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The Shooting of Arthur Caldwell

If someone hadn’t tried to kill him, it would be fair comment to say that the name of Arthur Caldwell wouldn’t be all that familiar with a lot of our younger readers. But someone did try to kill Mr Caldwell, who was at the time the leader of the federal Opposition. And it was the first time in our history that such an outrage had taken place. The closest similar incident could hardly be described as political, being the attempted assassin-ation of Queen Victoria’s second son, Prince Alfred, at a picnic at Sydney’s Clontarf Beach in 1868.

And so, almost 100 years later on the chilly evening of Tuesday, 21 June 1966, a crowd of 800 of the Labor faithful squeezed into the Mosman Town Hall on Sydney’s north shore and rose as one to applaud Mr Caldwell as he ambled down the aisle, stopping to shake hands and kiss the ladies as is the age-old tradition of such rallies.

And they weren’t disappointed. Arthur Caldwell was a much-loved leader and a wonderful orator who, at 70, had risen from the working-class environment of Melbourne’s industrial suburbs to become one of the most honest and respected men ever in the Labor movement. Mr Caldwell had been the Minister for Immigration from 1945 to 1949 and was the mastermind behind Australia’s key postwar immigration policy.

Now, as the leader of the federal Labor Opposition, and with the despised Liberal Prime Minister Bob Menzies out of the way due to his retirement five months earlier, Arthur Caldwell could see an opportunity to seize his ambitions at the next election and become Australian prime minister of a Labor government. And the tough old campaigner was doing it the only way he knew how – by going to the people and shaking their hands and kissing them on the cheeks and talking to them as he was doing that night in Mosman. And they loved him for it.

Earlier that day a man with equal ambition, but far less work ethic, was planning on killing someone of importance so he would be remembered throughout history. He was not a terrorist or fanatical Liberal supporter. In fact, he knew little of politics and even less of the man who was on the front pages of the papers and seemed very important, and who was giving a public talk that evening.

In fact, nineteen-year-old Peter Kocan, an inconspicuous, fair-haired, bespectacled loner, didn’t really care who he killed that night – as long as it got him on the front pages. He wanted to become just as famous as the person he had murdered. In his twisted mind, Kocan thought that then, after he was famous, people would look at his poetry and prose in a different light. It would be fair comment to say that Peter Kocan was a couple of pies short of a party pack.

During that day Peter Kocan cleaned his .22 rifle. He had cut down the butt and sawn off the barrel, so it wasn’t much bigger than a handgun and would fit comfortably into his belt and wouldn’t be seen. Soon he would be as famous as Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who killed President Kennedy in Dallas. He could hardly wait.

In his long overcoat to keep out the evening chill, Peter Kocan looked just like any other spectator as he waited out the front of the Mosman Town Hall for the speech to finish and for Mr Caldwell to come out to his car and be driven away. Security wasn’t a problem – there simply wasn’t any. No security guards or police and no minders anywhere in sight.

Peter Kocan hoped he would recognise his target as, having never actually seen Mr Caldwell in person, he was only familiar with his face from the newspapers and the posters in the local shop windows advertising the rally. But it was a face not easily forgotten. Craggy and weather-beaten from his years in the political trenches and with a huge nose and lantern jaw, Arthur Caldwell wouldn’t be mistaken. His antagonists had likened him to a parrot and given him the nickname of Cockie.

The prolonged applause and cheering told Kocan that the time was near. After much hand-shaking and embracing as he made his way down the aisle, Arthur Caldwell eventually emerged at the front door accompanied by Senator Doug McLelland. Mr Caldwell paused several times and it was obvious by his elation that he could see himself as the first Labor prime minister in 17 years. But not if Peter Kocan had anything to do with it.

As Mr Caldwell brushed by so close that he could have touched him, Peter Kocan reached under his coat for the gun but in an instant the Labor leader was completely surrounded by supporters and a shot was impossible. As Mr Caldwell was ushered into the front seat of his waiting car and closed the door, the opportunity to murder him presented itself. Peter Kocan aimed at Mr Caldwell’s head through the glass and fired a shot at point- blank range.

‘Oh. I’ve been shot,’ Mr Caldwell cried as blood sprayed all over what was left of the shattered window and he slumped into his chauffeur’s lap. But it would take more than a bullet to kill Labor’s old warhorse. Miraculously, the low-velocity projectile fired through the thick glass had missed the vital parts and lodged itself in the famous chin that had been the source of much mirth for cartoonists for donkey’s years. Now the chin would be even more popular.

Peter Kocan dropped his gun and fled but was run down and captured a short distance away. Mr Caldwell was admitted to the North Shore Hospital and treated for superficial wounds to the face. The people of Australia woke the following morning to the news of the attempted assassination of the leader of the federal Labor Opposition. They chanted as one: ‘Who on earth would want to kill Arthur Caldwell?’

Peter Kocan was deemed by psychiatrists to be mentally disturbed but not insane and at his trial he was sentenced to life imprisonment – unlike his fellow assassin of 98 years earlier, Henry James O’Farrell, who was tried and hanged within two weeks of attempting to murder Prince Alfred. Mr Caldwell was present at Kocan’s trial and made it clear that he bore no malice, and consoled Peter Kocan’s broken-hearted mother outside the court.

During the ten years he spent in the Morriset maximum security mental facility and in prison, Peter Kocan expressed deep remorse for what he had done and wrote a book of poetry and two novels, all of which were published. Arthur Caldwell narrowly missed winning the 1969 federal election and died in Melbourne in 1973.