After 50 years so much has changed — and so have I

Graham Richardson will be granted life membership of NSW labor later this month.

When I became an organiser of the NSW branch of the Australian Labor Party in December 1971, I never dreamt of the kind of world I would face today.

I joined the party in January 1967 and five decades on, modern campaigners face a vastly different electoral challenge. Fifty years ago, there was no ­internet and ­mobile phones were still almost two decades away, and when they came they were heavy, cumbersome bricks with an ­extremely limited range. I doubt that anybody could have predicted then that mobile phones would take pictures, store data and cook your breakfast.

Computers were in their ­infancy and the first time their ­importance was brought home to me was in the early 1980s when I joined the Senate.

Senator Peter Baume was an extremely clever Liberal who never rose to the heights he ­deserved because he was never compliant or obedient when he saw an important principle at stake. He would not be bound and his occasional forays off the reservation cost him promotion. It also robbed his party of the input of a truly great mind.

Sadly, I ignored Baume’s advice and I am writing this column by hand. My wife, Amanda, will type it and email it to The Australian. Such simple tasks are way beyond the ken of an old troglodyte like myself.

Just above a photograph of Sam Dastyari in an article in Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph yesterday were these words: “We live in an era where elections can be won or lost on memes. So much so that the Liberal Party’s election review specifically identified memes as a … weakness.”

I spent seven years as the general secretary of the party in NSW and I ran some very successful election campaigns. This article brutally demonstrated to me my complete inadequacy in modern campaigns. I did not even know what a meme was.

Paul Keating (L) and Graham Richardson in 1990.

Life membership of the party will be ­bestowed on me at the NSW state conference on Sunday, July 30.

I have resisted this honour for the past decade because when Paul Keating made his speech on receiving his life membership, he warned the then Labor leader Kim Beazley to stay well away from me. I had always ­intended to return serve when my time came but the new general secretary of the party, Kaila Murnain, has convinced me to ­refrain from a response of that kind.

Actually, I had already pretty well decided against that course of action ­anyway.

Keating and I fell out more than 20 years ago and Paul knows how to let you know just exactly how he feels about you. When I was seated at the Tom Uren memorial at the Sydney Town Hall the great man came up to me and shook my hand. If Paul could do that then I could not in good conscience give him a spray.

Graham Richardson (L) talks with Prime Minister Bob Hawke. Picture: Colin Murty.

Politics does bring with it a ­capacity to break up close relationships. When Keating defeated Bob Hawke in a close caucus ballot, I went straight back to my office while too many of my co-assassins wallowed in tears at the outcome. Shortly thereafter Paul came straight to my office. During his campaign for the leadership he and I had been incredibly close. Sadly, such friendships can become dysfunctional overnight and never recover.

For the years from 1979 to 1993, the big debates at state conference always came down to the speeches of two men: John Faulkner and myself. Faulkner was a brilliant conference orator and after he spoke I would follow. The pattern and the format never changed. When I had finished, the question would be put. I always won and others can judge whether it was my persuasive eloquence or simply having at least 60 per cent of the numbers at every conference that did the trick.

The internal party dynamics have massively altered as well. As a union official, my father was about as anti-communist as you could imagine. Naturally, I followed in the footsteps of a man who had a profound influence on me. In those days, the steering committee was the leading left body. It was then well known, and since proved beyond doubt, that the likes of Arthur Gietzelt and Bruce Childs were dual ticket holders, and that gave me a righteous edge to the internal fight.

Trade unionist John Ducker.

My mentor was John Ducker — and if anyone can properly research him and produce a study of how an ­unimposing Yorkshire ironworker could accumulate such enormous power, they will be doing us all a very big favour.

Among the many valuable lessons he taught me, there is one that really stands out. In those days of the late 70s, Labor required mayors and aldermen to use only workers who were members of the Municipal Employees Union. When Botany Council sacked its garbos, I called the mayor and his fellow aldermen in for a chat with Ducker and myself. After the mayor, who painted bus shelters for a living, informed me that he regarded himself as the chairman of the board of a big ­conglomerate, I lost it. I gave this bloke a two-minute character reference and I felt good about it.

When the council members had left, Ducker turned on me. He berated me for losing my temper. His wisdom shone through. He told me that temper was a real weapon. If you only lost your temper on very rare occasions, people would know you were serious and would be wary. If you lost your temper as I had just done, even­tually no one took you seriously.

Only 4 more sleeps until our interview with @60Mins. This Sunday 7.30pm on Channel 9 pic.twitter.com/C2GUUtyLKG

— Graham Richardson (@SkyNewsRicho) July 19, 2017

Needless to say, without John Ducker and the Labor Party, I would not be where I am today.

At the risk of seeming too self-absorbed, I would invite readers to watch 60 Minutes on Sunday night. Charles Wooley spent a week with me a short time ago to capture the realities, good and bad, of having four organs removed. You can still have a life — even if it is not as good as it once was.