Injustice to Neville Wran exposed: ABC doco that went off rails

No, Neville Wran was not involved in a cover-up over the 1979 Ghost Train fire at Sydney’s Luna Park.

Former NSW premier Neville Wran. Picture: Mark Evans

On the evening of March 30, 2021, I watched with alarm the final episode of an ABC-TV three-part documentary, Exposed: The Ghost Train Fire, as it unfolded a tale of tragedy and corruption at Sydney’s Luna Park in June 1979.

Many of the program’s claims were directed at my one-time boss, former NSW premier Neville Wran. My concern evaporated when a former female consort of crime boss Abe Saffron appeared on screen to tell viewers that Wran used to attend Friday night drinks at Saffron’s house, in the company of others, and that the two were “really pally”. I began laughing. If this was the quality of the program’s findings, I had no doubt that what I had previously watched was also nonsense.

Towards the end of the program the presenter told the families of the victims, in a segment that good taste should have excluded, the ABC’s findings about the cause of death of their loved ones.

Firemen at scene of the Ghost Train ride in 1979.

The fire, according to the program, had been lit by three bikies; the bikies had been acting on the instructions of Saffron; and the cover-up of this crime “went right to the top”. The presenter’s exact words were: “Essentially the allegation is that the reason why (the investigation) didn’t go any further was because of corruption further up. There are a lot of powerful people in powerful places protecting Abe. So, it went right to the top we are told.”

In the context of the program this statement – “went right to the top” – can mean only that the ABC was now accusing Wran of also being involved in covering up a mass murder. In three episodes the program produced no evidence at all that Wran was involved in a cover-up. This false statement was allowed to go to air by those supervising the program.

ABC management quickly distanced themselves from this claim.

Managing director David Anderson told a Senate estimates hearing on May 26, 2021: “This program in no way suggested that Neville Wran had any involvement in or knowledge of the fire at Luna Park.” Further, “it did not say that Wran was involved in a cover-up of the cause of the fire”.

Anderson can only make this claim by ignoring the words of the presenter cited above. He did not explain how this statement went to air, and remains in the program, if the ABC does not believe it.

Was there a conspiracy to cover up the cause of the fire? The first episode of the program dissected the police investigation and discredited the initial police finding that the cause was an electrical fault. That conclusion, however, was not new. It had already been effectively dismissed by the coronial inquiry in September 1979.

Damage following the fire on the Ghost Train ride at Luna Park in Sydney in 1979

The magistrate, Kevin Anderson, described an electrical fault as “most unlikely” although he added “the possibility of such a cause cannot be completely excluded”. He made an open finding: “How the fire was ignited the evidence adduced does not enable me to say.” Anderson found “the most probable cause of the fire was ignition of flammable litter by a cigarette or match carelessly or recklessly discarded by a person riding a train”.

The National Crime Authority, with far greater investigative expertise and resources than the ABC, concluded “it cannot say whether the fire was deliberately lit or not” but found no evidence to suggest it was arson. The NCA also found the initial police investigation was “grossly inadequate” but there “is no evidence that the inadequacy of the police investigation was due to dishonesty or corruption”. The NCA also found no evidence that organised crime was involved.

The involvement of the NCA in investigating the fire, incidentally, was an initiative of the Wran government and the federal government. The governments combined to require the NCA to investigate, as described in the title of the report, “certain matters arising out of certain fires which took place in Sydney in the period 1979 to 1982”. So much for the cover-up going “right to the top”.

To reach the conclusion that bikies lit the fire, the program selectively relied on the words of the only witness who claimed to have overheard the bikies talking about the fire. This witness, whose claims are not new, said he heard one bikie say: “I spread the kerosene out and I lit it with a match.”

The same witness also said he then heard another bikie say: “You shouldn’t have done that”, while a third bikie said, “Come on, let’s split”. The comment that “you shouldn’t have done that” is an odd statement by a member of a gang of bikies who had been commissioned to start the fire.

Crime boss Abe Saffron.

If the bikies had been so commissioned, would they have needed one of their number to say they needed to “split”? If this witness is to be believed – and his evidence is uncorroborated – this suggests the fire was probably a mindless act of arson, of the sort seen every bushfire season. The program relies completely on the first bikie’s alleged statement and ignores the second and the third, even though the alleged comments came from the same witness.

Even if we make the heroic assumption that the program is correct in fingering the bikies as the culprits, what evidence was produced to link the bikies to Saffron?

The only direct evidence was an interview with a former bikie, who did not claim to have been one of those involved, who was not named, would not be filmed and whose voice appears to have been deliberately distorted. At no point in the interview did this person directly accuse Saffron.

This is not evidence that would be considered useful in a committal hearing. The only other evidence produced is circumstantial.

Saffron was investigated by police and by the NCA for a series of arson fires around Kings Cross and Oxford Street. Saffron was never charged. These fires, however, were professionally lit and nobody lost their lives.

If Saffron was the mastermind behind these fires presumably the motive was an insurance payout. He had no such motive at Luna Park since he was not the lessee.

The modus operandi of a professional arsonist is to light fires in the dead of night when a building is unoccupied. Why would Saffron have not used the same professional arsonist at Luna Park to ensure there was no loss of life? Why engage three bikies who, judging from their alleged comments, were rank amateurs as arson­ists?

For the ABC to tell the victims’ families there was a cover-up, the program must first have established without doubt that there was a crime and therefore a criminal or criminals on whose behalf those involved in the conspiracy were protecting. Without a crime there can be no cover-up.

In three episodes the ABC program produced no evidence at all that Neville Wran was involved in a cover-up. Picture: Stuart Menzies

The ABC did not establish that a crime of organised arson occurred that night at Luna Park. No convincing evidence was produced to undermine the conclusion of the NCA that there was no evidence the fire was started deliberately and that it could find no evidence of dishonesty or corruption in the police investigation.

Wran was not the only victim of the program. The families of the victims were cruelly misled by the ABC. They were fed a story that had little substantiation and lacked credibility. The ABC falsely led the families to believe they now knew the truth about the deaths of their loved ones. The ABC was extremely disappointed with the reception of the program. Despite heavy promotion by the ABC, the only major follow-up was a negative one in The Australian, on April 24, 2021. A long article by Troy Bramston highlighted flaws in the program.

On April 10, 2021, shortly after the final episode was broadcast, the NSW Coroner, Teresa O’Sullivan, announced she had received an application for a fresh inquest into the fire from a person “with sufficient standing” under the Coroners Act. The coroner said she had formally asked NSW Police to review “all evidence concerning the cause and origin of the fire and the circumstances surrounding the deaths as a result of the fire”.

Following the coroner’s request, the then police commissioner, Mick Fuller, announced the matter would be investigated by a special Strike Force Sedgeman. This was to be the second major investigation of the fire by police, not counting the original investigation in 1979.

On October 13, 1985, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the NSW Police internal security unit, a special section of internal affairs, had launched a fresh investigation following allegations of a cover-up of the cause of the fire. This 1985 investigation found no evidence of a cover-up.

The original police investigation of the Luna Park fire was criticised as hasty and inadequate by the NCA. No such criticism could be made of the thoroughness of the lengthy investigation by Strike Force Sedgman. The report was delivered to the coroner on January 11 last year. Sixteen months later, at the time of writing, the coroner had still not decided whether she would hold a new inquest. The wheels of justice grind slowly at the Coroners Court.

According to senior police sources, the strike force found no evidence to dispute the findings of the previous inquiries into the fire by the police, and the National Crime Authority, or to dispute the findings of the original coronial inquiry in 1979.

The report apparently notes that the ABC refused to hand over material, including the full tape of the witness who claimed to have overheard the conversation of the bikies. Both the ABC and the coroner refused to answer questions about whether and why the ABC withheld material from the NSW Police.

Milton Cockburn’s The Assassination of Neville Wran is published by Connor Court.