John Bannon: man of pace and dedication

Former South Australian premier John Bannon, who has died aged 72, was a man of destiny, but also a victim of his times.

A happy SA Premier John Bannon trackside at the Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide, 08 Feb 1992.

On Saturday night, John Bannon and his wife Angela enjoyed a bonding ritual that South Australia’s former Labor premier had relished for decades.

Along with some of Bannon’s closest friends and partners, including his one-time attorney-general Chris Sumner, the small group sat down at one of their favourite restaurants in Adelaide.

Despite Bannon being obviously unwell, no one at the dinner knew it would be his last. But it was more than fitting that his final meal was a curry.

Lynn Arnold, who succeeded Bannon as premier in 1992, chuckles as he recalls the great days at fiery Sri Lankan curry house Ceylon Hut (now gone) in Bank Street near South Australia’s Parliament House — the meeting place, in its day, of Labor parliamentarians and powerbrokers.

“It was always a special event for colleagues in parliament to go out for a curry once a week, and even long before both he and I were in parliament, a few of us used to meet at the British Hotel in North Adelaide once a fortnight on a Friday night and after a few drinks we would always go to the Ceylon Hut for a curry,” Arnold tells The Australian.

“So for John, always, the curry was a very bonding experience.”

And Bannon loved to bond. A marathon-running fitness fanatic who appeared somewhat dull and introverted to outsiders, he was lively, witty and animated with his friends and family.

“For his family, he will always be cherished as a husband, a brother, a father, a grandfather and dear friend. We will miss his wise and witty stories, songs and poetry readings at family gatherings, especially at this time of year,” his family said yesterday.

While Bannon’s only daughter, Victoria, an international aid worker, was not at the curry house dinner, he was able to spend some valuable time with her in the weeks before his death in hospital on Sunday.

Victoria had spent many years working for the Red Cross, and was based for three years in Switzerland before moving on to places such as Pakistan, Myanmar, Nepal and the Marshall Islands.

But in a blessing for father and daughter, she returned to South Australia last month, taking up a position as general manager of the Migrant Resource Centre.

So while they were robbed of a final Christmas together, she was at least able to join the rest of the family at his bedside when he lost his long-running battle with cancer at the age of 72.

Victoria is the daughter of Bannon’s first wife, former Supreme Court judge Robyn Layton, who tells The Australian “we are all very close”. She too was at Bannon’s bedside when he died peacefully.

One of Bannon’s two stepsons, Dylan Lewis, who works at Nova, paid tribute yesterday to an “inspiring father figure”.

“My family is deeply saddened by the loss of John. My children will miss their wonderful Gaffa terribly,” Lewis said. “I learnt so much from him about integrity, honour, humour, modesty, wine and culture. He also taught me about the power of the mind, especially over the last few years when he refused to give up living despite his illness.

“I feel very blessed to have had him in my life.

“Thank you, John, for your wisdom and beautiful heart. I love you. I’m raising a glass of the finest scotch to you with my mum, you bloody great man.”

Arnold, who had known Bannon since 1969, was among close friends who took time yesterday to remember their final moments with the man who won three elections for the ALP, standing down after the State Bank collapse and leaving politics in 1993, before returning to university to study for a PhD in political history and later lecturing as a professor.

A year ago Arnold was ordained at a ceremony at St Peter’s Cathedral — as an Anglican priest he could now be solely responsible for Holy Communion. Last Sunday, a week before Bannon’s death, he was able to give communion to his good friend.

Arnold says Bannon lived his life in a way that few others did, running marathons annually until his diagnosis of colorectal cancer in 2007. But even cancer and the ensuing rounds of chemotherapy and surgery did not stop Bannon, who joined boards including Cricket Australia and the ABC.

“He ran his whole life like a marathon,” Arnold says. “He was running until the very end. As a marathon runner, he took the marathon spirit and put that stamina into everything he did. He put all of us to shame with the pace and the dedication he set in life.”

Indeed, Bannon’s last days were as busy as ever. He was in the record crowds for the first day-night Test match at Adelaide Oval and had given a presentation to the Prime Minister as an expert on federation. On Friday night he delivered an eloquent speech at the opening of an exhibition celebrating the work of his father, artist Charles Bannon.

Bannon was a scholarship student at Adelaide’s elite private school for boys, St Peter’s, where his father was an art master, and he grew up in a house in the grounds.

Bannon had experienced great traumas in his life. Aside from the State Bank disaster and his cancer diagnosis, he had lost his brother in 1959 when he was 16.

Nicholas Bannon, aged 10, became lost while bushwalking in Wilpena Pound, a natural amphitheatre of mountains in the heart of the rugged Flinders Ranges north of Adelaide.

Friends of John Bannon have said he always had a sense of destiny, its roots in the tragic death of Nicholas. It was an accident that was to destroy the family at the time, and that Bannon refused to discuss publicly in adulthood.

According to the South Australia Police Historical Society, Nicholas was a member of a party of eight, including his father Charles, mother Joyce and his three brothers. The party was returning to camp in two groups after having explored the pound. Nicholas disappeared while walking through a clearing — he was wearing only shorts and a light shirt, carrying nothing to eat or drink.

Within 30 minutes of his disappearance one of the most extensive searches made in Australia at the time was mounted, involving police, army and civilians. Billy Pepper, the black tracker, and Johnny Cadell, who both had roles in the film Robbery Under Arms, also joined the search. After seven days the search was called off, but volunteers vowed to never give up. Nicholas’s skeletal remains were found in September, 1961, on the heights of St Marys Peak, the highest in the Flinders Ranges.

Friends have said John Bannon took on the duty of achieving not just for himself but for his dead brother. An arts/law graduate, he had always aimed himself for politics. Don Hopgood, deputy premier under Bannon between 1985 and 1992, tells The Australian that South Australia’s longest serving Labor premier was “a very decent human being, a highly capable fellow”, but that he was “far too hard on himself”, including about the death of his younger brother.

“I think John in some ways blamed himself for the loss of the little brother in the Wilpena Pound and thought, ‘I could have looked after him better’, but really that was not the case at all,” Hopgood says.

“But it was one of the things that he carried with him throughout his life and framed him.”

Of the State Bank disaster, Bannon “full well knew that others were involved”, Arnold says, “but he also understood that as premier, the buck stopped with him”.

Hopgood says Bannon was in many ways a victim of the times, with recession causing significant problems for a state that was strongly reliant on manufacturing.

Towards the end of Labor’s third term bad lending decisions led to the collapse of the government-owned State Bank, with the South Australian government forced to provide a $3 billion bailout. As premier and treasurer, Bannon was cleared of any wrongdoing, but quit as leader and left the parliament at the 1993 election, which Labor lost in a landslide.

“I don’t know what else he could have done at those early ­stages,” Hopgood says.

But Bannon’s role in the financial disaster still divides the community today. Most com­mentators and public figures, keenly aware of never speaking ill of the dead, have been at pains since Sunday to urge that the former premier be remembered for more than the State Bank catastrophe that ended his career.

But if talkback radio is any guide, South Australians have long memories, with many listeners to radio FIVEaa yesterday criticising Bannon for the collapse of the bank in 1991.

Bannon had always accepted ultimate responsibility, never wavering from his position that as both premier and treasurer at the time the buck stopped with him.

His good friend Michael Jacobs, whose father presided over a royal commission into the catastrophe, says Bannon “absorbed all the blame, all the shame and humiliation, all the pain and anguish of this catastrophe which was the fault of others. He did not just absorb it. He drew it to himself. He copped the self-serving whining of weak-kneed people who asserted that he had been deaf to their timorously veiled warnings when their responsibility had been to shout those warnings loud and strong. He copped the lot, and he copped it sweet.”

Bannon had narrowly won the 1982 election by convincing voters Labor could be trusted with the state’s finances.

The state went on to win the contract to build the first fleet of navy submarines, cleared the way for the Roxby Downs uranium and copper mine, won the right to stage the Formula One Grand Prix and opened Adelaide’s first and only casino, converting part of the Adelaide railway station.

John Olsen, who served as opposition leader during much of Bannon’s time in office, said yesterday that Bannon had modernised Labor in South Australia.

Malcolm Turnbull says Bannon led South Australia through some of its toughest times and was loved and respected by all who worked with him.

Tony Abbott hails Bannon as a “fine servant of his party, his state and our country”.

“Our country needs people who are prepared to have a go and who are ready to look beyond short-term self-interest,” Abbott says. “John Bannon was most assuredly someone who was capable of lifting his horizons above the narrowly partisan while still being conscious of the tradition that had nurtured him. He will long be remembered far beyond South Australia which he served with distinction.”

Bill Shorten says Bannon was a magnificent leader.

Flinders University vice-chancellor Colin Stirling says Bannon made a great contribution to research and the Flinders University Library, and shared the wisdom of his experience and political life with many.

The university’s politics expert Dean Jaensch says Bannon was “absolutely widely respected” during his time in politics and will be remembered for his personal leadership qualities of “moderation, discussion, compromise and achievement”.

“Too many people will only remember the State Bank collapse but they should also remember his efforts in terms of the economic development of the state,” Jaensch says. “He played a major role in that … and it was a relatively optimistic time, partly due to the personality of the man.

“He was central in the Maralinga Lands land rights, in completing the O-Bahn and starting the Adelaide Convention Centre projects, and then remained active in public service and academic matters.”

Labor Premier Jay Weatherill said yesterday that Bannon’s family had accepted an offer of a state funeral, to be held at St Peter’s Cathedral on Monday.

Keeping the reins

Judging by history, holding office in South Australia is no easy feat.

John Bannon came to office in 1982 as the state’s 39th leader but left as, and remains, its second longest serving premier.

Spending nine years and 299 days in office, he also remains the longest serving Labor premier, narrowly ahead of Mike Rann and Don Dunstan.

With a record unlikely to be matched, Thomas Playford holds the title of South Australia’s longest serving premier.

Twenty-eight of South Australia’s other premiers served less than three years, and nine of those less than a year.

The shortest was Vaiben Louis Solomon, who spent just seven days in office in 1899.

Incumbent Premier Jay Weatherill has served for just over four years and is the state’s 10th longest serving leader.

South Australia’s longest serving premiers

Thomas Playford — 26 years, 125 days

John Bannon — Nine years, 299 days

Mike Rann — Nine years, 230 days

Don Dunstan — Nine years, 214 days

Richard Butler — Eight years, 210 days

Obituary: John Bannon. Former premier of South Australia. Born Bendigo, Victoria, May 7, 1943. Died Adelaide, December 13, aged 72.