Labor leader Arthur Calwell survived a bullet but not the polls

FIFTY years ago today Australian politics almost became fatal for Labor leader Arthur Calwell

Arthur Calwell, former ALP leader, is taken to hospital after the assassination attempt in 1966.

WITH a Federal election in the wind, Labor opposition leader Arthur Calwell was cautious not to brush off potential voters. As he was driving away from Mosman Town Hall on June 21, 1966, after addressing an anti-conscription rally, he noticed a young man approaching the vehicle. Calwell wound down the window thinking the man wanted to say “hello” but instead a shot rang out spraying the politician with glass and shotgun pellets.

The would-be assassin, Peter Kocan, dropped his gun and ran. He was soon caught, arrested and entered Australian political lore as our first would-be assassin of a political leader. While the young loner Kocan would later have some success as an author, Calwell’s career was in decline. The Labor stalwart’s encounter with a potential killer could have earned him the sympathy vote but it did nothing to boost his sagging political fortunes.

Born in Melbourne in 1896, Calwell’s father was a police officer with Irish-American heritage, and his mother the daughter of an Irish immigrant. Calwell grew up a devout Catholic, educated in Catholic schools. Unable to afford a university education, he entered the public service and read widely to educate himself. During Word War I he joined the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and actively opposed conscription.

He became involved with the clerk’s union and rose to become secretary of the Victorian Labor Party. He was a key player in the 1939 conference calling for Labor Unity that broke former NSW premier Jack Lang’s hold over the NSW Labor Party. In 1940 Calwell entered the House of Representatives, but was an open critic of some of PM John Curtin’s policies, particularly his failure to implement ALP social policies.

Peter Kocan is lead away after his attempted shooting of Labor’s Arthur Calwell.

With his often confrontational political style, he made enemies in the press when appointed information minister after the 1943 election. Then in 1945 prime minister Ben Chifley appointed him Australia’s first minister for immigration. While a tireless and effective campaigner, Calwell often stirred controversy with his firm belief in the “White Australia” policy, restricting immigration to white Europeans. He was also labelled racist for an ill-advised quip made in 1947, often quoted out of context, that “two Wongs don’t make a White” — it had been part of his response to a question asked by a Liberal politician named White in reference to a case of a deportation mix-up involving two men named Wong.

Labor lost power in 1949 and Chifley’s death in 1951 brought Calwell’s Labor ally Herbert Vere “Doc” Evatt to the leadership but in 1960 Calwell succeeded Evatt. A Labor Party split in the ’50s, between the old guard and the younger fiercely anti-communist Catholic “groupers”, put Labor in the political wilderness. Calwell’s stubbornness, clinging to old Labor policy, including White Australia, put him out of touch and helped keep him out of power.

He lost the 1963 election partly because he was depicted waiting outside a party meeting with Gough Whitlam while the party’s “faceless men” made policy decisions inside. In 1966 when feeling was still strongly in favour of war in Vietnam, Calwell did himself no favours at the ballot box by fronting anti-conscription rallies with talk of an election later in the year.

The shattered window and Calwell’s hat on the front seat of the car.

Arthur Calwell is taken by ambulance to hospital in 1966.

At one of these rallies the disaffected youth Kocan decided to make a name for himself. Born in Melbourne in 1947 Kocan later moved to Sydney, left school at 14 and worked a string of unskilled and labouring jobs.

He was working as a factory hand when he acquired a shotgun and decided he would shoot someone important as a way out of his own faceless existence. On the morning of June 21 he read that Calwell would be at an anti-conscription rally in Mosman and, concealing his gun, he went to the rally.

Calwell was still winding the window down when Kocan aimed at the politician’s throat. The window took much of the impact of the blast and Calwell received only minor injuries.

Kocan was found guilty of attempted murder and sent to Long Bay. Calwell recovered from his injuries and, in August when the election was announced for November, he began vigorously campaigning. But even bravely facing down an assassin didn’t win him the votes he needed.

In 1967 the ageing politician finally called a caucus meeting at which Whitlam was elected leader.

Kocan was later transferred to Morriset Mental Hospital where he spent time educating himself in history and literature. Calwell visited Kocan and forgave him, helping with his reformation. Already a published poet Kocan was released in 1976 and is now a published novelist.

Originally published as Labor leader Arthur Calwell survived a bullet but not the polls