IN 1973 The Australian declared Gough Whitlam its Australian of the Year and the newly elected Prime Minister dominated the news from the start. His Labor government declared peace in the Vietnam war, diplomatically recognised North Vietnam, introduced no-fault divorce, took control of indigenous policy, cut tariffs by 25 per cent, nominated Galston as the site for a second Sydney airport and reeled under the impact of the first oil shock.
1973
Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles purchased for $1.3m
Whitlam also embraced the arts, most controversially approving the purchase of Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles for the new Australian National Gallery for $1.3 million. It caused an outcry but the painting is today worth anything up to $100 million.
Whitlam also embraced the arts, most controversially buying Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles for the National Gallery for $1.3 million. It caused an outcry but is today worth more than $50 million
Arts revival
It was the start of a new era for an arts community battling what it saw as the philistinism of the post-war period. The perception of public hostility to the arts during the recovery years of the 50s created a large expatriate arts community but the emergence of new attitudes and new voices, such as that of playwright David Williamson, energised those who stayed at home.
In response, The Australian increased its arts coverage, introducing a daily page covering theatre, film, books and the arts. James Hall, who joined the paper before its first issue and was features editor under Adrian Deamer, took over as editor in April 1973 when Owen Thomson was sidelined for heart surgery. Hall, a passionate bibliophile, built on a tradition of serious arts journalism established in 1964. Max Newton, the first editor, understood the need for arts coverage, even if he did not comprehend the subject. He famously told Hall, as books editor: “I don’t care what you put in these pages as long as they look serious.”
Star writers
Hall needed no further encouragement. He turned to production editor Guy Morrison to devise the serious “look” featuring white space and an unusual Century Bold Extended type that became the paper’s trademark. And he gathered around him some of the best names in Australia to become reviewers and writers on the arts. Poet R.F. (Bob) Brissenden became the first literary editor and he recruited early contributors including Max Harris, Geoffrey Dutton, Eugene Kamenka, Lloyd Robson and J.P. Nieuwenhuysen – all regarded as leading literary lights of the time.
Max Harris’s column Browsing appeared from the beginning and ran for 27 years. Phillip Adams was also an early contributor, focusing mainly on television in the early years. He still appears weekly in The Weekend Australian Magazine – a record stint broken only by a period during which he appeared in The Age. Staff journalist Cedric James succeeded Brissenden as literary editor, but Hall himself later took on the role, followed by others including Dutton, Elizabeth Riddell, Robert Drewe and Barry Oakley.
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1973 Sunbury Music Festival in Victoria
New wave of creativity
Betty Riddell and Drewe were part of a staff coterie of outstanding merit who took on straight reporting and feature writing as well as writing reviews of books, film and theatre. They included Ian Moffitt, Geraldine Pascall, Jane Perlez, Janet Hawley, Julie Rigg and Sandra Hall. Riddell described herself as “two people – a non-creative writer and a poet”. She was also an accomplished author and it is the latter “person” who came to the fore in her later years.
After a stint in the UK as a foreign correspondent she joined the Mirror, but by the late 60s had switched to The Australian and chronicled the new wave of Australian creativity. She was a pioneering inspiration for gifted writers like Perlez and Hawley, who emerged under the guidance of news editor Hal Lenzner as the creators of a key editorial point of difference for The Australian: the page three interview.
These features, often running to 1500 words, were an innovative foray into personality journalism where the character of the subject and the inquisitor could be equally discerned. It was a new form of writing that attracted many followers and was soon imitated – but never improved on – by other newspapers. The genre petered out in the mid-70s, in part because of a lack of consistently vibrant subjects.
The Sydney Opera House opens
The Sydney Opera House, 14 years in the making, was finally opened
Big things to come
Riddell went to London as a correspondent for The Australian in 1973; Hawley later joined Fairfax as a magazine writer and Perlez joined The New York Times.
Ian Moffitt worked as a US correspondent for The Australian and his colour reporting on racial upheavals in the South was without peer. While working in The Australian’s features department he wrote his critique of Australia, The U Jack Society, and began work on his seminal novel The Retreat of Radiance, which topped the bestsellers list for two months.
Robert Drewe also wrote features on a wide range of subjects but found time to research his first novel, The Savage Crows, on the extermination of Tasmania’s Aborigines. He won two Walkley awards before moving on to become a leading fiction writer. Hall, aware of the quality of the output of his literary staff, edited several editions of The Armchair Australian – compilations of their best work published as books.
Maria Prerauer presided as arts editor through the Whitlam years and described the period as one of enormous expansion. “We were breaking the news, telling the inside story, discovering, commenting, attacking and above all, cheering,” she wrote in a 25th anniversary reflection. A former opera singer, Prerauer ruled her pages with an iron fist and earned the nickname Maria Piranha.
Rigorous reviews
Katharine Brisbane worked alongside Prerauer, chronicling the emergence of small theatre companies around the nation in columns, reviews and news stories. She was a crusader for cultural change, adding her voice to The Australian’s bevvy of anti-censorship campaigners. Brisbane applauded the Whitlam government’s establishment of the Australia Council to support the arts, and the establishment of state theatre companies along with independents such as the Pram Factory in Melbourne and Sydney’s Nimrod Theatre. Her critiques were strong and forthright – sometimes excessively so. After she branded a production of Othello in Sydney “dishonest” the director, Peter O’Shaughnessy, sued the newspaper for $500,000.
The case became a cause celebre for free-speech campaigners determined that the expression of honestly held opinion should not be extinguished. Brisbane won the first round but as the case was appealed to the High Court The Australian’s lawyers reached a settlement, also insisting to staff that future criticism should be fair and preceded by the words “In my opinion …”
Geraldine Pascall followed Brisbane as theatre critic and was equally fierce in her condemnation of what she thought was shoddy work. She also wrote with great passion on food and wine before dying at age 38 of a brain hemorrhage.
The Australian’s team of literary and arts writers in this period has never been matched. It fitted the tenor of the times – the emergence from a long post-war idyll in which artistic expression was of little consequence. The raw and sometimes angry passions that now gripped art and theatre were, in time, polished and subdued, in no small part influenced by the critiques of a team that not only knew its craft but loved it too.
Sydney Opera House
The rise of artistic expression symbolically culminated in 1973 when the Sydney Opera House, 14 years in the making, was finally opened. The Australian marked the occasion by publishing a colour wraparound painting by William Dobell. But while artistic endeavour might have taken on an Aussie accent, it was the Queen, not an Australian, who did the opening honours.
1973: Opera House finally complete0:27
The Opera House, designed by Jørn Utzon, was completed in 1973 after 16 years of construction and at a cost of $102 million.
Red rage at Blue Poles
The work of a drunk – and $1.3 million! Gough Whitlam copped a caning when he bought American artist Jackson Pollack’s Blue Poles for the National Gallery in Canberra. Comedian Paul Hogan thought it was on the nose. The painting has been a drawcard ever since and its value now? Priceless.
Delightful Delli
Delvene Delaney, in later years wife to Hogan’s business partner John Cornell, was a Brisbane model recruited to work in Monaco when she appeared on Page 1 on May 3. She had been recruited by former secretary to John Gorton, Ainsley Gotto. Before Delvene was her TV career, including as co-host of Sale of the Century.
Award for White
Novelist Patrick White received recognition by winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, which paid tribute to his “epic and psychological narrative art, which has introduced a new continent into literature”.
Simply Paradise
Fancy a weekend away on the Gold Coast? It’ll cost you $5.25 a night with breakfast at the Chevron in Surfers. Or stroll down to the Pink Poodle Motel for even better rates. Don’t bother about parking fines – a glamorous Meter Maid will sort that out.
Energy Crisis
After imposing an oil squeeze, the six main oil exporting nations ease the flow – but announce a doubling of the oil price from 1974. This oil price shock has global implications.
The journey begins...
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Spinning out of control
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On a slippery path to the cliff
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Power to the individual
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THE Australian was in black for the first time as it turned 21, and a period of prosperity lay ahead.
Farewell to Fleet Street
KEN Cowley was a key strategist in the landmark relocation of Rupert Murdoch’s London operations to Wapping.
Joh aims high, falls low
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Bicentennial and beyond
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A new epoch takes shape
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Hold the front page ...
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The Kirribilli showdown
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The landscape diversifies
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No cakewalk for Hewson
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Death of a campaigner
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An end and a beginning
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Rebirth in deadly times
THE Port Arthur massacre prompted new prime minister John Howard to launch a crackdown on guns.
Bougainville showdown
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Status quo under threat
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The republic can wait
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Sorry before the Games
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Blood and tears in Bali
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Where there is smoke…
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Playing their last innings
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Not what they seemed
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He shall not be moved
THE AWB scandal and Peter Costello’s dummy-spit leave John Howard standing, but Kim Beazley bows out.
Scene set for a knockout
KEVIN07 proved too hot for John Howard, and a ‘terror suspect’ turned out to be just a doctor on a 457 visa.
Balm for a nation’s soul
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Shock, horror, disbelief
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Suddenly, Julia steps in
KEVIN Rudd’s demise at his deputy’s hands was brutal and swift, but it was preceded by a string of Labor woes.
The nastiest deluge of all
NATURE and the Wivenhoe Dam were exceptionally unkind to Queensland the year we hosted Barack Obama.
It’s the whole dam truth
QUEENSLAND’S political landscape is transformed, and we farewell two doughty Australian women.
Clash course in politics
THREE PMs starred in our longest election year.
The next half century beckons
WHATEVER the future of curated news, The Australian is determined to build on its achievements.
