CHAPTER TEN
THE PETER PAN OF POLITICS

. . . if you’re fighting governments, you certainly can’t expect to win any of the time. But what I’ve always believed, whether you win or lose, it’s still worth fighting.

Gordon Barton, 1970

John Gorton had replaced Harold Holt as prime minister by 1968. On 2 February, faced with over 8000 Australians in Vietnam and a din of protests at home, he announced that no more Australian troops would be sent to Vietnam. It was a hollow promise, given the government initiated increasingly severe methods of enforcing conscription. It would be nearly two years before Gorton actually started to speak of withdrawing troops from Vietnam.

Meanwhile at Tjuringa, investment in full-time staff was cautious. It had been July 1968 before a secretary was employed. Two weeks before Christmas, young activist Fergus McPherson started work. For the tasks required, Barton knew young staff would be needed—they tended to tolerate frustration better, to be more flexible in the face of change.

The twenty-year-old Fergus had efficiently managed his father Douglas’s Liberal Reform 1966 bid for the federal seat of Robertson on the Central Coast of New South Wales, and his talent for hard work had not gone unnoticed. The young man had been involved in social justice issues even before Barton’s famous letter and had organised his own anti-Vietnam pamphlet drop in his local community. It was the sort of initiative that appealed to Barton.

Barton had realised the Reformers needed a campaign coordinator if their messages were to be effectively disseminated. Barton convinced Fergus to take on the role. Young though he was, Fergus began halftime looking after Tjuringa’s affairs and the remainder as the ARM secretary, press officer and organiser. Bev Dyke joined him months later to provide secretarial support. They would be the first of dozens of staff over the coming years to give Gordon Barton a messiah’s devotion. The equally young Richard Whitington, son of legendary journalist Don Whitington, was soon employed as the movement’s publicist.

Bev and Fergus quickly became the engine room of Australian Reform. For years they both worked tirelessly in the creation of this new political party. Fergus would prove to be a political animal. He and Bev were given free rein to coordinate the movement’s support base, communications and events nationally. With member groups in country towns and cities across the nation, it was a mammoth task.

Barton trusted Fergus implicitly to issue press releases reflecting the movement’s beliefs. In the months before an election, Fergus and Bev would spend hours crafting press releases then, without a telex machine, they would run up to the New South Wales Parliament press gallery to tell journalists about the story and why it was an issue.

Party financier Tamp Lynam admits Fergus became the defacto chair of the movement’s meetings because Barton had too much else on his plate. He was ‘very well organised, hard working, focused on the job’.

The movement was unique in involving members in policy formulation. They were free to suggest policies and if the suggestions were recognised as of potential interest they would be developed into options and circulated in the Reform magazine to be voted on by post. At least a quarter of financial members needed to vote in favour of a policy option before it was adopted.

At one ARM New South Wales convention, national service and defence policy was being debated. By now it was very rare for Gordon Barton to attend the group’s policy meetings. He was instead content to inject the lion’s share of funds to keep the organisation going. But to everyone’s surprise, he came along to this convention.

Views were aired about whether ARM’s defence policy should be non-aligned, support the American alliance, be neutral, or adopt the Fortress Australia model. After some debate, Barton had stood up. For ARM stalwart and policy adviser Don Benjamin, memories of Barton’s words that day have remained vivid nearly four decades on.

Barton pointed to a staggering amount being spent on armaments globally—some $159 billion, or 7 per cent of humankind’s entire goods and services output. ‘This amount would sustain 1000 million people for one year at the standard of living of the undeveloped world. A total of 50 million people were employed in the armed services or in militarily connected industries in 1967,’ he said. ‘Australia is uniquely placed in an area where there’s no foreign policy or defence confrontation . . . Indonesia . . . aren’t particularly strong on defence . . . they haven’t been doing any sabre-rattling.

‘So we could in fact use domino theory in reverse. We could say to Indonesia for example, “We’re going to completely disarm in Australia, so you have no threat from us and would you like to follow suit?”

‘And then your neighbours could say, “We’re not going to waste money on Defence” and then their neighbour might say, “Okay, I’ve got no threat. We can save money by not spending on Defence”.’

Benjamin recalls the meeting went suddenly quiet because no-one had put the concept of disarmament spreading like dominoes so eloquently before. While Barton’s radical concept did not win majority support, it did bring a new idea to the table.

Australians’ fear of Asian invasion had been encouraged by groups having an interest in doing so ever since the nineteenth century. Barton would, many years later and with the benefit of hindsight, admit it was ‘extraordinarily ambitious to try to change these attitudes over the course of a few years’.

Shann Turnbull identified Federal Hotels as a potential acquisition early in 1969. The public company owned a significant number of top-end commercial real estate, including some of the nation’s best-known heritage hotels: Lennons in Brisbane; Hampton Court in Sydney; the Savoy Plaza, the Menzies and the Federal Hotel in Melbourne; Hotel Australia in Adelaide; and Wrest Point Hotel in Hobart. The critical drawcard, however, lay in the results of a state referendum just weeks earlier. Tasmanians had narrowly voted to allow their state to award the nation’s first casino license. Federal Hotels had that licence and a commitment to construct a casino. Federal’s share price was undervalued. By gaining control and selling off many of its valuable hotel properties, significant gains looked possible for Tjuringa.

Fortuitously, Shann Turnbull’s connections identified that Federal’s majority shareholder—the Sullivan family—were interested in selling. Tjuringa rapidly bought about 20 per cent of the company. By May 1969 its leverage was sufficient for Greg Farrell and Neil Ohlsson to gain directorships. Farrell was elected chairman, and a few months later a third lieutenant—Kevin Curtin—was voted onto the board.

The hotel group had the year before offloaded Melbourne’s historic 1867 Menzies Hotel, on the corner of Melbourne’s Bourke and William streets. Despite this sale and another in Toowoomba, Federal still required significant capital for its Hobart casino construction.

For Tjuringa, one of the attractions of the Federal Group lay in escalating property values. Land was worth more than the buildings on it. In the early 1970s, no-one gave much thought to heritage conservation. So Tjuringa developed a game plan to engineer full control of the company. Federal had around 14.5 million ordinary shares. It was announced that another 7.25 million new shares would be issued (underwritten of course by Peter Wolfe’s firm). Prospective purchasers needed to pay only 10 per cent of the share price, though were informed that if directors requested they would have to come up with the full amount. Just as Tjuringa had planned, the perceived risk of a call-up meant there was little demand for the new shares.

Instead IPEC was able to buy most of the new issue. On top of its initial 20 per cent, this additional 33 per cent shareholding meant IPEC now controlled over 50 per cent of Federal, having paid only a fraction of the shares’ true value. It would be only sixteen months before Tjuringa muscled forward to buy the remainder of Federal Hotels.

Deals such as this meant the grand Menzies was merely the first in a long line of beautiful nineteenth-century hotels and theatres destined for the wrecker’s ball. Sydney would soon lose the Savoy Cinema. In Brisbane, Federal would sacrifice the famous Lennons Hotel for $4.5 million, while in Melbourne its eponymous Federal Hotel would also be stripped and demolished. High-rise office blocks were raised in their craters, while the Barton and Farrell-controlled group would concentrate on cash-generating city taverns and vast suburban hotels with lounges, bars, entertainment, meeting rooms and motel-style accommodation popular with the middle classes.

There was another federal election approaching in October 1969, but based on its past performance, Barton’s Australian Reform Movement again stood little chance of making an impact unless it grew into a national political party. What ARM lacked was a parliamentary leader. Four months before the election it found one.

Senator Spot Turnbull had frequently stood alone in criticising the government’s involvement in Vietnam. He shared similar policy stances to ARM on social services, taxation and education. Turnbull’s son Shann was already active in ARM in Sydney as well as being one of Barton’s Tjuringa advisers.

Barton and other Reformists began to meet secretly with Turnbull from May 1969 to discuss forming a federal political party. In July, many in the movement were taken unawares when the proposed union with Spot Turnbull was announced. While enough members voted in favour, many felt it was a rushed marriage of convenience.

Senator Turnbull was keen on naming the new entity the Australia Party. Again, despite much opposition, members could not agree on a better one, so the name change was narrowly passed. The movement had not only its first political representation, but a new name to mark its wider ambition. It planned to field 30 candidates at the upcoming October federal election.

In early 1969 Vonnie’s condition had worsened. One operation followed another. In April she went from an operation directly into intensive care. At that time it was most unusual for a spouse to stay overnight in an Australian hospital, but Barton did, keeping a vigil beside his wife, helping her to the bathroom late at night.

For Barton these months were particularly harrowing, particularly given his increasing public responsibilities. While another trip to Europe was discussed, all knew Vonnie was dying. She was operated on again in May. During one hospital visit she contracted pneumonia. Vonnie wanted to be at home, so oxygen and round-the-clock nursing were arranged.

By the winter of 1969, Vonnie’s coordination was failing. Simple tasks—lifting a cup to her mouth—became impossible as her brain refused to send the correct signals. It was awful to watch as she tried again and again, determined not to give in. And although her legs stopped responding to her desire to walk, Vonnie refused to use a wheelchair. So her father would stand behind her, placing his feet under her feet, his arms under her arms, and together they would walk. Vonnie could not see his tears.

There were quite long periods when Liberal Reform supporter and friend John Crew and others recall Vonnie lying weak but very stoic in bed at home. Crew remembers her being very worried about Barton’s future when she had gone because he could be ‘a bit of a wild character’. She was well aware that her husband liked to mix in some very strange circles. To her, these were ‘people you wouldn’t trust further than you could throw them’. Vonnie apparently told Barton he should stick instead to good, decent people such as those who had come forward to support the Liberal Reform cause.

On 20 July 1969 the newly named Australia Party launched itself on the nation. Party executive John Fisher recalls being interviewed on Channel Nine’s Today show by the morning host, Diana Ward. A Fulbright scholar, Diana had, like Barton, been a Young Liberal. After a scholarship to Columbia University, a cadetship in radio and a brief period working for the BBC and Granada Television, she had returned to Australia to host the nation’s first breakfast current affairs program. The young brunette was pretty, intelligent and immensely popular with the public. Breakfast news shows were a new format to Australians, though the program would soon be pulled as too serious-minded for a morning audience. John Fisher admits it was an awful day to launch the party because everybody was looking to space. It was the day Neil Armstrong landed on the moon.

Two weeks later—4 August—Vonnie’s brother Peter recalls looking out over the gum trees to Middle Harbour below. He and his wife, his parents and Barton were in the Castle Cove home. Vonnie was in her room dying. When a nursing sister emerged from the bedroom to say Vonnie had gone, Peter’s mother Daphne let out a terrible cry. Cindie was just five, Geoffrey not even two.

Vonnie had told Barton she would haunt him if he gave her a religious send-off. So instead of a minister, Barton asked the humanist Unitarian Victor James—a hero of two wars, now a well-known pacifist and eloquent critic of Australia’s Vietnam involvement—to officiate. Perhaps to keep his pious mother-in-law happy, Barton did arrange with the Presbyterians to use their historic Scots Church Assembly Hall in Sydney’s city centre.

Over 500 people—social workers, transport moguls, truck drivers, business leaders, anti-Vietnam activists and politicians—filled the hall and spilled out onto Margaret Street. Instead of psalms there was poetry. Instead of the gospel there were quotes from Bertrand Russell and George Bernard Shaw.

Amongst friends there were conflicting views regarding how Barton coped with his loss. The moment that sticks in Freddie Gardiner’s memory 38 years later occurred as he and fellow mourners emerged from the crematorium. Barton appeared not particularly upset, though he had never been one to show emotion. As the crowd milled around uncomfortably, Barton disappeared into his car, and with his trademark ‘Hooroo, see you later!’ sped off.

‘It was cold-blooded’, Gardiner recalls. To observers who did not understand Barton’s reserve, the widower came across as totally lacking compassion. Barton had never been one for small talk, so there was no wake to attend.

On the other hand, when Barton and his young children stayed at architect Peter Muller’s country property soon after, Muller recalls ‘very clearly how lost and devastated he was . . . He’d just stand with his back to the fireplace and look completely disorientated. It was a very bad time for him.’

After the funeral, Barton took the children to Hayman Island and thought about the future. In good health and with no financial worries, he had his parents, business partners, colleagues as well as many good friends and thousands of political supporters. He realised he was lucky compared to some.

It was Vonnie’s parents Ray and Daphne who needed his support. His daughter’s death had devastated Ray. Daphne’s mental health was delicate. She had suffered depression and at least one nervous breakdown. Barton could not toss them out. So they stayed on at Castle Cove to care for the children and Barton went back to work.

By mid-September Senator Spot Turnbull had become disillusioned. On 17 September he wrote to Barton complaining that there was no way of fielding 30 Australia Party candidates with just $15,000 in the budget. He was concerned with the choice of new candidates, given ‘so many of them lack personality’, were inexperienced and did not have their own campaign funds. He was unhappy with recent advertising targeting the intelligentsia rather than grassroots voters. He was unhappy with the clunky policy approval process, and with the removal of national service requirements from the party’s defence policy. Australia Party health policy conflicted with his own recommendations. Even each issue of the party’s Reform magazine ‘contains some snide reference to me’.

‘You do not realise’, he wrote to Barton, ‘that politically a party that fails does not attract supporters’. The bottom line for Turnbull was whether more help and finance could be sourced. Otherwise, he recommended, ‘let’s pull out now and save all mental and physical stresses’.

Ultimately the Australia Party’s performance was disastrous. It picked up an average of under 3 per cent in contested seats. Only two candidates polled over 5 per cent.

Spot Turnbull was chagrined. He complained that months of effort had seen him forfeit his normal income. Barton immediately wrote out a generous cheque, but his gesture backfired. Money could not repair a wounded ego. Turnbull felt insulted.

Alienated by internal criticism and dissent regarding how he had been brought in, Turnbull walked out in January 1970. Muttering about hypocrisy and pseudo-intellectualism, he retreated to his independent status, though it was two months later before he announced his split from the Australia Party to the press. ‘To the many hundreds who joined the Australia Party because of my participation, I wish to sincerely apologise for deserting them . . . I am not a party man, perhaps I should not have joined the Australia Party. I want my independence . . .’

The party desperately needed some catalyst to revive its popularity.

In May 1970, demonstrations were staged in every state capital to protest against Australia’s continued involvement in Vietnam. In September a second Vietnam moratorium campaign climaxed with enormous rallies in all capital cities. This time there were violent clashes between police and demonstrators. Prime Minister Gorton had to act. In November, Australian troop numbers were reduced when a returning battalion was not replaced, although it would be another fifteen months before Australia’s pullout was complete.

The Australia Party was in financial difficulties. No longer was Barton prepared to fund a full-time national secretary, let alone the rent on the Willoughby office. The office was closed and Mary McNish, forced to find another daytime job, now ran the administrative arm at night with the help of little more than an answering machine.

While Vietnam subsided as a political issue, Gordon Barton remained contemptuous of the federal government’s economics policies. He began to focus on exposing inefficient economic management. One aspect that frustrated him (and which Tjuringa leveraged) was Australia’s wealth of underutilised assets. He would point out that Japan had stimulated electronics and shipbuilding, industries that gave a high return on assets, whereas Australia sustained grossly unviable industries such as dairying.

Following an exceptional result by journalist Alan Fitzgerald in a May 1970 ACT by-election, the Australia Party was inspired to keep recruiting good candidates for the November 1970 Senate elections. The party became perhaps the first in the country to attract candidates who were already well-known in the Australian media. One Melbourne candidate—Ted Hamilton—had been a star on the police show Division Four, and a member of a rock-and-roll band that had appeared on programs such as Brian Henderson’s Bandstand. However, in New South Wales it was Diana Ward who became the party’s star recruit.

Barton had met Diana Ward when she interviewed him on her morning show. Ward became besotted and the pair began dating. The relationship strengthened and she spent more and more time with Barton at Castle Cove. Ultimately Barton suggested that Diana might run for the Australia Party in the upcoming Senate election. Already a supporter of the party’s anti-Vietnam policies, Ward needed little persuasion.

The next four years were to be the party’s most successful. Recruiting the likes of Diana Ward was a stroke of genius. In the next Senate election, she shared the party’s Senate ticket with Barton, and quiz champion George Black. In his black horn-rimmed glasses, Black had tested his knowledge against the likes of the brilliant Barry Jones before moving on to assist Bob Dyer on TV quiz show Pick-a-Box.

The New South Wales senate team won over 5 per cent of the vote, more than doubling its performance of three years earlier. Diana Ward came close to winning a seat. The party’s support was growing. It was encouraged enough to field candidates in the February 1971 New South Wales state election. This time it achieved over 8 per cent of votes in seats contested.