Inquiry needed to establish the truth about Wran and the Luna Park fires

Congratulations to Troy Bramston and The Australian for thoroughly dissecting the ABC-TV program Exposed: The Ghost Train Fire (“Wran: the fires’ final victim”, 24-25/4). We support an inquiry into the circumstances and aftermath of the 1979 fire at Luna Park. We owe this to the families of the victims of the fire. This will hopefully also provide an opportunity for former NSW premier Neville Wran, posthumously, to again have his name cleared after a false allegation made by an ABC TV program.

On this occasion the ABC’s star witness is a former “friend” of Abe Saffron. Her claim of a relationship between Wran and Saffron was broadcast without corroboration. Apparently the normal rules of journalism, particularly the requirement for at least two independent sources, are suspended when a person is dead.

The inquiry will provide the opportunity to establish the truth or otherwise of her claim that Wran had put his entire political career at risk by such an association. The inquiry also needs to examine how Wran managed to influence a tender decision made by six independent and senior public servants.

Our respective lengths of service on Wran’s staff stretched from 1973, when he became Leader of the Opposition, to 1986, when he retired from politics. We would be happy to testify — and would have been prepared to tell the ABC — that in 13 years none of us saw any evidence of a relationship between Wran and Saffron, either direct or indirect.

Milton Cockburn (1978-81), Forest Lodge, NSW

Brian Dale (1973-81), Lilli Pilli, NSW

David Hill (1976-86), Randwick, NSW

David Hurley (1981-86), Caringbah South, NSW

Nigel Stokes (1976-86), Potts Point, NSW

Troy Bramston was a baby when Neville “Nifty” Wran began his decade as NSW premier in 1976. He said so in his glowing tribute to the not-yet-dead former politician in 2006 when launching his collection of pieces by fellow Wran admirers.

All these years later, Bramston is still a fan, judging from the heroically partisan defence he mounted in Inquirer for the Balmain boy who started poor but died extremely rich — much as Wran’s corrupt Liberal predecessor Robert Askin did. There’s no law against clever people prospering but if they do so in political office or soon after, it invites scepticism, not enthusiasm.

From the 1960s to the 1980s, what Wran and Askin had in common was exposure to the malign influence of the most corrupt figure in the most corrupt city in the English-speaking world since Prohibition Chicago: Abraham Gilbert Saffron, a.k.a. Mr Sin, in Sydney.

Bramston’s shrill defence of Wran discredits himself without changing anyone’s mind about Wran. He tries to boost Wran by kicking others: notably makers of the recent ABC documentary on the biggest cover-up of the worst crime of the Wran era, the Luna Park fire that killed six children. He cues a conga line of fellow fans — including Wran intimate Malcolm Turnbull — to chorus that Nifty wasn’t shifty, just misunderstood. In doing so, he flourishes assertions in order to rebut specific bribery allegations raised in the documentary and by me in The Herald Sun both recently and when Wran died. He uses the hack lawyer’s trick of undermining a strong witness — David Waterhouse — by deliberately conflating him with a less credible (and irrelevant) witness with the same surname. His defence is so jerry-built it includes material that actually damages his hero: such as quoting Saffron’s son writing in his memoir that Saffron paid Askin “more money than any other (my italics) policeman or politician”. In other words, Askin was just one of many politicians and police Saffron bribed. As Bramston knows, it would be the book publisher’s decision not to include Wran’s name because he was still alive at the time and protected by one-sided defamation laws.

Bramston’s defence is as lame as it is long winded, and was most likely encouraged by others with their own reasons to shield Wran’s inner circle from serious questions. He may come to regret it.

Andrew Rule, Associate Editor, The Herald Sun

Help for veterans

I tend to agree with Neil Brown QC (Letters, 24-25/4) that the royal commission into veteran suicide is a waste of time and only supports the lawyers involved. The findings and reports of many royal commissions are buried or ignored with a few findings taken up to look good. Military families are being fed false hope. It would seem the main problem is lack of staff in the relevant veterans departments. Fixing this would be a lot quicker (and probably cheaper in the long run) in terms of solving the time delays in assisting veterans and would greatly reduce the number of suicides.

Elizabeth Jobson, Tamborine Mountain, Qld