute... REITH: Let me just answer one thing at a time because people are making exaggerated and very unfair claims. TRIOLI: But you are moving the question onto something else REITH: No. I am just answering the question. And the best way I am answering is by saying here are photos, you say it’s a tight shot, they are clear as day… it is an absolute fact, children were thrown into the water. So do you still question it? TRIOLI: I am a journalist, I’ll question anything until I get the proof. REITH: Well, I have given you the evidence. TRIOLI: No, you have given me images. REITH: Well, quite frankly, if you don’t accept that, you don’t accept anything I say … (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, radio 774, Drive, October 10, 2001)

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Trioli, manifesting remarkably similar Larrikin-like determination in challenging Minister Reith as her journalistic ancestors, demonstrates the relationship between the Larrikin’s anti-authoritarianism, egalitarianism, and journalism’s function in bringing to light the suffering of those without power (the SIEV4 survivors) at the hands of a reticent authority (Defense Minister Reith). While some sections of the audience found Trioli’s questioning aggressive and rude (in Fanning et al. 2003), and minister Reith quite clearly felt somewhat uncomfortable under her questioning, the journalism micro-­ culture applauded her efforts, symbolized in the awarding of a Walkley Award for Radio Current Affairs Reporting. Describing the interview as “masterful,” and Trioli’s questioning as “tenacious,” the judges’ comments articulate the traits the journalism micro-culture values: This groundbreaking news story, conducted with grace and professionalism under some heavy challenges from the minister, will stand as a defining moment for the Howard government. (The Walkley Magazine, issue 19, 2003: 59)

The relationship between Larrikinism and journalistic responsibility can be interpreted as an important driving factor in the ensuing coverage of the Howard policies on immigration detention, particularly where they played out at Woomera. The Woomera detention center was based in one of Australia’s most isolated locations, 500 kilometers from Adelaide in the South Australian red desert. It was ideal for British and American rocket testing during the Cold War, and its inaccessibility now made it secure for the Australian government to keep—what the official propaganda called— the queue-jumping criminals away from reportage that may have provided the public with a human face, or voice, to those seeking asylum. Tight security measures ensured the detention center was inaccessible to journalists, including the requirement for journalists to sign contracts to say they would neither speak to asylum seekers, nor show their faces. All this means, “unfortunately”—as reported ABC journalist, Natalie Larkins in The Walkley Magazine—“it usually takes an outbreak of violence to entice news crews to the scene” (2002: 8). On January 18, 2002, that’s exactly what happened. A detainee inside the center got a phone call to the ABC Adelaide newsroom to say up to 70 people had gone on hunger strike and, as a symbol of voicelessness, had literally sewn their lips together. Within days, journalists from both

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Australian metropolitan and local news outlets, as well as international media, had gathered in the red sand and dust storms. Among them was ABC journalist, Natalie Larkins. The problem was, by January 26, authorities had erected a 1-kilometer security fence around the refugee camp. Larkins reported Australian Protective Services (APS) then told the waiting media they had 20  minutes to decamp and move 200  meters away behind the constructed fence (Larkins 2002: 8). But journalists, as we have seen throughout this book, are submerged in a micro-culture of anti-authoritarianism and are not known for their submissiveness. The whole contingent demanded to know who had made the order and why. According to Larkins, when the APS could not provide a clear answer, “all” journalists made a unanimous decision to move back to their original position inside the fence. Larkins’ report of events paints a not-too-unfamiliar picture of determined Larrikin-journalists striving to achieve freedom of the news media in the face of an equally determined authority: In the middle of a dust storm, frantic calls were made, but each government department and minister responsible denied making the order. Throughout the entire confrontation between the APS and the media, journalists continued to question on whose authority the officer was asking us to leave. He told us he didn’t know. (Larkins 2002: 8)

An ultimatum was made: journalists had until 10  a.m. the following morning to leave the area. In the meantime, however, the APS was gathering names and contact details to issue summons. No one explained for what the summons were. Larkins was about to leave the disputed area, when an officer spoke. She didn’t hear him, and asked him to repeat the comment. At that point she was arrested, for ‘Failing to Leave Commonwealth Land as Directed by a Commonwealth Officer’ and taken to Woomera police station. She was freed on bail three hours later but was obliged to leave the town immediately (Reporters Without Borders 2003). Journalists may have been at Woomera to rebalance the public sphere with the voices of those unheard. But the fact that at least a dozen rebelliously refused to leave the disputed area after Larkins’ arrest tells us the event was also about making statements about freedom of the news media and

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journalistic independence.2 As Project SafeCom says, Larkins’ arrest is “an historic event in the life of the Australian media” (https://www.safecom. org.au/media-­250602.htm, accessed July 6, 2020). The event was to have ramifications on Australia’s fall in ranking in the 2002 World Media Freedom index. However, it could also be interpreted as “historic” in the way it also contributed to the continuation of Australian journalism’s cultural belief in anti-authoritarianism as a professional practice into the twenty-first century.

The Digital Age Journalism held such high hopes. It was meant to be the great equalizer; the great deliverer of pluralism and freedom of access to information. The digital age was seen by some in the journalism community as a kind of fad, not a serious journalistic platform. Others shivered at the prospect of the ‘net’s impact on the business model. But most were excited by the prospect of a free and unregulated means of disseminating information. That was until the High Court handed down its judgment in the Dow Jones & Co. Inc. v Gutnick case in 2002. The October 28, 2000, edition of Dow Jones’ Barron’s Online, published an article which referred to businessman and entrepreneur Joseph Gutnick. The article implied Gutnick was involved with white collar crime in the US. It was not the fact the court found Barrons Online had, indeed, defamed Gutnick. It was more the fact that the High Court ruled Gutnick could bring about a defamation action in Australia—where media defendants are not protected by a constitutional guarantee—as opposed to the US—where defendants are protected by a constitutional guarantee— despite the fact that the article was written in America by an American publication. In effect, not only could Australian prosecutors ‘shop around’ each state for the best outcome, but international prosecutors could do so too. The alarm over what this meant for freedom of the news media can be heard in the MEAA’s 2005 Report into the State of Press Freedom in Australia:

2  Larkins was the only journalist to be arrested. At a second court hearing in Adelaide, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecution added the extra charge of trespass. Both charges were eventually dropped.

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Effectively this means journalists and news agencies may be liable for defamation anywhere in the world. (Warren et al. 2005: 9)

In 2011, a UK Metropolitan Police Service investigation discovered News of the World reporters had hacked the voicemail of murder victim Milly Dowler. The journalism community, globally, saw the News of the World practices as an outrageous abuse of news media freedom, not least because they now brought attention to all journalistic activity. Prime Minister David Cameron announced a judicial public inquiry into the culture, practices, and ethics of the British press, with Lord Justice Leveson chairing. In 2012, Leveson delivered his 2000-odd page, four volume report, which found some sections of  the Murdoch Press, and perhaps journalism generally, had been engaging in dubious  practices for years. Part of the problem, argued the print journalism community, was the unmanageable nature of a badly behaved digital space. Leveson’s answer was a new independent self-regulatory body with statutory backstop powers (Leveson 2012). While Prime Minister Cameron said he welcomed Leveson’s findings, he would not be enacting the required legislation. Neither did his successors Theresa May and Boris Johnson. Leveson II was also canceled. But what did all this have to do with Australian journalism? As Jonathan Holmes said during his final night in the Media Watch chair: In Britain, dozens of journalists, mostly from News Corporation newspapers, are facing charges for hacking voicemails, or for bribing public officials. There’s no evidence whatsoever that any such crimes have been committed here in Australia. In the UK, the tabloid newspapers were found by Lord Justice Leveson to have mercilessly hounded innocent individuals. That, too, happens much more rarely here. (Media Watch, July 1, 2013)

But the phone hacking scandal’s main perpetrators were apparently  employed by our already-recognized Australian Larrikin paradox, Rupert Murdoch. On the one hand the journalism micro-culture applauded Murdoch’s risk-taking in establishing The Australian, and his anti-authoritarianism in taking on legal authority in championing the injustice perpetrated against accused murderer, Max Stuart. But on the other, the journalism micro-culture’s condemnation was equally as enthusiastic toward the same Larrikin characteristics when he took over The Herald and Weekly Times in 1987, and now, in 2012, in his apparent  fostering of extreme

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invasions of privacy and other dubious journalism practices. Despite the fact that such unethical practices were less prevalent in Australian journalism, the Australian media was (still is) Murdoch-dominated and, after all, he is a product of the Australian Larrikin culture. Australia reacted to the controversy with the Finkelstein Inquiry and the Convergence Review. These separate, but complimentary, investigations concluded that  a new statutory body with the working title, the News Media Council, should be created to set and enforce journalistic standards across all media, including the digital space. The Australian journalism major newspapers’ reaction was aggressive and defiant: Challenge to a free media. (Herald Sun, March 3, 2012) Media Fears for Freedom as Watchdog Unleashed. (The Weekend Australian, 3–4 March, 2012)

Although more restrained, Australian micro-cultural products were just as opposed to the recommendation of a statutory body to regulate journalism. Media Watch was typically sardonic: “And now to the bloke who committed a wedgie on the media as a whole on Friday, the redoubtable Ray Finkelstein QC,” host Jonathan Holmes opened that week’s Media Watch with. “I’m sure a lot of you would love to see a media regulator with teeth. For what it’s worth, I think the cure might prove worse than the disease” (Media Watch, March 5, 2012). Indeed, not only did the MEAA support a new single, independent, industry-funded complaints body, but it said it should also take over the functions of the government’s Australian Communications and Media Authority. In other words, no statutory bodies, just industry-run complaints procedures: We oppose any Government media regulator. As stated in our submissions to the Convergence Review and many times since, there should be a single independent industry-funded complaints body. This should be on the existing model of the Press Council and take over the complaints function currently performed by ACMA. (MEAA, May 23, 2016)

Finkelstein’s recommendations may have caused ructions within the Australian journalism micro-culture, but none were taken up by any governments then or since. But the issue of the digital platform, and the

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impossibility of controlling it, continues to loom as an excuse for increased statutory regulation to control the freedom of the news media in Australian journalism’s collective consciousness. Even so, at the end of the first decade of the millennium, Australian journalism micro-culture appeared somewhat optimistic about the future of news media freedom. In 2005, uniform defamation laws were introduced, with a $250,000 cap on damages, and only the smallest of companies being able to claim damages against business reputation. Most importantly, ‘truth’ could now be used as a defense nationwide. Further, there were promises about Freedom of Information reform, whistleblower protection, and a “more modern attitude” toward security legislation, made by the incoming Rudd government in 2007. MEAA federal secretary Christopher Warren said in his foreword to the 2010 Press Freedom Report: We’re entitled to be optimistic that the hurdles journalists face in keeping the public informed are slowly being dismantled. (in Este 2010)

And yet, by 2019, 98 percent of respondents in the MEAA’s 2019 annual Press Freedom survey agreed that freedom of the Australian news media had become worse (Dobie 2020: 3). Those are the sort of numbers you would expect to see in despotic police state not in a country that prides itself in being a liberal democracy that chides the failings in others, MEAA Chief Executive Paul Murphy said. (in Dobie 2020: 3)

So what happened between 2010 and 2020? Did the Larrikin-journalist become irrelevant? Was he abandoned by Australian journalism micro-­ culture? And did this allow the creep of government regulation to encroach on freedom of the news media? Our final chapter explores these questions, to come up with some answers about the Larrikin-journalist’s relevancy in our current and future national contexts.

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Racial Discrimination Act. (1975, June 11). Australia: Act No. 52 of 1975, Racial Discrimination Act 1975 [Australia]. Retrieved January 11, 2021, from https://www.refworld.org/docid/4a7aa31d2.html. Reporters Without Borders Annual Report – Australia. (2003). Retrieved July 6, 2020, from https://www.refworld.org/docid/46e6914720.html. Rule, A. (2001, June 14). Geoff Clark: Power and Rape. The Age, 1. Select Committee for an Inquiry into a Certain Maritime Incident. (2002, October 23). Chapter 2 – The ‘Children Overboard’ Incident, 2.10. Retrieved July 6, 2020, from https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/ Senate/Former_Committees/scrafton/report/c02. Simons, M. (2001). Bolt Decision: ‘Irresponsible Journalism Illegal’? Think Again. Crikey. Retrieved July 6, 2020, from https://www.crikey.com. au/2011/09/29/bolt-­decision-­irresponsible-­journalism-­illegal-­think-­again/. Skelton, R. (2010). King Brown Country: The Betrayal of Papunya. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. Van Tiggelen, J. (2001). Rewriting History. The Walkley Magazine, Issue 14, Spring 2001, 10–11. Warren, C., Walters, E., Di Marzo, R., Johnson, A. (2005). Turning Up the Heat: The Decline in Press Freedom in Australia 2001–2005. Redfern: MEAA. The Walkley Magazine. (2003). 47th Walkley Awards: Radio Current Affairs Reporting, Issue 19: 59. The Weekend Australian. (2012, March 3–4). Media Fears for Freedom as Watchdog Unleashed.

CHAPTER 10

The Larrikin-Journalist: Past, Present, and Future

As this chapter was being written, Sky TV broadcast a special report, The Death of the Aussie Larrikin (June 16, 2020). Its contention was that political correctness had killed the national Larrikin spirit. With a lineup of high-profile comedian personalities from bygone eras, Sky TV compared what was socially acceptable to poke fun at during the 1970s, with that of today. And, indeed, that acceptability has changed. What was once seen as Larrikinism is now seen as nastiness or bullying, and this, according to Sky TV, has affected freedom of political, social, and creative discourse in Australia. If this be true, if this really be true, and the Larrikin voice has been silenced, then freedom of the news media in Australia is, theoretically, in a more precarious position than before. But maybe Sky somehow missed the point. Yes, Larrikinism is about irreverence; yes, it is about political incorrectness. But it has not been about maliciousness or cruelty since the original poverty-stricken criminal youths took to gang violence in the bigger Australian cities during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Bellanta 2012). The macro-­cultural Larrikin has morphed somewhat since then. In other words, the Larrikin is a cultural construct that changes according to socio-­political contexts. In journalism micro-culture, he exists as a tremulous contestation between shifting social expectation and freedom of speech. This means our Larrikin will never please all people all of the time; he will always be skirting the periphery of acceptability. However, because of his shifting nature, rather than the Larrikin’s ‘death’, maybe we should be talking about his evolution. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Vine, Larrikins, Rebels and Journalistic Freedom in Australia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61856-8_10

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Let’s test this theory as it relates to the micro-culture of journalism, and examine the implications arising if the Larrikin-journalist has evolved.

Larrikin-Journalism: Past We started with the proto-Larrikin, an embryonic form within the Enlightenment tradition, angry and defiant against monolithic and class-­ divided societies. We saw how the Enlightenment’s idealism—or, in Child’s words, “great foolishness or zeal” (2006)—developed in early Australian journalism, still angry and defiant against colonial authorities in what was, essentially, a divided penal society. Indeed, we could argue that the basis upon which Australia achieved freedom of the news media was merely the result of a chance meeting between Larrikin personalities who, although from entirely different socio-economic backgrounds, demonstrated defiance, audacity, and egalitarianism in order to ‘push back that line’ toward a free news media. The same idealism, resulting in a willingness to skirt the periphery of legality, could be seen in the micro-culturally significant narratives about journalism post-federation. Against the backdrop of a new Constitutional monarchy that, curiously, did not recognize freedom of the news media as a social institution, the emerging Larrikin-journalist rebelled against war-­ time censorship to bring information about the Boer and WWI conflicts to the public sphere. The fact that these professional ‘memorial narratives’ paralleled wider macro-cultural myths about an emerging Australian independence from British rule is almost elementary; it’s the little-understood historiographical basis of freedom of the news media embedded within these myths that this book has revealed. The interwar period and prevailing political and social appeasement ideology saw the development of smear campaigns as a means of controlling news media freedom. Those who defied Mill’s ‘tyranny of the majority’, and propounded anti-appeasement arguments were easily accused of communist ideology as a means of discrediting their independence and belittling alternative views. Such accusations have since emerged periodically to control journalist freedom. This was particularly so throughout the Cold War, and continues on today in the rhetoric of ‘fake news’. Despite this, the 1960s saw the rise of the student press, and an increased Larrikin tendency to ‘take the piss’ as a means of exceeding the limits of a highly conservative Australian society’s regulations on the news media. Traditionally, Australian journalism used mocking pomposity or, in

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Rickard’s words, “taking the piss” (1998), as a means of challenging authority to public account, as demonstrated in The Argus’ tongue-in-­ cheek advertisement: “Wanted. A Governor of Victoria” (in Porter 2001: 15). But we can see how this particular Larrikinism evolved into a legitimate professional practice through the 1960s. In Oz magazine, in particular, there was an increased Larrikin tendency to ‘take the piss’ as a means of ‘pushing back that line’ toward a freer news media, for which the editors were taken to court for depravity. And yet, it could be argued that ‘taking the piss’ emerged as a widespread and legitimate professional practice throughout the decade, as we saw in This Day Tonight’s ‘beer telephone’ prank and in Mungo MacCallum’s regular political column in The Australian in the early 1970s (MacCallum 2001: 159). Against this backdrop came other new professional practices that ‘pushed back that line’ toward a freer news media. The combination of legal, journalistic, and scholarly practices founded a new Larrikin confidence within journalism that saw the widespread development of reportage that brought down governments, rattled secret services, and, arguably, changed the nature of freedom of the news media for decades to come. The Nation Review, The National Times, and Perkins’ Age Insight Team throughout the 1970s can be seen as the pioneers of what could arguably be described as a new cultural ‘professionalization’ of the industry that had very little relationship to the original concept propounded by the AJA interwar. The Larrikin even survived the glitz and the glamour of the 1980s, where culturally significant journalists left their apparently lucrative positions to join public broadcasters in protest over the effect commercialization was having on newsroom culture. And yet the Howard era, featuring the rise of a wider macro-cultural neo-conservatism, arguably saw a decline of anti-authoritarianism at the micro-cultural level of Australian journalism. The ABC’s Frontline had parodied the Larrikin in journalism’s commercial context, while Media Watch had revealed how institutional myths, including Larrikinism, had justified dubious ethical behavior. The post-2001 regulations on news media freedom may well have, at the time, appeared justifiable. Even so, our defiant Larrikin-journalist was still operating against both of Mill’s ‘tyranny of the magistrate’ and ‘tyranny of the majority’. We can see this in Trioli’s fiery interview with Defense minister Peter Reith and in the mass sit-down protest of the media contingent outside the Woomera detention cent centre after Larkins’ arrest. Furthermore, we can see how

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the journalism community continued to celebrate the efforts of our Larrikin-journalists within its micro-cultural institutions—both Trioli and Larkins were awarded Walkleys—arguably the highest honor an Australian journalist can achieve. So, we can argue that our cultural history of Australian journalism has suggested it contains a Larrikin tradition of significant importance for Australian journalism’s ability to maintain freedom of the news media and fulfill its democratic responsibility. This tradition has been perpetuated through culturally significant popular micro-cultural products such as biographical and autobiographical material about journalists, and its industry-­ specific institutions. As we have seen, by immortalizing the stories about the ‘best in the business’, these institutions—whether consciously or subconsciously—have propagated and nurtured a Larrikin ideology within Australian journalism micro-culture.

Larrikin-Journalism: Present But the wider macro-culture of the Australian media has changed. Where once it was owned by family concerns, it is now owned by corporations with a myriad of other business interests. Where once it was a powerhouse of information and opinion that could bring down governments, it is now fragmented and struggling financially. One wonders how our Larrikin-­ journalist has fared within this wider media context. Maybe he has suffered a ‘death’ at the hands of political correctness, as Sky TV believes the Larrikin has suffered in the wider macro-culture. Or maybe our Larrikin-­ journalist has evolved as well. This then leads to a further, more general question about whether that evolution has impacted on the Larrikin’s relevance to journalism and its function in facilitating and protecting freedom of the news media. There are some who would argue the Larrikin-journalist has faded, if not disappeared altogether. Traditionally, the business model has been seen as culpable for taming the journalism micro-culture. In a paper presented at the 2004 Melbourne Press Club conference, David Salter of Media Watch fame epitomized this argument, when he said journalism—the “trade” that he’s “always loved”—“seems to be going soft,” as a result of market forces: With very few exceptions the mainstream media are just not prepared to risk the small loss of market share that might come from knocking the gloss off our lovely self-satisfied lives. Result? Too much of what is published and broadcast today

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has the consistency of baby food: timid; premasticated pap. (Salter, Melbourne Press Club conference, October 2004)

But we can argue the political-economic paradigm of journalism has altered somewhat since business model’s breakdown. Margaret Simons argues this succinctly when she said “there has been nothing strong, independent or edifying about penury” (2007: 17): “The bonds between media businesses are loosening … everything is changing once again, and the change is full of threat and opportunity”. (2007: 20–21)

In other words, there is now an opening to reconceptualize journalism and its underpinning ideology. More recently, some have blamed the industry’s increasing ‘professionalization’—sometimes  interpreted as tertiary educated—on an apparent changing ideology of journalism. And, as Queensland University of Technology’s Folker Hanusch (2008) found, there has been an upward trend toward people with higher degree populating the industry since the late 1990s. As University of Sydney’s Mitchell Hobbs and Stephen Owen (2016) found, the Murdoch media has been loudest about vocalizing the denigrating effects this has had on journalism culture, particularly after the phone hacking scandal and the subsequent Finklestein Review. However, as Hobbs and Owen argue, the Murdoch media’s criticism may be more about combatting wider dissent, rather than a genuine belief in the damaging effects of tertiary education on journalism micro-culture and its ‘political correctness’. Political incorrectness can indeed, cause harm, and there is, indeed, an emphasis on ‘do no harm’ within journalism’s value and belief system— clauses two and eight articulate this specifically in relation to race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, age, sexual orientation, family relationships, religious belief, or physical or intellectual disability, the vulnerable or those ignorant of media practice. This can be interpreted to mean a very ‘un-Larrikin-like’ sensitivity toward what is deemed as offensive to various other micro-cultures within society. And yet, if we examine the Larrikin’s complexities, those traits at play behind the laughing audacity, we can see ‘sensitivity’ toward other micro-cultural social groups is an inherent part of his makeup. If the Larrikin exists to defy those who hold power, then he will also hold affiliation with those who do not. Rickard makes this suggestion with his criterion, “emotional attachment to working class

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origins” (Rickard 1998: 84). And we can see how this trait evolved into what Gorman (1990) describes as “egalitarianism” within Australian journalism micro-culture, starting with colonial journalism’s often quite hyperbolic enthusiasm for redressing imbalances in equality between often harsh authorities and populations made up of convicts, ex-convicts, and gold-­diggers. As the ‘working class’ gained political power over time, journalistic tradition evolved into—what Gorman (1990) identifies— “egalitarianism,” or support for any disenfranchised group, including the soldiers of WWI and WWII, Indigenous people, and the asylum-seekers of post 9/11. We could even go as far as to argue that this “emotional attachment” to disenfranchised groups within society has evolved into the wellknown journalistic rhetoric surrounding ‘championship of the underdog’. And there is evidence that ‘championship of the underdog’, evolved from ‘emotional attachment to working-class origins’, continues to drive young Larrikin-journalists in contemporary journalism micro-culture to push  the boundaries that constrain a free news media. Louise Milligan, and her determination to protect her sources’ anonymity, is a well-known example. Milligan’s exposé of abuse in the Catholic Church, driven by a sense of responsibility to champion the victims, resulted in her being exposed to eight months of “trauma and stress” after being subpoenaed to reveal the victims’ names: “I like standing up for the underdog,” she told the author when she was asked why she chose such a legally risky profession. “I get a kick out of standing up for people who can’t stand up for themselves.”

And yet, in order to “stand up for the underdog”—as Larrikin-­ journalists have been doing even before the foundational Sudds and Thompson case in 1826—today’s journalists are trained in what Milligan calls “forensic scrutiny” of evidence, which includes securing emails and other correspondence and both reporter and producer going through all stories “line-by-line”: “We have to be really careful about perceptions,” Milligan told the author, “That means thinking carefully about what it is we are trying to achieve, we have to be sober about this and not sensational.”

It appears Larrikinism has evolved from its reputation for ‘irresponsible’ colonial hyperbole into a set of professional practices that could be

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interpreted as the heights of ‘responsibility’. It could be argued this began in the Perkin years, with the morphing of journalist and lawyer, and at the National Times with the employment of academically trained reporters. And it is these practices that the journalism community applauds, encouraging determined defiance in the face of adversity. In 2017, Milligan won a Walkley Award for her book Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell (Milligan 2019). Milligan, apparently, is among the first of a diverse bunch of contemporary young journalists who express an evolved version of their antecedents’ Larrikinism. In 2017, two young journalists won the Melbourne Press Club’s Graham Perkin Journalist of the Year Award. In a series of reports for The Age and Four Corners, Nick McKenzie and Richard Baker unveiled growing Chinese influence over Australian politics, and—in the words of the Melbourne Press Club—“spectacularly caught out” a Federal Senator warning a Chinese political donor he was under surveillance (Melbourne Press Club 2018). The year previously, the pair, along with another up-­ and-­comer, Richard Willingham, also broke the story about the Victorian Opposition leader’s relationship with people alleged to be involved with organized crime in the Calabrian community. The now infamous ‘Lobster with a Mobster’ story resulted in Baker and McKenzie subpoenaed to appear in a Victorian Supreme Court prehearing to Antonio Madefferi’s defamation action against The Age. The prosecution was claiming the series of stories investigating allegations of misconduct involving the Calabrian community in Australia—including murder, extortion, drug trafficking, and paying bribes and providing corrupt donations to the Liberal Party—were defamatory. As part of his prehearing, the prosecution asked Justice John Dixon to compel McKenzie and Baker to reveal their sources. The hearing was the first test of Victoria’s newly developed shield laws for journalists who refuse to identify their confidential sources in a court of law. The Age and its journalists pleaded qualified privilege defenses based on the implied constitutional freedom of communication on matters of government and politics. The judge dismissed the prosecution’s application, saying he did not believe the identity of The Age’s sources was central to the defamation case which was set to begin the following year (MEAA 2015). Some sections of the journalism community were jubilant. “In a significant victory for press freedom, the responsibility of journalists to protect their confidential sources has been upheld,” declared the MEAA (MEAA

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2015). And the ‘Lobster with a Mobster’ case did set an important precedent for freedom of the news media. But others were more circumspect. As Media Watch host, Paul Barry pointed out, although Section 126k of the Victorian Evidence Act gave journalists a statutory right not to reveal the names of their informants to a court if they have promised not to do so, a judge can overrule that if, in the judge’s view, it’s in the public interest to do so (Media Watch, October 5, 2015). And, as we shall discuss later in this chapter, many judges aren’t too keen on giving  journalism any leeway. Two years earlier, Baker and McKenzie were in court when Chinese investor Helen Liu commenced defamation proceedings in the Supreme Court of New South Wales against The Age, and its journalists, after they had published a series of stories about the Chinese-Australian businesswoman and a Labor MP. Each made an application to keep the names of their sources confidential. At this point in time, however, shield laws had not been introduced. Justice Lucy McCallum rejected the application, saying a journalist’s promise to an anonymous source was “not a right or an end in itself” and could be overridden “in the interests of justice” (Liu V The Age Co Ltd [2012] NSWSC 12). The case was settled out of court and no sources were disclosed. Not unlike their Larrikin-journalist antecedents, going back as far as our colonial newsmen, Baker and McKenzie, both individually and as a team—and along with several of colleagues—have been hauled in-and-out of court for almost a decade. In classically Larrikin style, they appear to continuously push the boundaries, despite authority’s apparent determination to shut them down (McKenzie, and our previous Larrikin-­ journalist, Chris Masters are, at the time of writing, again facing court over revelations of war crimes in Afghanistan). And, again classically Larrikin, they are confident in the legitimacy of their actions. When the author asked Baker in a 2020 interview why he continued to take risks, he sounded almost baffled by the question: “Because it’s my job,” he said with some incredulity. Further, despite the law’s view of journalists, freedom of the news media, public interest, and the judicial process, the journalism micro-­ culture applauds the pair’s professional practice. When Baker and McKenzie won the 2017 Melbourne Press Club’s Graham Perkin

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Journalist of the Year Award, the judges said the pair had an “outstanding year breaking political scandals” (Melbourne Press Club 2018). Together, and with colleagues, the pair have won five Walkley Awards, with McKenzie winning one on his own and another with colleague Rafael Epstein (Walkley Foundation n.d., https://www.walkleys.com/awards/walkley-­ winners-­archive/). In 2012, McKenzie and Baker were rated number three in Crikey’s ‘Power Index’ of influential journalists (Knott 2012), and in 2010, the pair were awarded the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism’s George Munster Prize for Independent Journalism (University of Technology, Sydney 2013). In fact, McKenzie is known to be among the most decorated journalists in the history of the Melbourne Press Club’s Quill Awards and has twice won the press club’s Gold Quill (Joshi 2018). Between them, they have four Melbourne Press Club Grant Hattam awards for investigative journalism (Melbourne Press Club n.d., https://www.melbournepressclub.com/article/quills-­honour-­roll). And they were among the first journalists to appear on the new Australian journalism history website celebrating best professional practice, Democracy’s Watch Dogs (n.d.) (Democracy’s Watch Dogs, https://democracyswatchdogs.org/). We could conclude that Baker and McKenzie are aberrations in journalism’s micro-culture, and they do stand out as courageous  Larrikin-­ journalists. But if we examine other micro-cultural narratives about contemporary young journalists, we can see that a professional Larrikin style is actually quite pervasive. On a cold Canberra midwinter morning, June 4, 2019, seven Australian Federal Police officers stormed Annika Smethurst’s flat. They rifled through her underwear drawer, searched her oven, and trawled through her phone and computer. The warrants, obtained under the Crimes Act 1914, allowed the search and also ordered Smethurst to assist in accessing and copying data from data storage systems. The warrants read: On the 29 April 2018, Annika Smethurst and The Sunday Telegraph communicated a document or article to a person that was not in the interest of the Commonwealth and permitted that person to have access to the document contrary to s 79(3) of the Crimes Act 1914, Official Secrets.

The 32-year-old journalist is no dubious tabloid hack. She has twice received a Walkley Award, once in 2015 and again in 2017. In other words, Smethurst has been recognized by her peers as ‘the best’ in terms

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of professional practice and ethical conduct. And yet the journalism community wasn’t that surprised such a well-regarded journalist was raided (despite the fact it was conducted over a story written—in The Sunday Telegraph and syndicated publications—more than a year previously, with clear public benefit; the heads of the defense and home affairs ministries discussing plans to give the Australian Signals Directorate power to spy on Australian citizens) (Smethurst 2018). “Yet again we have an example of a government aiming to punish those who have brought to light vital information,” MEAA Media President Marcus Strom said in a statement just hours after the raid occurred. “Australians are entitled to know what their governments do in their name. That clearly includes plans by government agencies to digitally spy on Australians by hacking into our emails, bank accounts and text messages” (MEAA 2019). Although Smethurst herself suspected the AFP would want to ask her about the story, she had been given no prior warning of the AFP’s plans— in fact—she thought the knock at the door was a person booked to clean her carpet: “I knew it was story of national significance,” she told the author in a 2020 interview. “I knew the government would be surprised and perhaps unhappy, that’s usually what good journalism does, it makes the authorities not happy … I guess I underestimated the tactics they would use, in getting a warrant and raiding my home, threatening to prosecute me.”

Charges against Smethurst were eventually dropped. But she did have the threat of prosecution “hanging over” her for more than a year, causing “horrendous” personal and professional trauma. Despite this, like her Larrikin antecedents—going right back to the colonial era and onward through journalism history—Smethurst is confident that her story was not unlawful: We have freedom of speech in this country [so] I don’t think I took a legal risk, I don’t think I was breaking the law [but] I guess what my story highlighted was that journalists work in conditions with various legal grey areas, and it places them in a dangerous position where they could be challenged and perhaps prosecuted for doing their job.

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And yet, Smethurst’s comments suggest such experiences do not threaten the Larrikin spirit inherent in journalism micro-culture: A lot of journalism is about taking risk … it goes to the heart of what journalism is. We aren’t there to just write things the Government wants us to write, we’re not there to write things when the Government wants us to know it, we’re there to tell the Australian public what’s going on to the best of our knowledge … In general journos love a good yarn, and if they come across one they’ll continue to write it.

What made the raid on Smethurst’s flat all the more concerning was the fact that the day before the producer of 2GB’s Ben Fordham had received a series of phone calls from the Home Affairs Department, to be told the station’s main story that day was “highly confidential” and, later, that an investigation had been initiated, which could lead to an AFP investigation (in Dobie 2020: 17). Fordham had reported that the Home Affairs Department was investigating claims that up to six illegal boats were heading for Australia, after a vessel carrying 20 Sri Lankans was intercepted by Border Force. Although the phone calls made clear Fordham was not subject to potential charges, Home Affairs wanted him to help identify his source. Not unlike our previous Larrikin-journalists, Fordham publicly stated he would “never” reveal a source: “Under no circumstances will I be revealing my sources on this story or any story,” he told The Australian newspaper. “Agencies like Home Affairs are free to investigate leaks, just as I’m free to decide not to reveal my sources.” (in Dobie 2020: 17)

The day after Fordham made his statement in The Australian, and the day after Smethurst’s flat was raided, the AFP was executing another warrant at ABC headquarters in Sydney. They were after the source of a 2017 7.30 report about the Defense Department investigating Australia’s Special Forces in Afghanistan after the deaths of unarmed civilians. The AFP were at the ABC headquarters for more than nine hours, going through 9214 items, which were then gone through one-by-one by both the AFP and ABC techs to see if they fitted the terms of the warrant. The day after the ABC raid, the AFP planned a similar raid on News Corp in its Australian Surrey Hills Headquarters. Because of the difficulty

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in navigating such large, complex buildings, both the ABC and News Corp headquarters, were told 24 hours in advance that they would be raided. But after a large public and media backlash against the ABC raid, the AFP decided not to go ahead with the News Corp raid. So this was four raids in four days. Although the AFP denied any link between the raids, this is not how it appeared to the journalism community, from which the backlash was both swift and irate. That day Smethurst was raided, News Corp wrote a damning editorial, describing the raid as a “dangerous act of intimidation” (June 4, 2019), and the next Media Watch broadcast was a feature report that took up the program’s entirety. Voices of protest came from senior public and commercial broadcast editorial executives, as well as the MEAA’s Federal President and Chief Executive. But it was possibly the words of ABC managing director, David Anderson, that summed up the Larrikin spirit of solidarity and defiance that underpinned the whole campaign: The ABC stands by its journalists, will protect its sources and continue to report without fear or favor on national security and intelligence issues when there is a clear public interest. (in Knowles et al., June 6, 2019)

In May 2020, Australian Federal Police ruled out laying charges against Smethurst. At the time of writing, the AFP had referred allegations made against ABC journalist Dan Oakes to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, recommending that charges be considered. Oakes’ colleague, Sam Clark, was not included in the brief of evidence. Although Oakes was unable to speak about details, he could tell the author in a 2020 interview that, although he had an “inkling” a raid may happen, he was confident the story was of public significance: I ran it because I thought it was important, and an important story, and still do think it’s an important story, what our special forces team do overseas … and the more I spoke to people the more I thought it was an issue the Australian people should know warts and all.

Furthermore, similar to Smethurst, and again echoing the Larrikin voices that have reverberated throughout this book, Oakes believes it’s part of Australian journalism’s function to be willing to push back against restrictions on the news media:

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If people in my line of work begin to choose what should and what shouldn’t be told to the public then they shouldn’t be doing it. It’s taken a toll on my personal and professional life, but if people in my line of work say they wouldn’t tell a story in the public interest, then they might as well hand in their badge.

And so, arguably, according to the narratives surrounding the journalists embroiled in the most recent of controversies over freedom of the news media, there continues a Larrikin sensibility within the micro-culture of journalism which has, theoretically, been handed down from generation to generation. Further, as long as the journalism micro-culture continues to perpetuate the Larrikin ‘memorial narrative’—that is, continues to celebrate the Larrikin sensibility, while downplaying its negative aspects— then, according to cultural-historiography, the Larrikin-journalist will endure.

Larrikin-Journalism: Future But the future of our Larrikin-journalist within the professional micro-­ culture of journalism is perhaps inextricably linked to the question about whether Australia’s democratic authority has the potential to recognize, and respect, the part journalism plays in the functioning of democratic society. So let’s examine this question before we begin our investigation into the future of the Larrikin-journalist. In 2007, several interest groups, including the MEAA, came together to form the Australia’s Right to Know Coalition. After AFP officers raided Smethurst’s flat in 2019, in a rare demonstration of unity, management at the ABC, Nine Entertainment, and News Corporation Australasia added their weight to a ramped-up campaign to lobby government for amended laws to protect journalistic freedom. In an address to the National Press Club in June, 2019, ABC Chief Executive, David Anderson, Nine Chief Executive, Hugh Marks and News Corp Executive Chairman, Michael Miller outlined key laws that needed to change to protect journalistic freedom (Table 10.1). But according to long-time media lawyer and joint 2002 Grant Hattam Quill Award winner, Justin Quill, none of the above would have much impact without a change in culture within the legal profession:

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Table 10.1  Key legislation Australia’s Right to Know Coalition says need to change to protect journalistic freedom in Australia Law 1 THE RIGHT TO CONTEST THE APPLICATION FOR WARRANTS FOR JOURNALISTS AND MEDIA ORGANISATIONS 2 PUBLIC SECTOR WHISTLE-­ BLOWERS MUST BE ADEQUATELY PROTECTED—THE CURRENT LAW NEEDS TO CHANGE 3 A NEW REGIME THAT LIMITS WHICH DOCUMENTS CAN BE STAMPED SECRET 4 A PROPERLY FUNCTIONING FOI REGIME 5 JOURNALISTS MUST BE EXEMPTED FROM NATIONAL SECURITY LAWS ENACTED OVER THE LAST SEVEN YEARS—THAT WOULD PUT THEM IN JAIL FOR DOING THEIR JOBS

6 DEFAMATION LAW REFORM

Detail Applications for the issue of all warrants must be contestable

To include:  Public interest disclosures  Proposed Commonwealth Integrity Commission A new overarching legislation that defines in a restrictive fashion what information must be kept secret A review of FOI laws must include a panel of FOI ‘user’ experts and this must include specialist journalist representatives Exemptions for public interest reporting in:  Section 35P of the ASIO Act  Journalist Information Warrant Scheme at Division 4C of the Telecommunications Interception and Access Act   Criminal Code Act, Part 5.2—Espionage and related offences; Part 5.6—Secrecy of information, section 119.7—Foreign incursions and recruitment; section 80.2C—Advocating terrorism   Crimes Act—sections 15HK and 15HL—Controlled operations, unauthorized disclosure of information; section 3ZZHA—Delayed notification search warrants, unauthorized disclosure of information Update the law to be fit-for-purpose for digital news reporting Fix the aspects of the law which do not operate as intended Ensure the Commonwealth is a signatory to the Intergovernmental Agreement (and consequential amendments to the Federal Court Act) so that defamation law and procedures is aligned across all jurisdictions, including in the Federal Court

Source: Community Broadcasting Association of Australia, June 26, 2019, https://www.cbaa.org.au/ article/media-­release-­australias-­right-­know-­coalition-­media-­companies-­calls-­government-­amend-­laws (accessed Oct 14, 2019)

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“I think the legal fraternity looks down on the media,” he told the author in a 2020 interview. “Judges and lawyers go into cases, they’re used to writing judgements of 200 pages, the journalists have to condense it down into two columns, or a 90-second news bulletin … some judges look down on it, and I think there’s a real attitude in the legal profession, and it does the legal profession a disservice to have that attitude. As result, I often feel like I’m looked down on by members of the profession, because I’m sort of assisting the enemy, the enemy being the news media. It’s disappointing.”

Quill points to the 2013 Open Courts Act, which was developed specifically to reduce the number of suppression orders in the state. “I think you can guess what happened,” he said. “The suppression order numbers went up, because some judges pay only lip-service to open justice. Making suppression orders is the easy thing to do, and one suppression order isn’t going to make a difference to our democracy, but it’s a slippery slope, if all judges thought like this then suddenly we’re China … And it’s clear in a democracy, we shouldn’t be doing what’s easy, we should be doing what’s right, and I think judges—not all judges, some are very brave, because they genuinely believe in open justice—but some do what’s easy, not what’s right.” So then, news media freedom is not just about the Larrikin-journalist. It’s also about the Larrikin-lawyer which, as we saw during the Perkin years, made a about a formidable opponent  to restrictions on the news media when teamed with Larrikin-journalists. And, of course, it’s also about a judiciary that weighs up the public interest involved in news media freedom. This, however, as long-time media lawyer, Peter Bartlett says, is “very difficult” to achieve. Like Quill, Bartlett has been in the media law game for more than a quarter of a century, working on stories as diverse as The Age Tapes and Andrew Rule’s award-winning investigation into ATSIC Chairman, Geoff Clark. And after all this time, Bartlett has come to the conclusion: “I don’t think the judiciary are focused on media freedom,” he told the author in a 2020 interview. “I think that we see the judiciary is more focused on rules that have been created by the judiciary over many years and sometimes they lose sight of justice, what actually is right and wrong, and I think that is a significant problem.”

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At the time of writing, after the 2005 defamation reforms had proved to be ineffective—the $250,000 cap had somehow grown to millions of dollars in the defamation actions of various celebrities during 2018/2019—a new raft of nationally uniform reforms were proposed. Here, the cap on damages is proposed to be at $421,000 for non-­economic loss, plaintiffs need to demonstrate ‘serious harm’ and, most importantly, ‘public interest’ could be used as a defense. It’s an exciting proposal that, if taken up by all states and territories, will be a game-changer for freedom of the news media. But Bartlett is not so confident. “The effectiveness of the new provisions will largely hinge on how they are interpreted by the courts,” he said in a statement in which his company considered the changes (Bartlett et al. 2020). “You don’t find too many judges that are sympathetic and understanding of the media,” he told the author. So we can conclude that the Larrikin-journalist remains relevant and, according to our cultural theory, the survival of his ideology continues to rely on journalism micro-cultural institutions’ championship and patronage. So it is relevant to examine the underlying philosophies underpinning both traditional and emerging organizations that have taken up the cause of our Larrikin-journalist to understand his future. We have already seen the part journalism union has traditionally played in the perpetuation of Larrikin values and beliefs. MEAA Media President, Marcus Strom, told the author in a 2020 interview the organization continues to be mindful of its position in journalism micro-culture, and its function in contributing to the protection of freedom of the news media in Australia. Although keen to point out his comments stood for his personal opinion, rather than an agreed position of the membership, Strom— as the union’s elected representative—reflects the underlying philosophies of the MEAA as a micro-cultural institution. “We project ourselves as representing the entire industry, not just membership, so we are not sectional or narrow in the pursuit that we go after,” he said. “Culturally what we’re trying to be is relevant to the entire industry, and that will give us the cultural power to continue to lobby for press freedom and independent media in Australia.” Strom said he felt “optimistic” about the future of the Australian journalistic micro-culture, and its consistent push for news media freedom. “The union and the newsroom are sort of synonymous, and that’s a real cultural aspect of newsrooms,” he said. “Journalists, through their organization and just the day-to-day collectivity of the newsroom, insist on

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independence of newsgathering, news presentation, and this happens in daily decision-making, in news conferences and when journalists make decisions about who to interview and how to interview them, it’s a real micro-­cultural process in that sense … and you have the confidence to do that because you’re unionized.” In 2020, our previous Larrikin-journalist, Nick McKenzie, was voted in as the Melbourne Press Club’s 21st President. We have already seen the foundational function the Melbourne Press Club, as a micro-cultural institution, has traditionally played in sustaining Larrikin values and beliefs in journalism. In a 2020 interview with the author, McKenzie said the organization would be focused on continuing as a platform of cultural conversation. Further, McKenzie’s philosophy about news media freedom suggests the Melbourne Press Club will endure as a vehicle of the Australian journalism Larrikin’s cultural consciousness: Attacks on freedom of the news media by big business and politicians are relentless, but we, as journalists, are relentless by nature,” he said. “As a profession, we are dedicated and can be fearsome in our fight for the heart of our profession.

So the already-established vehicles of Larrikinism in Australian journalism appear to be thinking about their future function in ‘pushing back that line’ toward a freer news media. But there appear to be others emerging as news media freedom becomes ascendant in macro-cultural discourse. In 2019, former Age journalist and current journalism academic, Bill Birnbauer, set up the not-for-profit organization, Democracy’s Watchdogs. Its main aims are related to recognizing Australian investigative journalists and promoting media literacy about journalistic processes. Its website profiles some of the most culturally significant current Larrikin-journalists, providing—through video interviews—a visual and oral history of professional processes that scrutinize and criticize democratic authority. Although Birnbauer told the author in a 2020 interview that he did not see the website as “necessarily” promoting a Larrikin  ideology within Australian journalism micro-culture, the journalists it features are among those that this book has analyzed and demonstrated to have Larrikin characteristics: Nick McKenzie; Richard Baker; Andrew Rule; Chris Masters; Brian Toohey, as well as other micro-culturally significant journalists that were beyond this book’s scope (Kate McClymont, Michael West, David Wilson).

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But what is most interesting about the Democracy’s Watchdogs project is the focus it has on inspiring the next generation of journalists. The website has a section designed to stimulate thought about the link between investigative journalism and democratic processes for use in classroom curriculum at both secondary and tertiary levels. But of more significance to this chapter’s concern with the future of Larrikinism within journalism micro-culture, Democracy’s Watchdogs has founded an award for tertiary student investigative reporting. At the time of writing, the inaugural award had not yet been conferred, but among the selection criteria is compliance with the MEAA’s code of ethics which, as we have discussed, can require a Larrikin-like determination to skirt the periphery of restrictions on freedom of the news media. Birnbauer, however—not unlike almost every Larrikin-journalist we have met on this journey—is confident that meticulous “legalling” of stories means the risks are small. And yet: “It takes courage,” Birnbauer said. “It’s not for everyone for sure, but it is the most exciting, thrilling and adrenaline-producing kind of journalism and it takes a particular personality.” In December 2013, Australian-born Al Jazeera journalist, Peter Greste, was in Egypt covering the country’s political unrest when he and two colleagues, Mohamed Fadel Fahmy and Baher Mohamed, were arrested. They were charged with terrorism offenses and convicted and sentenced to between seven and ten years in an Egyptian jail, although Greste was imprisoned in solitary confinement for a month before any formal charges were made. Despite international condemnation, Greste languished in jail for more than a year before he was deported to Australia on the provision that he would face trial in his home country. No explanation was given for his release, and he was still considered a criminal in Egypt, facing a further trial in absentia. More than seven months later, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed were pardoned. Greste came home a passionate champion for freedom of the news media. Within that passion, one can discern a raging Larrikin sensibility. He set up The Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom, in conjunction with lawyer Chris Flynn and former journalist and current strategic communications consultant, Peter Wilkinson, both of whom campaigned to bring Greste home during his 400-day incarceration in Egypt. The AJF is funded by business and philanthropy. It refuses to take money from Government. The AJF lobbies hard. It is involved in almost every campaign related to media freedom both domestically and internationally. In a 2019

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interview with the author, Greste says it takes up most of his time. So why do it? Why, after 400 days stuck in a prison cell, far away from home, does Greste just not take a break. His answers hold elements of typically Larrikin emotional innocence, ‘working class-style’ solidarity and a good dose of anti-authoritarianism: People had fought very hard for us,” he says. “I felt I had a duty to do something for them. But there was also an element of ‘fuck you’, for what they [the Egyptian authorities] tried to do to us [Mohamed Fadel Fahmy and Baher Mohamed], and what they are still doing to people. It’s a way of sticking my finger up at the regime.

Can’t get much more Larrikin than that! Greste perceives his sustained, determined Larrikin crusade for news media freedom as a cultural legacy for generations of journalists to come: Freedom of the news media ought to be about who we [journalists] are, and underpinning everything we do. It’s an abstract concept, and we don’t fully understand it until we’ve experienced it, but it’s our bread-and-butter, taking away our freedom to do our job is like taking away our pens and paper.

And so we come to the end of our journey through the cultural history of Australian journalism, and the evolution of the Larrikin as a significant ‘memorial narrative’ that sustains freedom of the news media. The characters appearing in this history may not describe all—or even any—working journalists in the past, today, or in the future. But it was never with ‘truth’, or empirical historical ‘reality’, that we were concerned. It was with the common patterns found within cultural narratives that have gained significance over time. According to cultural theory, these patterns derive their significance from their function as deposits of traditions that have the potential to become embedded in a particular value and belief system, in this instance, Australian journalism’s micro-culture. As our cultural theory hypothesis, while ‘tradition’, or the construction of power at specific historical moments, evolves from ‘fact’, its progression and embedding into subsequent cultural value and belief systems does not necessarily rely on its original ‘reality’. Says Williams: It [tradition] is a version of the past which is intended to ratify the present. What it offers is a sense of predisposed continuity. (Williams 1977: 116)

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Our cultural history of Australian journalism can, therefore, surmise that our Larrikin-journalist is ‘predisposed’ to ‘continuity’ within Australian journalism micro-culture. At least, let’s hope so, because who’s to say there are no abuses of democratic power happening right now. Right. Now.

Bibliography Bartlett, P., Considine, P., Levitan, D., Ritchie, A., Hurley, D., & Kaye, J. (2020, August 7). National Defamation Law Reform: MinterEllison Considers the Changes. MinterEllison Media Group. Bellanta, M. (2012). Larrikins: A History. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Childs, K. (2006). The Prince of Australia and Other Rebels, Rogues and Ratbags, Lothian, South Melbourne, Victoria. Democracy’s Watch Dogs. (n.d.). https://democracyswatchdogs.org/ (accessed July 20, 2020). Dobie, M. (2020). The War on Journalism: The MEAA Report into the State of Press Freedom in Australia in 2020. MEAA Redfern. Gorman, C. (Ed.). (1990). The Larrikin Streak. Sydney: Pan Macmillan Publishers. Hanusch, F. (2008). Mapping Australian Journalism Culture: Results from a Survey of Journalists’ Role Perception. Australian Journalism Review, 30(2), 97–109. Hobbs, M., & Stephen, O. (2016). Stifling Dissent: The Murdoch Press and Its Campaigns Against Its Critics. Communication Research and Practice, 2(2), 137–158. Joshi, K. (2018). Quill Awards: Behind Richard Baker and Nick McKenzie’s Journalist of the Year Award. Retrieved July 22, 2020, from https://www. mediaweek.com.au/richard-­baker-­nick-­mckenzie-­quill-­award-­2017/. Knott, M. (2012). The Power Index: Journos Baker McKenzie #3. Retrieved July 20, 2020, from https://www.crikey.com.au/2012/10/31/the-­power-­index­journos-­baker-­and-­mckenzie-­at-­3/. Knowles, L., Worthington, E., & Blumer, C. (2019, June 6). ABC Raid: AFP Leave Ultimo Building with Files after Hours-Long Raid Over Afghan Files Stories, ABC, June 6, 2019. Retrieved July 20, 2020, from https://www.abc. n e t . a u / n e w s / 2 0 1 9 -­0 6 -­0 5 / a b c -­r a i d e d -­b y -­a u s t r a l i a n -­f e d e r a l -­ police-­afghan-­files-­stories/11181162. MacCallum, M. (2001). Mungo: The Man Who Laughs, Duffy & Snellgrove, Potts Point, NSW. MEAA. (2015, December 9). Journalists’ Sources Protected in Crucial Hearing. Retrieved accessed July 20, 2020, from https://www.meaa.org/news/ journalists-­sources-­protected-­in-­crucial-­hearing/.

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MEAA. (2019, June 4). Police Raid on a Journalists’ Home. Retrieved July 20, 2020, from www.meaa.org/mediaroom/police-­raid-­on-­a-­journalists-­home/. Melbourne Press Club. (2018). 2017 Perkin Award Winners Nick McKenzie and Richard Barker. Retrieved accessed July 20, 2020, from https://www.melb o u r n e p r e s s c l u b . c o m / a r t i c l e / 2 0 1 7 -­p e r k i n -­a w a r d -­w i n n e r s -­n i c k ­mckenzie%2D%2D-­richard-­baker. Melbourne Press Club. (n.d.). Retrieved July 22, 2020, from https://www.melbournepressclub.com/article/quills-­honour-­roll. Milligan, L. (2019). Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell. Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing. Porter, M. (ed.) (2001) The Argus: The Life and Death of a Great Melbourne Newspaper: 1846–1957, papers from a conference at R.M.I.T. University, Melbourne. Rickard, J. (1998). Lovable Larrikins and Awful Ockers. Journal of Australian Studies, 56, 78–86. Salter, D. (2004, October 5). The Trouble with Journalism. Paper presented at Melbourne Press Club Annual Conference. Simons, M. (2007). The Content Makers: Understanding the Media in Australia. Camberwell: Penguin Books. Sky TV. (2020, June 16). The Death of the Aussie Larrikin. Broadcast. Smethurst, A. (2018, April 29). Spying Shock: ‘Shades of Big Brother as Cyber Security Vision Comes to Light. The Sunday Telegraph. www.dailytelegraph. com.au/news/nsw/spying-­s hick-­s hades-­o f-­b ig-­b rother-­a s-­c ybersecurity-­ vision-­comes-­to-­light/news-­story/bc02f35fa104b-­139160906f2ae709 University of Technology, Sydney. (2013). ACIJ Munster Winners, (PDF). Retrieved July 22, 2020, from www.uts.edu.au. Australian Centre for Independent Journalism. Walkley Foundation. (n.d.). Retrieved July 22, 2020, from https://www.walkleys. com/awards/walkley-­winners-­archive/. Williams, R. (1977). Marxism and Literature. London: Oxford University Press.

Index

NUMBERS AND SYMBOLS 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, 67 1919 Paris Peace Treaty, 78 1929 stock market crash, 67 1950 Menzies’ Communist Party Dissolution Act, 99 1953 Disclosure of Allegations Bill, 105 1974 Bathurst riot, 158 2005 defamation reforms, 226 2005 Report into the State of Press Freedom in Australia, 205 A ABC TV, 80, 160, 161, 173, 174 Frontline, 213 A-Bomb, 91 Aboriginal, 197 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, 193, 194 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), 195, 196

Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976, 194 Actors Equity, 172 Adams, Phillip, 129, 130 Adelaide, 197 Adelaide News, 110, 112, 114, 193 Advance Australia Fascist, 182 AFP, 222 The Age, 13, 38, 41, 55, 76, 139, 143–149, 154, 168, 170, 174, 195, 197, 217 ‘Insight,’ 144 The Age Tapes, 152, 155, 225 Age Insight Team, 213 The Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom, 228 American, 203 American and Australian POWs, 104 Americans, 104 AMP Society, 171, 172 Anderson, Alan, 87 Anderson, David, 222, 223 Andrew Olle Lecture, 177

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Vine, Larrikins, Rebels and Journalistic Freedom in Australia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61856-8

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234 

INDEX

Andrew Rule, 195 Anonymous source, 147, 153 Anti-communism, 71 Anti-fascist, 71 Anti-Terrorism Bill (no. 2) 2004, 189 Anzac, 64 Appeasement, 12, 51–71, 212 Areopagitica, 18–20 The Argus, 37–41, 53–55, 63, 76, 100–102, 108, 213 Argus Ballaraat, 40 Armstrong, David, 130 Army Public Relations, 80 Arthur, George (Lieutenant-­ Governor), 25–29, 34 Ashmead Bartlett, Ellis, 64, 65 ASIS, 136 Askin, Robert, 133 Assange, Julian, 14 Astoria, 139 ATV-10, 169 The Australasian Journalist, 59 Australia, 104, 154 Right to Know Coalition, 223 Australian, 151 The Australian, 26, 30, 31, 37, 42, 129–131, 134, 135, 168, 174, 182, 206, 213, 221 Australian Broadcasting Authority, 173 Australian Broadcasting Commission (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), 132 Australian Capital Television PTY. Limited and Others, 181 Australian Centre for Independent Journalism’s George Munster Prize for Independent Journalism, 219 Australian Communications and Media Authority, 173 Australian Communist Party, 67 Australian Federal Police, 219

The Australian Financial Review, 151, 174 Australian Industrial Relations Commission, 182 Australian Journalism Association (AJA), 55, 59–62, 64, 87, 96, 100, 103, 105, 169, 172, 173, 179, 180, 213 Australian Journalists Association, 12 Australian Labor Party, 127 Australian Navy, 201 Australian Parliament, 193 Australian Peace Movement, 134 The Australian Republican, 44 Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO), 136, 188 Australian Special Forces, 200 Australian Star, 63 Australia-New Zealand Civil Liberties Society, 107 B Bacon, Wendy, 13, 120, 121, 155–157 Baker, Richard, 217, 218, 227 Baldwin, James 1962 Another Country, 120 Bali, 187 Balibo, 137 Ball, Desmond, 137 Ballarat, 38 The Ballarat Courier, 45 The Ballarat Times, 15, 38–40 Bank of New South Wales, 33 Banks, Terry, 81 Barrass, Tony, 179, 180 Barron’s Online, 205 Barry, Paul, 218 Bartlett, Peter, 225, 226 Barton, Edmund (Prime Minister), 54 Barton, Gordon, 124 Barwick (Justice), 127

 INDEX 

Bathurst Gaol, 158 Baume, Eric, 69, 70 Bean, CEW, 64 Behind the News, 101 Bellanta, Melissa, 5 Bent, Andrew, 25–29, 33, 34, 38, 44, 45, 62 Beresford, Bruce, 52 Berinson, Joe, 180 Best Feature Walkley Award, 135 The Big League, 160–162 Big Shots Bugged, 153 Birnbauer, Bill, 227 Bjelke-Petersen, Sir Joh, 160 Black Week, 52 Blair, Sandy, 26, 34, 35 Blamey, Thomas (General), 81–86, 91 Blue Murder, 157 Blunden, Peter, 63 Boer War, 8, 52–58, 92, 212 “Bog bar,” 139 Bolt, Andrew, 198–200 Bolte, Henry, 143, 144 Bond, Alan, 169, 171 Bonnie, 1 Border Protection Bill, 200 Bottom, Bob, 153–155 Bourke, William, 102 Box Ridge, 193 Briese, Clarrie, 155, 157 Bringing them Home, 194 Brisbane, Sir Thomas, 26, 27 Britain, 75, 78, 151, 152 British, 78, 152, 203 British Empire, 69 British Mirror Group, 108 British Royal Navy, 63 Brodzky, Maurice, 46, 47 Bromberg, Mordecai (Justice), 198 Bugg, Dennis, 158 The Bulletin, 171 Buna-Gona, 78

235

Burchett, Wilfred, 70, 71, 90–92, 103–105, 137, 138, 168 Burge, Glen, 16 Burma, 78 Burns, Crayton, 95 Burns, Creighton, 95, 154, 155 Burroughs, William The Naked Lunch, 120 Bush Veldt Carbineers, 52 Business model, 214 Byrne, Jennifer, 174 C Cairns, Jim, 147 Calwell, Arthur, 128 Cameron, David, 206 Canberra, 156 Capital punishment, 143 Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell, 217 Cases Australian Capital Territory Pty Ltd v. Commonwealth, 3 Censorship, 63, 67, 76, 79 Ce Soir, 103 Chaney, Fred, 179 Channel 10, 164 Channel 10’s Hinch, 174 Channel Nine, 177 60 Minutes, 174 Channel Seven’s Today Tonight, 174 Charter for a Free Media in a Democratic Society, 181 Chifley, Ben, 99 Child, 212 Childs, Kevin, 7, 83 China’s civil war, 101 Chinese Communist regime, 101 Chloe, 57 Christmas Island, 201 Churchill, Winston, 78 Clark, Geoff, 195–197, 225

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INDEX

Clark, Manning, 5, 8 Clark, Sam, 222 Clift, Charmian, 15, 155 Clyde, 1 The Code, 94–96 Code of Ethics, 94, 173 Cold War, 151 Collingwood, Robin George, 9, 21, 64 The Colonial Times, 28 The Commonwealth of Australia, 152 Commonwealth’s Racial Discrimination Act, 198 Communism, 12, 133, 134, 136 Communist, 67, 138 Communist Party, 99 Compulsory professional association membership, 60 Cong, Viet, 134 Connell, Laurie, 179 Connor, Rex, 147–149 Conquerors’ Road, 88, 90 Constitutional monarchy, 212 Constitution and Rules, 61 Contempt of Court, 156, 157, 179, 180 Contempt of Parliament, 156, 157 The Content Makers, 170 Convergence Review, 207 Cook, Joseph, 62, 63 Cornwell, Deborah, 180 Crick, Paddy, 15 Crikey’s ‘Power Index,’ 219 Crimes Act 1914, 3, 219 Criminal Code Amendment (Terrorist Organizations) Bill 2003, 189 Criminal Code Amendment [Espionage and Related Offences] Bill 2001, 189 Criminal libel, 163 Cross, Ronald (Justice), 153 Cross Commission, 154 Cross Inquiry, 153 Cryle, Denis, 21, 29, 130

A Current Affair, 177 Curthoys, Ann, 16 Curtin Government, 96 Curtin, John (Prime Minister), 78, 96 Czechoslovakia, 89 D The Daily Mail, 107 The Daily Mirror, 100 Daily News, 100 Daily Telegraph, 174 Town Talk, 95 Damn Whores and Gods Police, 157 Dardanelles, 64, 65 Dark Victory, 201 Darling, Ralph (Governor), 30, 31, 35, 37, 77 Darwin, 137 Dateline, 178 Davies, Matthew, 45 Davis, Neil, 14 D-Day, 87 Deamer, Adrian, 129–131 Deamer, Dulcie, 57, 58, 155 Defamation, 159, 161 Defamatory, 162 Defense Signals Directorate, 136 Democracy’s Watchdogs, 219, 227, 228 Denison, Sir Hugh Robert, 63 Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, 196 Department of Information (DoI), 76 Dili, 137 Dixon, John (Justice), 217 Dixon, Tom (Father), 111, 112 D-Notice, 133–138, 150 Documents ‘H’ and ‘J.,’ 102, 103 Documents on Australian Defence and Foreign Policy 1968–1975, 149 Dow Jones, 205

 INDEX 

Dow Jones & Co. Inc. v Gutnick, 205 Dowler, Milly, 206 Dowling, James (Judge), 30 Drury, Michael, 156 Duncan, Peter, 159 Dunn, William, 92 Dunstan, David, 37, 40 Dunstan, Keith, 139 E East Timor, 136 Eatock, Pat, 198 Edelsten, Geoffrey, 162, 163 Egypt, 64 Eickelburger, Robert, 84 Ellis, Bob, 6 Emmett, Henry, 25 Enlightenment, 212 Epstein, Rafael, 219 Eureka, 37–40, 75 Eureka Hotel, 38 Eureka rebellion, 37, 41 Evans, Harold, 145 Evatt, Herbert, 103 F Fahmy, Mohamed Fadel, 228 Fairfax, James, 152 Fairfax, Sir Warwick, 4, 128, 156, 158, 168, 169 Fairfax and Friends, 170 Fairfax Group, 16, 168 Farquhar, Murray, 160, 161 Fascism, 67 Federal Parliament in Melbourne, 64 Federal Police, 191 Federation, 12, 51–71 Ferret’s D-Notices, 135 Ferret Watch, 173 Finkelstein Inquiry, 207, 215

237

Finklestein Review, 215 The First Casualty, 53 Fisher, Andrew, 63–65 Fitzgerald, John, 148 Fitzgerald, Tom, 122 Fitzgerald Inquiry, 160 Flinders Street, 101 Flynn, Chris, 228 Forbes, John Woolcott, 70 Forbes, Sir Francis, 37 Fordham, Ben, 221 Foreign Ownership restrictions, 169 Four Corners, 159, 161, 162, 164, 193, 217 14-point post war Reconstruction and Democratic Rights bill, 96 Foxtel, 173 France, 75, 87 Fraser, Malcolm, 149 Fraser government, 169, 189 Freedom of Information Act, 3 Freedom of the Press, 18 Friends of Liberty of the Press, 34 Frontline, 167, 172, 175 G Gallipoli, 5, 64, 66, 75 The Gallipoli letter, 66 Game, Peter, 148, 149 Geelong Advertiser, 38 George, Lloyd, 65 Germ warfare, 104 German civilians, 88, 89 German Communist Party, 67 German refugees, 89 German surrender, 87 German war-guilt, 89 Germany, 67, 88, 90 Gibbs (Justice), 127 Gibson, Mel, 5 Gillespie, Iain, 173

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INDEX

Gillies, Max, 171 Gippsland, 196 Goc, Nicola, 26, 28, 29, 34, 44 Gold Quill, 219 Golden Age, 143 Gordon, Harry, 14 Gorman, Clem, 6 Graham, Chris, 191 Graham Perkin Journalist of the Year Award, 217 Grant Hattam Award, 197 Grant, Stan, 196 Greece, 79 Greer, Germaine, 6 Greste, Peter, 228 Griffen-Foley, Bridget, 16 Grover, Monty, 53–55, 57, 63, 64 Guadalcanal, 78, 87 Gurindji, 194 Gutnick, Joseph, 205 H Hales, ‘Smiler,’ 54 Hall, Edward Smith, 29 Hall, Ken, 81 Hall, Smith, 29–35, 38 Hall, Stuart, 9 Hamilton, Paula, 16 Hamilton, Sir Ian, 64, 65 Handcock, Peter Joseph, 52, 54 Hanoi, 134 Hanusch, Folker, 215 Harmsworth, Lord Alfred Charles (1st Viscount Northcliffe), 65 Harris, Jenny, 161 Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant, 75 Hawke, Bob (Prime Minister), 171 Hawke Government, 155, 157 Hawley, Janet, 129 Hayes, Atwell, 30, 31

Heenan, Tom, 104 Henderson, Rupert, 106 The Herald, 89, 106, 107 The Herald and Weekly Times, 16, 63, 101, 108, 139, 168, 169, 183, 206 Herald Sun, 207 The High Court, 99 Hills, Ben, 144, 147 Hiroshima, 90–92 Hitler, Adolf, 67, 75 HMAS Adelaide, 201 Ho Chi Minh, 133 The Hobart Town Gazette, 25, 27, 28, 45 The Hobart Town Gazette and Southern Reporter, 25 The Hobart Town Gazette and van Diemen’s Land Advertiser, 26 Hobbs, Mitchell, 215 Hobsbawm, Eric, 9 Hoffey, Frank, 159 Hold the Front Page, 54 Holmes, Jonathan, 162, 163, 206 Holt, Harold, 138 Honi Soit, 120 Hosie, 139 Hotel Australia, 139 Hotham, Sir Charles, 38, 39 Howard, John (Prime Minister), 164, 165, 194, 200, 201, 203, 213 Howard government, 178, 189 Howe, George, 25, 33 Hoyt, Shaun, 163 Hughes, Robert, 6 Humphreys, Kevin, 160, 161 Humphries, Barry, 6, 119 Hunt (Justice), 163 Hurley, Frank, 79 Hurst, John, 11, 12, 134, 135 Hutchinson, Neil, 132

 INDEX 

I Indigenous issues, 193 Indigenous people, 194 Indigenous self-determination, 196 Industrial Relations Act, 182 The Industrial Relations Commission, 183 Insight, 144 International Law, 201 J Jacobs (Justice), 127 Jakarta, 149 James, Clive, 6 Japan, 78, 101 Japanese, 78, 87 Japanese bombing of Darwin, 76 Japanese surrender, 90 The Joke, 159 John Fairfax and Sons, 107 Johnston, George, 69, 80, 84 Johnston, James Stewart, 40 Jones, Alan, 173 Jones, Tony, 163, 164 Journalism Education and Research Association, 90 The Journalist, 12, 59, 67, 68, 87, 92, 108, 109, 134, 136, 169, 170, 179 K Kaesong, 104 Kane, Jack, 137 Kearsley, Bob, 177 Keith, Sir, 110 Kelly, Ned, 1, 5 Kelly, William, 41 Kennedy, Graham, 119 Keys, Henry, 91 Khemlani, Tirath Hassaram, 146–149

239

Killen, Jim, 150, 151 King, Philip (Governor), 26 King Brown Country: The Betrayal of Papunya, 197 Kirby, Michael (Justice), 111 Kirkpatrick, R., 39, 43, 178 Kisch, Egon, 67, 68 Knightley, Philip, 53, 65, 100 Knox, John, 41 Kokoda, 78, 79 Kokoda Frontline, 80 Kokoda track, 84 Kokoda Track, 75 Kommer, Walter, 129 Korea, 103, 104 Korean War, 101 Kupang, 137 L La Trobe, Charles Joseph, 38, 40, 41 Labor Party, 99, 100 Larkin, John, 144 Larkins, Natalie, 203–205, 213, 214 The Larrikin, 5–8 Larrikiness, 155–159 Laws, John, 173 Lawson, Louisa, 15, 155 League of Nations, 78 Lee, Mark, 5 Lennard, Hugh, 80 Leveson, B., 206 Leveson Parliamentary Committee, 110 Lewis, Sir Terence (Police Commissioner), 160 Liberal-Country Coalition, 99 Liberty of the Press, 20 Lingiari, Vincent, 194 Little, John, 174 Littlemore, Stuart, 133, 173, 174 Liu, Helen, 218

240 

INDEX

Lloyd, Clem, 18, 46, 55 Lobster with a Mobster, 217, 218 Lockwood, Rupert, 102 London, 64, 65 London Daily Express, 90 London Daily Worker’s Alan Winnington, 104 The London Times, 64, 65, 143 ‘Insight,’ 144 Lot’s Wife, 120 Lyons, Joseph, 67 M The Mabo, 194 MacArthur, Douglas (General), 82, 84, 87, 92 MacCallum, Mungo, 119, 122, 124, 127, 129, 132, 213 Macdonald, Ranald, 13, 143, 144, 146, 168 Mackinnon, Lachlan, 55 Madefferi, Antonio, 217 Manne, Robert, 70, 91 Manning, Peter, 13, 160, 161, 163, 164 Maralinga, 150–152 Marks, Hugh, 223 Marr, David, 155, 174, 201 Marseilles, 65 Martin, Ray, 174 Mason, Anthony (High Court Judge), 127, 149, 150, 181 Masters, Chris, 13, 159, 160, 162, 163, 218, 227 The Mavis Bramston Show, 119 McArthur, Douglas (Genaral), 80, 81, 84, 87 McCallum, Lucy (Justice), 218 McClymont, Kate, 227 McDonald, Hamish, 137 McDonald, William, 145

McGuiness, Frank, 46, 47 McKay, Claude, 57 McKenzie, Nick, 217, 218, 227 McLachlan, Angus, 107 McLaren, Bill, 82 McMahon, Billy, 131 McMullan, Jeff, 174 McNicoll, David, 95, 96, 100 McQuilton, John, 52 Meanjin, 101 Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA), 3, 173, 180, 181, 187, 188, 190, 205, 208, 217 Media Watch, 128, 173, 174, 199, 207, 213, 214, 218, 222 Melbourne, 154 Melbourne Herald, 64, 148, 149 Melbourne Herald Sun, 202 Melbourne Press Club, 13, 33, 122–124, 139, 140, 197 Grant Hattam awards, 219 Hall of Fame, 33, 42, 43, 63, 131, 177, 178 Graham Perkin Journalist of the Year Award, 218 Quill Awards, 219 The Melbourne Sun, 82, 84 Melbourne Truth, 46 Melbourne University Arthur Smith Memorial Lecture, 190 Memorial narrative, 9–11, 13, 15, 64, 79 Menzies, Robert (Prime Minister), 75, 99, 100, 102, 103, 119, 121, 131 Menzies Government, 76 Mercury, 55 Middle East, 78 Milirrpum v Nabalco Pty Ltd, 193 Mill, John Stuart, 18, 20, 21, 89, 212 Miller, Jamie, 104 Miller, Michael, 223

 INDEX 

Milligan, Louise, 216, 217 Milton, John, 18–20 Mirror, 101 Mirvac, 173 Mohamed, Baher, 228 The Monitor, 29, 30, 32, 37, 42, 77 Monson, Ronald, 14 The Moonlight State, 160 Moore, Mike, 167 Moorehead, Alan, 68, 69 Morant, Harry ‘Breaker,’ 8, 52–55 Morrison, Bill, 137 Moses, Sir Charles, 86 Muirden, Bruce, 169 Mulawa Women’s Prison, 121 Mullens, Jack, 101 Munster, George, 124, 149 Murdoch, Sir Keith, 16, 64–66, 88, 101, 130, 131, 168, 169, 171 Murdoch, Lindsay, 154, 155 Murdoch, Rupert, 4, 110, 113, 115, 193, 206 Murdoch Amendments, 169 Murdoch empire, 4 Murphy, Lionel (Justice), 154, 155, 157 Murray, Les, 6 My Brother Jack, 69 Myola, 82 N Nagasaki, 91 Nation, 124 National census, 193 National Indigenous Times, 191, 192 National Press Club, 223 National Security Regulations, 76 National Times, 13, 152, 156, 159, 217 The National Times, 128, 136, 152, 153, 155, 157, 158, 213

241

The Nation Review, 122, 124, 127, 128, 135, 173, 213 Nationwide News, 182, 183 Nationwide News Pty Ltd v. Wills, 3, 182 Native Title Act 1993, 194 The Native Title Amendment Bill 1997, 194 Nauru, 201 Nazi Germany, 88 Negus, George, 174–176 Neville, Richard, 119, 121, 122 New Guinea, 76, 78–80, 84–87, 91 New Spectator, 148 Newfong, John, 129 The News, 112, 113, 131, 171 News Corp/News Ltd, 168, 169, 171, 221, 222 News Media Chronicle, 178 News Media Council, 207 The News of the World, 110, 206 Newton, Max, 129, 182 Nixon, Richard (US President), 154 Nolan, Sybil, 55 North, Louise, 14 North Korea, 104 North Korean, 104 North Vietnam, 133 The Northern Miner, 42, 43 Norton, Ezra, 16, 106 Norton, John, 15, 168 Norway, 200 Nuremberg trials, 87 O Oakes, Dan, 222 Oakes, Laurie, 136, 164, 165, 190 Occupied Germany, 90 Office of Indigenous Policy Coordination, 196 O’Kane, Thaddeus, 42–44

242 

INDEX

Olds, David, 124 On Liberty, 20 Optus, 173 ‘Ossie’ Awards, 90 O’Sullivan, Fegan, 103 Owen, Stephen, 215 Oz magazine, 13, 120–122, 124, 213 P Pacific, 90 Packer, Frank, 4, 16, 100, 101, 132, 168 Packer, Kerry, 137, 168, 169 Paradise Lost, 18 Parer, Damien, 79–83, 85, 87 Patton, George (General), 88, 90 Peach, Bill, 132, 138 Pearce, Sharyn, 14, 57 Pearl, Cyril, 6, 15, 168 Peleliu Island, 87 Perfumed Steamroller, 170 Perkin, Graham, 140, 143–147, 155, 213, 217 Perlez, Jane, 129 Peters, Brian, 137 The Petrov Affair, 102, 103 Petty, Bruce, 129, 130 Philby, Kim, 144 Phoenix, 139 Pilger, John, 14, 100 Playford, Thomas, 113 Police Integrity Commission, 157 Political communication, 181 Port Moresby, 78, 80, 82, 84, 85 Post-Whitlam, 12, 143–165 Press Council, 169 Pringle, Douglas, 106, 109 Pro-communist, 71 Professionalization, 60 Project SafeCom, 205 Puberty Blues (1979), 159

Public broadcaster, 178 Public Figure Test, 127, 128 ‘Public figure’ defense, 128 Pullan, Robert, 16, 161, 187 Punch magazine, 45 Q Qantas, 173 QLD Newspapers, 168 Quill, Justin, 223 Quill Awards, 13 Quills, 13 R Racial Discrimination Act, 199 Randwick Racecourse, 16 Randwick races, 168 Ray, Taylor, 130 Reid, Campbell, 174 Reith, Peter, 201, 203, 213 Rendova Harbor, 87 Repercussions, 101 Report into the State of Press Freedom in Australia, 187 Returned and Services League (RSL), 67 The Returned Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Imperial League of Australia (RSSILA), 67 Review, 127 Rickard, John, 6, 7, 213 Ridgeway (General), 138 Rivett, Rohan, 110, 112–116, 193 Road to Kokoda, 80 Roberts, Tom, 16 Robertson, Gilbert, 28, 29, 45, 62 Robin Hood, 1 Rogerson, Roger (Detective Sergeant), 156 Romano, Angela, 10

 INDEX 

Rowell, Sydney (General), 86 Royal Australian Navy, 63 Royal Commission into Soviet Espionage, 102 Royal Commission on Espionage, 102 Ruddock, Philip, 201 Rugby League, 160 Rule, Andrew, 196, 197, 225, 227 Rupert, Murdoch, 168 Russo, Peter, 101, 102 Ruxton, Bruce (Returned Servicemen’s League President), 183 Ryan, Colleen, 16 Ryan, Morgan, 155 Ryan, Ronald, 144 S Saffron, Abe, 159 Saffron papers, 159 Salter, Billy, 57 Salter, David, 174, 214 Sandes, John, 54 SBS, 12, 178 Schultz, Julianne, 16 Scully, Frank, 102 Section 51 of the Australian Constitution, 99 Section 79 of the Crimes Act, 149 Sections 41 and 42 of the Copyright Act, 149 Seditious libel, 193 Seekamp, Clara, 15, 38–40, 155 Seekamp, Henry Erle, 38, 39 Select Committee for an Inquiry into a Certain Maritime Incident, 201 Self-regulation, 170 Seven Network, 177 Shand, Jack, 113 Sharp, Martin, 121, 122 Shergold, Peter, 192

243

SIEV4, 201, 202 Silk, George, 79, 87 Simons, Margaret, 2, 10, 200, 215 Singapore, 75, 78 Six O’clock Closing, 138 60 Minutes, 175–177 Skelton, Russell, 197, 198, 200 Sky TV, 211, 214 Slessor, Kenneth, 85, 86 Smethurst, Annika, 219–223 Smith, Mike, 13, 131, 145, 146, 154, 155 Smith’s Weekly, 168 Smythe, Chris, 179 Soft cock, 172 Son Goku (or ‘Monkey), 1 South Africa, 53 South Vietnam, 133 South Vietnamese, 134 Sparrow Force, 87 Special Commissions of Inquiry Act, 153 Spigelman, James (Chief Justice), 35, 37 Spurr, Russell, 105 Starke (Justice), 46 The State of New South Wales v. The Commonwealth of Australia and Another, 181 Stephen (Justice), 127 Stephen, John (Justice), 37 ‘Stolen Children’ national inquiry, 194 Stone, Gerald, 137, 176 St Paul’s Cathedral, 57 Street, Sir Laurence, 161 Street Royal Commission, 161 Strom, Marcus (MEAA Media President), 220, 226 Stuart, Max, 111–113, 115, 193, 206 The Stuart case, 111 Sudds, Joseph, 35 Summers, Anne, 157–159

244 

INDEX

The Sun, 63, 76 Sunday Age, 197 Sunday Australian, 128 Sunday Herald, 150 Sunday Herald Sun, 183 The Sunday Observer, 137, 168 Sunday Review, 124 The Sunday Telegraph’s, 77 The Sunday Times, 58, 145, 179 Sun New Pictorial, 53 Surveillance, 67 Suspected Irregular Entry Vessel (SIEV), 201 Sydney, 85, 148, 154 The Sydney Gazette, 26 The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 25 Sydney Harbor Bridge, 194 Sydney Morning ‘Granny’ Herald, 105 The Sydney Morning Herald, 103, 106–109, 111, 122, 149, 151, 180 Sydney Sun, 64 Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph, 76 Sydney’s University of Technology, 157 Syme, David, 55, 169 Syme, Ebenezer, 41 Syria, 79 T Table Talk, 45, 46 Tampa, 200 Taylor, Judge, 137 Taylor, Ray, 129 Telecommunications (Interception) Amendment Stored Communications Bill 2004, 189 The Telegraph, 100 Terra nullius, 194 Thalidomide, 144

Tharunka, 120, 121 Theophanus, Andrew, 183 Theophanous v. Herald and Weekly Times, 3, 182 This Day Tonight, 132, 133, 138, 173, 213 Thomas, Evan Henry, 26, 27 Thompson, Patrick, 35–37 Throbaven, Peter, 179 Tidey, John, 13, 131, 144, 147 Tiggelen, John van, 195, 200 Timor, 87, 137 Tobruk, 75 Tom Fitzgerald’s Nation, 135 Toohey, Brian, 13, 16, 150–153, 155, 156, 189, 227 Torsh, Daniela, 129 Town Talk, 95 Townsend, Simon, 133 Transgressive Adam, 18 Transvaal, 52, 53 Trimboli, Robert, 154 Trioli, 213, 214 The True Colonist, 28, 29, 45 Tuchman, Gaye, 10 2GB, 221 Tynan, Elizabeth, 150, 152 U Uncensored, 177, 178 United Australia Party (UAP), 67, 69 United Nations (UN), 104 USS Missouri, 90 US troops in Melbourne, 76 V Vietnam, 134 Vosper, Frederick Charles Burleigh, 43, 44

 INDEX 

W Walkely, William, 13 Walker, Robin, 26, 30, 31 The Walkley, 195 Walkley Award for Journalistic Leadership, 12, 149, 152, 157, 158, 163, 173, 177, 192, 197, 217 Walkley Foundation, 12, 172 The Walkley Magazine, 12, 196, 200 Walkley, William, 12, 13 Walkleys, 12, 214 Walsh, Richard, 13, 122, 124, 127, 128, 135, 149 Wapping Fortress., 110 War Council, 84 Wardell, Dr Robert, 26, 27, 31, 33, 35, 62 The War Precautions Act, 63 Warren, Christopher, 3 Washington, 149 Washington Post, 143 Watergate, 152 Waterhouse, Bill, 163 Waterhouse, Robert, 163 Watts, Ken, 132 Wave Hill Walk Off, 194 The Weekend Australian, 207 Wendt, Jana, 170, 176, 178 Wentworth, William Charles, 26, 27, 31, 33, 35, 62 West, Michael, 227 West Australian, 179 White, Osmar, 79, 80, 82, 84, 87–90 Whitehead (General), 83 Whitlam, Gough, 127, 146, 148, 194 Whitlam Government, 146, 156

245

Whitmont, Deb, 163 Wik 10-point plan, 194 Wilkinson, Marian, 153, 201 Wilkinson, Peter, 228 Willesee, Mike, 172 Williams, Raymond, 9, 10 Willis, William, 15 Wilmot, Chester, 79, 81, 83, 84, 86, 87, 91 Wilson, David, 154, 155, 227 Wilson, Edward, 40 Winnington, Alan, 104 Witness, 177 Witton, George, 52, 54 Woodberry, Joan, 27 Woodward Commission, 194 Woomera detention center, 203, 213 The Word Flashed Around the Arms, 121 World Movement Against War and Fascism, 68 World Press Freedom Index, 15 World War I (WWI), 62–66, 212 Wran, Neville, 160, 161 Wright, Raymond, 45 WWII, 12, 69, 75–96 Y Yirrkala bark petitions, 193 Yolgnu, 193, 194 Young, Sally, 16–18, 33 Young and Jackson’s Hotel, 57 Z Zelizer, Barbie, 11