It was a rare find for a biographer, to discover an eccentric entrepreneur, a man prepared to repeatedly spend millions standing up for the principles of fair play; one whose battles against the establishment inspired tens of thousands of Australians; a man who had become a part of political and business folklore.
I did not discover Gordon Barton’s story until perhaps nine months after his death. Like many Australians, my life was immeasurably and unexpectedly enriched by coming to know him. I came to this story with a background not in journalism (as is so often assumed), but in psychology and research methods. That background has helped not only in digging beneath the publicly known Barton, but in understanding the psychology which drove this complex man.
It quickly became apparent to me that Gordon Barton’s life had, in many quarters, gained mythical proportions. The passage of time and Australian’s love of a good yarn had often blurred the distinction between fact and fiction. To overcome this problem I have turned to letters, diaries and media created at the time or shortly after the events they describe.
Fortunately, Gordon Barton did generate substantial media coverage during the 1960s and 1970s, providing a wealth of verbatim material on which to draw. Where contemporary written accounts of particular events have not survived, I have relied on the first-hand accounts of others who were there. Wherever possible, these have been compared and corroborated with others. In the very rare cases when the details of particular events rely solely on hearsay, this is clearly flagged.
In uncovering the man behind the myth, I interviewed well over one hundred of Barton’s friends, colleagues, family members and former lovers, analysed thousands of pages of correspondence, both public and private, press interviews, ASIO files as well as audiovisual archives. Very few people were unwilling to share with me their experiences.
I found myself the custodian of a wealth of material, including extraordinarily intimate details of the man’s life. Faced with this plethora of both private and public adventures, the challenge and test lay in what to include and what to omit. There was simply not the space to include everything.
However, to engage you, the reader, in an honest account, I hope I have not flinched from laying bare the idiosyncrasies and weaknesses that made Gordon Barton human.
To me, the political scaremongering justifying Australia’s commitment to war in foreign nations is no less relevant today than it was 40 years ago when Gordon Barton stood up for commonsense and truth against Australia’s role in Vietnam. In that sense alone, Gordon Barton’s battle against US imperialism, through the Australia Party, deserves recording.
But this is by no means solely a political biography. It is a story of one man’s struggle with philosophy, desire, success and power. It is a story of love, of family, of wild adventures and enduring friendships.
When he departed Australia in June 1979, not even Gordon Barton realised that he would never permanently return. Frustrated by a nation that stymied innovation, he would refocus his energies on even greater challenges. Fifty years in Australia saw Gordon create a vision for his country, along with a massive business empire and huge personal wealth. This story shows how in the 1980s Gordon lost his self-control and with it his businesses and fortune. In the 1990s, these losses were painfully escalated as he found himself without his hearing and with his life partner no longer by his side.
Gordon Barton’s life, ideas, struggles and achievements are worthy of examination and understanding, for they illuminate not only the failings of those who govern us, but the vision of those who can see further ahead than most and have the ability to act on that vision.