The double allegiance of a secret communist operative
Arthur Gietzelt, the long-time Labor senator and minister in the Hawke government, always denied he’d been a secret member of the Communist Party. The evidence, however, is irrefutable.
Arthur Gietzelt, the long-time Labor senator and minister in the Hawke government, always denied he had been a secret member of the Communist Party of Australia. These denials by him and his family became as routine as they were dishonest. Gietzelt even wrote a fantasy memoir in which he failed to mention his clandestine membership.
The evidence, however, has long been irrefutable. More than a decade ago I wrote about the extensive trove of files held by ASIO that documents Gietzelt’s involvement as a CPA member, his role on several committees and his work as an operative inside the Labor Party.
Stuart Macintyre, the respected historian who died last year, confirms Gietzelt’s membership in the second volume of his history of the CPA. Macintyre also was a party member. In The Party (Allen & Unwin), Macintyre writes that Gietzelt was active in the CPA from the 1940s and wrote under the alias Arthur James in the journal Communist Review.
The book is an important contribution to the historical record.
“Throughout his parliamentary career, Arthur Gietzelt denied allegations of a communist past (and obtained substantial damages from the ABC after a Four Corners program accused him of working with the Communist Party in a preselection contest),” Macintyre writes. “In fact, he directed the party’s ex-service work for a number of years following Laurie Aarons’ expulsion from the Legion of Ex-Servicemen and Women, and used the cover name Arthur James in party circles as he made his way in the ALP.”
ASIO recently declassified new files on Gietzelt. When ASIO director-general Harvey Barnett met Bob Hawke for the first time after he led Labor to power in March 1983, he briefed the new prime minister about Gietzelt.
“The person of most concern because he was a member of the shadow cabinet was senator Arthur Gietzelt,” Barnett said. “He was probably a CPA member as far back as 1940 and had been on the Sydney District Committee between 1952 and 1955. He operated under the party name of ‘Arthur James’. CPA members were urged to keep his identity secret.”
Barnett, incredibly, told Hawke that Gietzelt could still be a member of the CPA in 1983.
The ASIO boss also raised Tom Uren and Bruce Childs, who were deemed to have had “close relations” and a “long association” with the CPA, but his assessments were less definitive about the extent of their involvement. Uren and Childs both denied having any CPA connections.
These new documents built on a mountain of material about Gietzelt: audio and video recordings, photographs, intercept reports, agent assessments and witness testimony. ASIO believed Gietzelt had been a dual member of Labor and the CPA, and acted as an operative for the CPA inside Labor.
Even the US State Department viewed Gietzelt as a national security risk in the 1970s.
There is nothing wrong with somebody being a member of a political party that accords with their values, philosophy and policy convictions. We should respect freedom of association and speech, even though the communist ideology has been thoroughly discredited by the tyrants and dictators who purported to implement it.
But lying about it is another thing altogether. So is deceiving the government you served and the party that gave you the honour of representing them in local government – Gietzelt was a Sutherland Shire councillor (1956-71) – and in federal parliament as senator (1971-89) and minister (1983-87).
Many former communists are happy to acknowledge their past loyalties. But not Gietzelt.
When I presented Gietzelt with the evidence in ASIO files about his CPA links during a phone call in 2010, he rejected it outright. “I don’t know what you are talking about,” he replied, and warned me not to believe anything ASIO said.
He died in 2014.
Mark Aarons, whose family ran the CPA for years, wrote in his book, The Family File (2010), that Gietzelt was indeed a key operative for the CPA.
The testimonial evidence, in addition to the documentary evidence, is also considerable. Hawke accepted what ASIO told him about Gietzelt. But he suspected Gietzelt’s CPA links were behind him and felt he could not deny him a ministry. He emphasised to me that Gietzelt was not in cabinet nor did he deal with foreign policy, defence or national security matters.
Bill Hayden told me he was briefed by ASIO about Gietzelt’s links to the CPA while a minister in the Whitlam government and again when he became foreign minister in the Hawke government. NSW Labor secretaries Peter Westerway, Graham Richardson and Stephen Loosley have also gone on the record about Gietzelt’s dual party membership.
Uren, a Left faction colleague of Gietzelt and a minister in the Whitlam and Hawke governments, believed he had been a CPA member. “I think he was,” Uren told me. “Arthur did some silly things but I’m pretty sure he wasn’t a member of the (Communist) Party when he was a minister. He used to go regularly into the Communist Party headquarters. I think he was a silly bastard in many ways, dogmatic, all those things.”
Ray Gietzelt, Arthur Gietzelt’s respected brother, acknowledged his CPA membership. Ray Gietzelt, as federal secretary of the Miscellaneous Workers Union, was a leading figure in the trade union movement from the 1950s to the ’80s. He did not hide his past and was admired for it.
The revelation that Arthur Gietzelt was suspected by ASIO of having extensive communist links would have been a national security scandal if revealed in 1983. It would have damaged the Hawke government, which would itself become embroiled in the Combe-Ivanov scandal during its first year.
Now, the truth is out. It cannot be denied by Gietzelt’s family or friends with credibility. The evidence is undeniable. It is time for Labor to recognise his treachery. Gietzelt was disloyal and deceitful to the party that gave him almost everything in his professional life. That betrayal is a bitter pill for Labor’s true believers to swallow.
