IN 1974 the Australian economy reeled from the impact of the first oil shock, wages soared as a result of the chaotic Whitlam government’s pace-setting public service pay rises, inflation rose to 20 per cent, Richard Nixon was besieged and forced by the Watergate scandal to resign as US president, a cyclone flattened Darwin and Gough Whitlam called a snap double dissolution election.
1974
Cyclone Tracy devastates Darwin
It was a typical Whitlam “crash through or crash” decision. The worldwide economic rumblings and the prime minister’s frenetic pace of change were unnerving Australian society. Prices were rising by 12 per cent a year. Jobless figures were on the rise towards an unprecedented 5 per cent of the workforce.
The Labor government was clearly oblivious to, or ignoring, the rule that too much change, too quickly, breaks the political speed limit. After a year in office during which he pressed ahead with big-spending policies, tariff reductions and currency devaluation, Whitlam reasoned that economic conditions were likely to be worse by 1975 and it would be best to go to an election halfway through his first term.
The Australian, a strong and influential supporter of Whitlam in 1972, played a straight bat and sat on the fence during the campaign.
He used his frustration at the Liberals’ refusal to pass his legislative agenda in the Senate as the excuse for an early election to break the deadlock. The Australian, a strong and influential supporter of Whitlam in 1972, played a straight bat and sat on the fence during the campaign.
Drifting apart
This was seen to be, at least in part, because of Whitlam’s refusal to engage with proprietor Rupert Murdoch — a pointed rebuff in view of the editorial and financial support given before the December 1972 election. Whitlam’s press secretary, former Daily Mirror political reporter Eric Walsh, recalls he organised a meeting in London in 1973 but Whitlam decided he was too busy to attend. “Rupert, as always, was civil but it was nonetheless clear that he felt he had been stood up by the real date,” Walsh says.
Gough Whitlam
The Labor government was clearly oblivious to, or ignoring, the rule that too much change, too quickly, breaks the political speed limit.
Early in 1974 another dinner was arranged in New York but, by pure chance, Whitlam bumped into British TV personality David Frost in the foyer of his hotel. The pair had a “relationship little short of mutual admiration”, according to Walsh, and when Frost invited the prime minister to dine with him, he readily accepted.
“Once again it fell to me to report to Rupert that the prime minister was ‘too busy’ to meet his dinner appointment,” Walsh says. “Gough claimed his dinner was an extremely enjoyable evening, but for me it was a lost opportunity — probably a final opportunity — of maintaining some kind of relationship with Murdoch.”
John Menadue, then general manager of News Limited’s Holt Street operations, recalls in his book Things You Learn Along the Way (David Lovell Publishing) that The Australian played it down the middle during the campaign, one senior journalist writing “Why I will vote Liberal” and another “Why I will vote Labor”. “Increasingly Murdoch and the Labor Party drifted apart,” he says.
And within months Menadue, the most likely candidate to take over from Ken May as head of the News Limited Australian operations, also left to join Whitlam as head of the prime minister’s department.
The close vote and the return of Whitlam with a reduced majority prompted opposition leader Bill Snedden to observe: “We didn’t win but we didn’t lose.”
Unionism
Bob Hawke
President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Bob Hawke, at the ACTU Conference.
The early 70s were also definitive years in the long struggle between capital and labour. Communism had been rejected in the Western world, but socialist ideals still drove the Left. In Australia, unionism was strong and often compulsory and collective bargaining was the norm.
Bob Hawke, a combative and passionate advocate of the workers, was firmly in control of the union agenda as president of the ACTU. Taking a leaf from the protest movement of the 60s, he was not afraid of marches, rallies and strikes to press home his points.
But in the early 70s the first stirrings of a new revolution were also being heard promoting the primacy of the individual over the collective — themes that were to develop into crusades under Margaret Thatcher in Britain and Ronald Reagan in the US.
Thatcherism struck a responsive chord with Rupert Murdoch. As a student at Oxford, he had a bust of Lenin on the mantelpiece in his room — described later as “just a joke” — but his exposure to the militant print unions in London had pushed him firmly into the conservative camp.
The Australian began warning in editorials against what it called the British Disease — an indolent and strike-prone workforce holding society to ransom. The Fleet Street print unions exercised their power by refusing to handle editorial copy they disagreed with and Murdoch was apprehensive about their potential to affect his Australian operations.
In the AN Smith Memorial Lecture two years earlier, Murdoch staked out his territory in a defence of proprietorial rights by decrying “a tendency of many journalists to bring their commitment with them — to try to impose themselves in their work and thereby on their newspapers”. He railed against the “vicious effects” of union power in the UK, saying “editing according to the whim of an open committee of people with no commitment to either the paper or its leaders is unthinkable”.
Murdoch had previously warned former editor Adrian Deamer during the Springbok rugby tour that some journalists on The Australian would “try to run this place if you give them an inch.”
Trouble brewing
Murdoch had previously warned former editor Adrian Deamer during the Springbok rugby tour that some journalists on The Australian would “try to run this place if you give them an inch”.
In fact, that was precisely what some staff journalists were trying to do. The Australian had a house committee of Australian Journalists Association members led by foreign editor Robert Duffield. In its early days the committee was broadly supportive of Murdoch’s enterprise as the small interloper taking the battle up to the big established players, Fairfax and Packer. But as Murdoch’s businesses expanded and in the wake of Deamer’s dismissal, the committee began to express concerns about his power and influence. It argued that The Australian, editorially opposed to the Springbok tour, should, as a consequence, refuse to cover protest events as they unfolded. This was flatly rejected.
Cyclone Tracy
The devastation left by Cyclone Tracy on Christmas Day in Darwin.
But as The Australian under Jim Hall became progressively more apprehensive about economic stability and critical of Whitlam’s policies and pace of reform, the house committee made frequent representations to management about conditions on The Australian. Their demands stiffened Murdoch’s resolve to resist.
Company chairman Ken May and his editorial manager Brian Hogben accepted the legitimacy of the committee over objections from Murdoch and maintained an uneasy peace through 1974. But the seeds of the industrial warfare that was to boil over in 1975 had been sown.
Other events that were to have a profound impact on the nation also occurred in 1974. In February, Whitlam appointed his friend, industrial lawyer and jurist John Kerr as governor-general. In an editorial The Australian described it as a first-class choice. And Jim Cairns, deputy prime minister after the 1974 election, appointed Junie Morosi to his personal staff. He would later confess to having “a kind of love” for her.
Cyclone Tracy
The public feeling that the Whitlam government was losing its grip was symbolically underscored by Cyclone Tracy, which ripped Darwin apart on Christmas Day 1974. Whitlam was overseas, immersing himself in the ruins of Olympia, but flew back to Australia for a brief visit before resuming his Grecian holiday.
1974: Cyclone Tracy hits Darwin0:39
Cyclone Tracy devastated Darwin early on Christmas morning. Sixty-five people were killed and 70 per cent of homes were destroyed or damaged.
The very first ‘gate’
From a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington on June 17, 1972 to the resignation of a president in disgrace on August 9 1974, “Watergate” became an agonising time for America. A building’s name became a byword for political scandal. Richard Nixon was replaced by his vice-president Gerald Ford, who found it in his heart to give Nixon a full pardon later in the year.
Patty on the run
Textbook Stockholm syndrome? US media heiress Patty Hearst was kidnapped in February by the Symbionese Liberation Army, an urban terror group. In April she was caught by security cameras taking part in a bank raid, collecting cash on behalf of her captors and later issuing statements supporting their goals. She was arrested in 1975, served time and was pardoned by President Clinton.
Regrets, he had a few
What worse crime could Cranky Frankie commit than to abuse the Australian press and call women journos “hookers” during a concert in Melbourne? Sinatra was on the run from the press but going nowhere on his tour after a union black ban grounded him. Bob Hawke, then ACTU chief, did it his way and got the show on the road again.
Time Warp
Fancy an evening with a sweet transvestite? Er, that would be Frank n Furter, as played by Reg Livermore, in The Rocky Horror Show. Seats were $3.80. The theatre in which the show played is now a “boutique” office development.
3, 2, number 1
Let the Countdown begin. Host Ian “Molly” Meldrum defined pop culture for the next 12 years in his weekly ABC music show.
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