Chapter 26

That question sat in the background for the next few months. I dutifully transcribed and forwarded on the analysis of tapes left for me. I started to earn the colonel’s trust again and he left me pretty much alone. What he did with what I sent him didn’t really matter as I discovered that he never listened to the tapes anymore. Somehow Donaldson or someone of his ilk managed to drop the tapes off, marked for my eyes only. The only problem I could have come up against was if Donaldson had listened to the tapes and then discussed the contents with Atkinson. I could then be in a whole lot of trouble. To avoid that added complication I stayed pretty close to script on the more important recorded conversations.

I started to play around with the extraneous noise that I had blocked out to hear the conversation. The magical machine in front of me with all its sliders and knobs and recording mechanisms had allowed me to exclude such noise. Now I began to exclude the conversations and record the background noise. There were all sorts of things there that I played with by adjusting speed and tone as I went. Yes, I was bored and I wanted to look busy lest Atkinson think that he could dispense with me or send me off on another assignment. However, my ear began to pick up certain familiar patterns that occurred on some tapes. Firstly, there was a particular door that had a slight squeak to it. Anyone entering the room went from floorboards to carpet. The same door made different sounds as it closed and the footfalls went from carpet to floorboards. By going back over past tapes I was able to catalogue when the same room was used and even who was using it.

By the same process I was able to discover that some recording was done in the politician’s dining room. Not always at the same table because the occasional noise heard from the kitchen changed in modulation. That was an eye opener. Somehow a recording device or transmitting device was placed at a certain table or near the table ostensibly trying to hear the conversations of targeted politicians and their dining companions. Some politicians such as Gough Whitlam had very recognisable voices and he was a dining room victim. It was hardly legal this covert bugging, but in Gough Whitlam’s case there was nothing relevant that was recorded and the tape and transcription was filed away with NAR on it.

I wondered whether I could wander around Parliament House with a tape recorder and just record noises. That would probably be a bit suspicious, I figured. I would have to work with the mixer and the tapes I had at my disposal. I began to make up a grid which matched voices and rooms. That proved quite interesting in itself. The Opposition and the Government members didn’t have much to do with each other except in the dining room. There was a great deal of acrimony in the beginning of the 1970’s. The Government thought that they were born to rule and indeed had done so since December 1949. They seemed to treat their opposition colleagues with disdain based on some of the comments I had transcribed and even in Hansard, the record of parliamentary debates. I was able to mark in colour which political party was involved in the conversations that had been recorded. They fell on party lines in all but a couple of cases so after a while I gave up that colour coding. I tried other ways of analysing the information. I had previously sat through a few Senate and House of Rep sessions and was able to pinpoint most voices. It was amazing how most politicians were so much different from each other. The public probably thought that it was a cacophony of blah, blah blah but the lengthy pauses of Malcolm Fraser, the slight stutter of Billy McMahon, John Gorton’s nasal twang, Billy Snedden’s pompous private school tones and the quietly spoken passionate voice of Phil Lynch were easy to pick.

Armed with this new knowledge I found that the army was concentrating on off the record conversations between the major players in the Government and a few key members of the Opposition including Whitlam, Barnard, Cairns, Crean and Murphy. I would have thought that these people would have been very circumspect about what they said and to whom but probably didn’t think the ‘walls had ears’. Did the JIO have anything to do with the security of Parliament House? What better way to conceal a listening device than by having someone come in to check for hidden microphones, leave one and give the all clear to those present. At least I knew where to look for Donaldson who probably went under an alias when he worked in the building on the other side of the lake.

I was suddenly paged to the front office at the JIO and there was one quite irate ASIO gentleman there to see me. He started in on me as soon as he saw my face. I said politely and calmly that the conversation was being recorded. His eyes quickly scanned the room for cameras and microphones and he immediately shut his mouth. Personally, I wasn’t sure if we did monitor the reception area, but anything to put this bloke on the back foot. I grabbed his elbow and escorted him out the front door.

“Stuffy in here. Feel like a walk? Perhaps a jog, but you’re not dressed for that today, are you?” I asked sweetly. He merely grunted as we headed down towards the lake. We sat on a bench and looked across at Parliament House.

“The politicians would have us believe that all the action takes place over there, but in reality, it happens everywhere but there. They do nothing.” I paused awaiting some remark that never came. “You got my message, did you?”

“That bloody tape!” he began angrily but then calmed down. “I made the mistake of playing it in front of my boss when he finally asked to hear the original. He knew the contents but wanted to go back over a few things. I thought you said that it was intact!”

“I never said anything of the sort. We sent it back and when we last spoke all I asked was a thank you for making sure it was returned.” He didn’t like my matter of fact answer.

“Yeah. Thanks bloody much. Was it you who put Porky Pig’s ‘Th-th-th-tha-tha-tha-that's all, folks!’ on the end? Smart arse! My boss wasn’t amused.”

“Unfortunate series of events and for that I am sorry. I needed to get your attention and now you being here proves it worked. Now go back and play the tape again and listen after Porky has finished speaking. Turn the treble way down and the bass up and play it at half speed. There’s a message for you. Now as my boss is watching us from his window behind us. I am going to stand up and tell you to ‘Fuck off!’ I need you to stay seated until after I’ve gone back inside and then shrug your shoulders and walk off. Don’t ask why, just listen to that tape. Now FUCK OFF!”

I left him there and went back inside. Whether he did anything about what I said was up to him. I didn’t look back to see if had moved, but strode into the JIO building and took the lift up to my office. I wasn’t surprised to see Atkinson waiting in there but I gave the appearance I was.

“That was that ASIO bloke who asked you about the tape, wasn’t it? Atkinson began without any ceremony. “What did he want?”

“He wanted me, sir. I thought what I did here wasn’t to be discussed by anyone but somehow he knows. Is there a leak? He asked about the recordings we have of politicians. He knew I transcribed them. How? Worst of all, he asked if I had ever wanted to join ASIO. He was sure I could be useful over there. I told him to ….”

“Yes, I saw and I can lip read those words like everyone else. Well done. I’ll have a word with someone over there I think,” he concluded.

“That’s fine by me sir, but perhaps that might just draw more attention to me and what I do.”

“For someone so young, you’ve got the smarts about you. I’ll think about it. Nothing like his father,” he mused as he left the office.

I hoped the smarts were the Maxwell Smart variety but his cryptic comment about my father had me intrigued. I stood looking out of the window for a while before heading down to the sound lounge. The ASIO officer would get a surprise if he did play his tape as I described. Just a few words could be made out. “Why are we listening to them? They do nothing.”