Matthew Abraham: Politicians are a waste of space, a few malicious, most of them decent people

It’s been fifty years since Matthew Abraham learned what being a goody-two-shoes and stepping on ants can earn you in the media.

When Adam Ant arrived in Adelaide for a one-night concert at Apollo Stadium in 1981, he had no idea someone was about to make him rich.

That someone was me.

Mr Ant was leader of the English rock group Adam and the Ants. I was a journalist with The Advertiser and, at a packed press conference, pressed the non-boozing, non-smoking, anti-drugs Ant to reveal his hidden vices.s

The next day the ‘Tiser headline read: ‘Goody-Two-Shoes’ snubs the Smarties.

1981. Adam Ant of band Adam and the Ants, in Australia with a koala in 1981.

“Adam was anxious, the Ants were aggressive and the Antpeople were thin on the ground when the Goody-Two-Shoes of rock arrived in Adelaide yesterday,” I wrote. All these years later, I’m still chuffed with that intro.

Well, here’s the thing. That was October 1981. In March 1982, the band broke up. Adam’s first solo single later that year was, wait for it, Goody Two Shoes. It was a smash hit, making Number 1 in the UK and Australia, and propelling him into the tough US market.

The song was about the media’s intrusion into his personal life and our dogged disbelief that such a flamboyant performer on stage could be so squeaky clean off it. It’s possible I had nothing to do with Goody Two Shoes, but it’s quite a coincidence, is it not? Just like TV sleuth DCI Vera Stanhope, I don’t like coincidences.

Last month marked 50 years since I skipped up the steps of the old Advertiser editorial building on Waymouth Street for my first day as a cadet journalist.

It might seem odd that in half a century of reporting for a crust, the Adam Ant story remains a favourite. As my friend and former ABC colleague David Bevan observes of the job, it’s a funny way to make a living.

I count it as enormous good luck to have worked with David. But then, just getting a foot in journalism’s door was lucky.

Mum and Dad owned a deli on Duthy Street, now home to Windsor Meats. Dad used to save fresh cabbage leaves for a loyal customer, John Scales, to feed his children’s pet rabbit.

John was Chief of Staff at the Advertiser. I have no doubt that while I wasn’t the best applicant for the Class of ’72, deep down J. L. Scales simply couldn’t face disappointing Charles Abraham. Who knew cabbage leaves could open doors?

“I would like you to begin work at 9.30 a.m. on January 10,” the letter from Mr Scales advised. And so I did, carrying sandwiches in a brown paper bag and wearing dad’s hand-me-down, dark-brown, double-breasted, pinstriped suit. Gawd Aggie, with long hair, I must have looked like an extra from Bugsy Malone.

Journalism has seen enormous changes but so has every area of human endeavour, except perhaps for shoe repairers.

Muhammad Ali looks on during a bout between Evander Holyfield and George Foreman at Caesar''s Palace in Las Vegas, in 1991. Picture: Barry Jarvinan /Allsport

After a half-century of interviewing, I forget most of the famous people I should remember, but a few shine brightly. Boxer Muhammad Ali. Jean Vanier, founder of the L’Arche communities for people with disabilities. Call girl Xaviera Hollander, author of The Happy Hooker. Writer Tom Keneally. Green pioneer David Suzuki. Assassinated Pakistani Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, who signed her autobiography for our eldest daughter. Watergate burglar G. Gordon Liddy. The magical John Cleese. Fighters, writers, saints, sinners, martyrs, crooks and clowns, what a privilege.

And for much of my adult life, too many politicians. Some of them a waste of space, a few malicious, most of them decent people trying to improve our lot.

Political reporting isn’t hard. Just watch them close up and, as lawyer Lindy Powell QC advises in her profession, listen like stink. It’s why Premier Steven Marshall looks out of sorts to me, like a bloke who’s lost his car keys, while Labor leader Peter Malinauskas looks like someone who’s found them.

Isobel Redmond, Nick Xenophon, Natasha Stott-Despoja and Jay Weatherill make my Top 10. So do John Howard, Paul Keating, the late Democrat leader Janine Haines, who once joyfully jumped on the lap of Father Christmas in her parliamentary office, former Liberal Minister Jennifer Adamson, Julia Gillard, who attracted inexplicable bile from keyboard cowards during our radio interviews, and Rosemary Follett, twice the ACT’s Chief Minister, and the first women to lead any Australian Government. This list is subject to change without notice.

At various times, I’ve treated all of them unkindly and maybe unfairly in print or on air.

Perhaps it’d be different if there was a second chance, but the past is a foreign country for journalists and no place for a goody-two-shoes.