CHAPTER NINETEEN
MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES

Some people act as a kind of lubricant or some sort of catalyst.That’s the role I fit . . . I don’t give up . . . I’m very reluctant to give up with anything. With a person. A partner—or with anything.

Gordon Barton

Back in December 1975, IPEC had advertised its embattled IPEC AIR service was now available ‘between every capital, major provincial city and large town in Australia’, to cater for extra-urgent consignments. Given the continuing inflexibility of the government’s two-airline policy, IPEC was in reality using Ansett and TAA’s scheduled flights to provide the service.

The marketing assured customers that ‘the same day your freight is picked up it is on its way interstate by jet aircraft’. IPEC senior executive Bob Bass laughs as he recalls the brazen lies IPEC got away with. Often its priority airfreight was not carried by air at all, given IPEC express trucks offered the same delivery times between adjoining states. ‘Airfreight’ would be instead carried by trucks in specially designed ‘belly boxes’. These sat under the body of each express vehicle. On arrival at the destination depot, these boxes were unpacked first and whisked off in priority delivery vans. Customers were none the wiser and their perceptions of airfreight being speedier were met.

In February 1977, following a renewed approach to the government, IPEC was finally given the go-ahead to import two heavy-freight Argosy aircraft to provide its own cargo service. The aircraft would be allowed to fly just one route—from Melbourne to Tasmania across Bass Strait. The company took out a full-page ad in The Age to celebrate.

Virtually a semi-trailer with boom wings, the Argosies were one of a few small propeller-jet aircraft designed specifically for short haul freight. With powerful Rolls Royce Dart turbo engines, the planes’ tube-like fuselages had huge doors at either end allowing easy push-off loading and unloading. This offered an advantage over conventional aircraft which, even when gutted for freight, could still be only side-loaded.

The Argosies could hold 14 tonnes of freight—over a tonne more than their competitors. Oddly, they had not been a commercial success— only seventeen of the civilian versions were ever built, although a military version was ordered by the Royal Air Force and used from 1961 as freight carriers, troop transports and as a parachute platform until their retirement in 1975.

In response to IPEC being granted an import licence, Sir Reginald Ansett quickly initiated a High Court injunction in an attempt to reverse the ruling. Ansett Airways knew this strategy could hold up the issuing of a licence for a year at least.

Barton’s lateral thinking now came to the fore. There was in fact one Argosy airfreighter already in Australia. The eighteen-year-old aircraft had been in retirement for well over a year. It had even been removed from the air register. If it were to be used, it would need to be stripped, checked and rebuilt. Undeterred, Barton authorised IPEC to shell out half a million dollars on this alternative, commencing a worldwide search for the spares and essential parts it would need.

Engineering staff and air crews were recruited. Engineering workshops and components storage facilities were constructed—another half a million dollars. A long freight transfer truck with flat tray tops and rollers was specially designed and built. The innovations would allow an incredible load-unload turnaround time of just 30 minutes and four round trips across Bass Strait each night.

This first plane was renamed Spirit of Enterprise in recognition of the banned freighter that had sat defiantly on the Gatwick tarmac fourteen years before. In December the High Court dismissed Ansett’s protest. The delay had not held up IPEC AIR’s new service. Barton was determined it would take its first load by the following February.

Six hundred VIPs, clients, media and company staff were invited to the launch of IPEC AIR’s first freighter aircraft. It would be on an auspicious day: Australia Day 1978. The theme: the early age of flight. Party-goers would receive yellow and black IPEC flying scarves. Marketing manager Grahame Bunyan had even hired a few dozen vintage leather flying helmets from a private collector. A plane was chartered to ferry interstate guests to the event in the new hangar at Essendon airport.

Launches were Mary Ellen’s forte and her stylish ideas had been increasingly influencing Barton. She had used the creative producer and lighting designer, Roger Foley, also known as Ellis D Fogg, for some of her own fashion shows. His productions and their special effects were renowned for their technical wizardry and visual panache.

Guests were guided into the party by flashing strobe lights and laser beams, projectors that seemed to light up half the airport. Inside was a champagne fountain and a sumptuous Windsor Hotel gourmet buffet, complete with thousands of prawns set off by grand sculptures of ice. Onto a giant screen were projected colour stills and film of the rejuvenated Argosy in flight. This was no boring bunch of transport executives. One young woman wore Lurex, another a sexy black rubber top. There was even someone in a clown suit. Mary Ellen was hard to miss in jodhpurs tucked into gold leather boots. Even her black velvet jacket was trimmed with gold leather.

Suddenly the attention of the assembled guests was drawn to the sound of a brass band outside playing ‘Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines’. As they rushed out of the hangar, drinks in hand, a vintage Tiger Moth painted in IPEC yellow and black taxied toward them—so close, you could see the IPEC parcels lashed to the wing struts. It shuddered to a halt. Gordon Barton in helmet, flying goggles and scarf leapt from the cockpit. With his tanned face and white trousers tucked into high aviator boots, he was the fighter who had never given up—his lost brother Basil and heroic aviator Francis James, all in one.

The following night, the extraordinary event was replicated for 300 guests at Launceston. It was not the first special event Mary Ellen had organised for Barton. She provided both a madcap energy and level of organisation that he lacked. Friends recall on more than one occasion being loading into the dark interior of an IPEC truck before being driven across Sydney to a surprise dining location.

Barton had met fashion designer Gretel Pinniger in her Madam Lash persona at the 1974 Melbourne Cup. Impossible to miss, Gretel had arrived at the Cup in a World War I Red Baron outfit. Onto the tight, red leather was stitched the figure of Venus emerging from the waves. On the spot Barton had asked Gretel to dinner at Vaucluse the following Monday. Assuming it was Lash who was being invited, she duly appeared at Barton’s front door wearing black lipstick, thigh-high silver boots and black leather pasties over her breasts. However, it was the housekeeper Frances Knight who met her at the door. Worse, Barton’s children, Geoffrey and Cindie, joined them for dinner.

Barton and Gretel had become firm friends, each advertising for playmates in Nation Review’s risqué ‘D-Notices’ personals columns. In 1978 Gretel was invited for dinner, this time with her German husband Dieter, to Mary Ellen’s Elizabeth Bay apartment. Transvestite librarian John Cummings, Barton’s childhood playmate who had only recently reconnected with Barton after 30 years, had also received a message. He was to make excuses to his wife and present at the same address in a French maid’s outfit. On her arrival, Cynthia—as Mary Ellen came to refer to Cummings—was instructed in her duties. She would welcome guests and serve the elaborate dinner.

Gretel and her husband were ushered to a harbour-fronting balcony where Mary Ellen stood alone, sipping vintage champagne. Barton was nowhere to be seen. The drinks flowed and hours passed. As night descended, Mary Ellen shook a little bell to summon Cynthia with the first course. Still there was no sign of Barton. Second course—roast beef—was carved at the table. After the guests had been served, Mary Ellen pointed to a large cedar blanket chest in the corner of the dining room. A tablecloth was draped over it with a lit candelabra on top.

‘Open that chest and feed what’s in it!’ she commanded Cynthia.

The Ipec Holdings chairman emerged in a Bo Derek wig, corset, stockings, suspenders and high heels. His hands were bound behind his back, and Cynthia had to manhandle him from the chest. Shortly after he was led into the kitchen, where there was an ugly symphony of crashing crockery. Cool as ice, Mary Ellen confessed, ‘Ingrid gets very excited when she’s fed her weekly meal’.

In August 1977 Tjuringa’s money tree had begun to drop its leaves. DAC, along with other consumer finance companies in New South Wales, was finally being exposed for its loan shark practices. Over half of DAC assets—just under $30 million—had been lent to IPEC. Accountant Bob Miller admits, ‘it caused everybody a lot of sleepless nights . . . A lot of mums and dads had debentures . . . supposedly secured and it was effectively being lent unsecured to the IPEC group . . . it was secured with some pretty bodgie securities.’

Syd Einfeld, New South Wales Minister for Consumer Affairs, decided his government needed to get tough. The whole consumer finance sector would be reviewed.

The issue was a delicate one. If the press turned it into a bad-news story, it would frighten off the industry investors DAC and its competitors so badly needed, threatening the company with financial collapse. Even Premier Neville Wran knew that in such a situation there would be no winners. Now, in April 1978, police issued a summons against DAC alleging mismanagement and excessive interest rates on consumer loans. The business was asked to explain why it should not lose its lender’s licence.

The pressure was such that DAC agreed to dismantle its door-to-door lending in return for keeping its licence. Over 200 staff and 60,000 accounts had to be closed as DAC switched to a more modest shop-front structure offering personal loans. Premier Wran introduced new legislation to make ripping-off Struggle Street increasingly difficult. To the press, Greg Farrell and DAC Managing Director Rod Maclure put on a brave face, arguing door-to-door collections had become uneconomical and inefficient anyway. Maclure had, like Farrell and John Konstas, taken his Commerce degree part time, working his way through university. A country boy, he had risen to the role of managing director through hard work and persistence. He had proven to be very successful at raising money from the public via debentures. He was one executive who would later play a pivotal role in steering the complex Ipec Holdings group of companies clear of disaster.

In March 1976 the federal government released the results of an inquiry that would inspire Barton to add sea freight to IPEC’s road and air services. The Nimmo Report had identified an alarming rise in the cost of sea freight between Tasmania and the Australian mainland over the previous three years. The market gap was clear—neither of the two Tasmanian shipping lines provided either a door-to-door or an overnight freight service. Container shipping was taking three days from departure to destination. Worse, operators were failing to keep to regular schedules. Industrial disputes with the unions had often exacerbated delays. Long waits by IPEC trucks for delayed ships had led to high rates of pilfering. Neither shipping company took any liability for theft.

To reduce sea transport costs, the report recommended the introduction of a heavy freight vessel capable of sailing the round trip between the Victorian coast and Tasmania within 24 hours. To be cost-effective, new manning and stevedoring practices would be needed.

This was just the sort of challenge Barton liked. Was it possible? Such a vessel would need not only a speed of over 20 knots but rapid loading and unloading times.

Barton moved quickly, commissioning Ken Thomas to begin serious investigation of the idea’s potential. He engaged a naval architect to prepare a feasibility study. In February 1977 the preliminary findings were positive. Plans for purpose-built port terminals were drafted to allow the highly automated vessel to be docked in twelve minutes using hydraulic machinery rather than wharfies. Another team was engaged to conduct an environmental impact study for the construction of new port facilities.

To be successful, freight prices would need to be comparable with existing rates and much less than air. The industry norm was for crews to include a cook and multiple deckhands, all required to do just an hour or so of work en route. As they were relieved every four hours, two crews were required on the nine-hour voyage. The key would be to minimise the number of crew required.

Barton’s naval architect soon came up a vessel capable of an extraordinary 22 knots and, most revolutionary, a crew of just four—a master, two mates and an engineer. The solution sidestepped the Seamen’s Union as well as the Stewards and Cooks Union. The proposed service was christened Tiger Line.

With a total break from existing shipping methods, calculations showed it could deliver at less than a third the cost of airfreight. A prototype model was soon constructed and displayed in IPEC’s offices. So optimistic was Barton, he placed an order for the sophisticated turbine engines required. He also committed to spending over 125,000 Dutch guilders testing a model vessel in the famous Netherlands Ship Model Basin. It was the same facility Alan Bond would use in 1983 to test his famous winged keel before fitting it to Australia II for the America’s Cup.

The next step required stakeholder buy-in. By March 1977 Barton began some serious lobbying of government, calling on Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser and his Minister for Transport, Peter Nixon, from whom he obtained in-principle support. Barton and Ken Thomas also paid a visit to the premiers of Tasmania and Victoria. Both leaders were interested.

The Seamen’s Union and the Waterside Workers Federation were furious. Demonstrations in both Victoria and Tasmania ensued. At one protest, over 30 seamen picketed the IPEC offices, waving placards about job losses. Fearing a cutback in other shipping services, one union screamed that 340 jobs could be lost.

The long-serving Fred Gardiner, by then a senior executive with IPEC Transport, recalls accompanying Barton to the powerful Seamen’s Union to explain why its members would not be required on vessels. Barton confidently presented his concept to the union boss on how the four-man crew would work. He was describing how an anchor windlass on the foredeck would be operated from controls in the wheelhouse when the union boss protested that there was no allowance for a crew member to pull up the anchor and coil ropes. The union boss argued this was vital—particularly should the weather get rough and the vessel be forced to take refuge in the lee of islands en route.

No, no, Barton countered. In such a situation, the anchor would be cut loose and left. Losing an anchor or two a year was still far cheaper than a year’s wages for an extra deckhand. The Seamen’s Union official’s face began to darken, Gardiner recalls. It was clear that, if there was rope on a vessel, a seaman needed to be assigned to care for it. The union boss saw another omission. ‘You’ll have to have a cook for the captain.’

‘No, no, no, we’ll have a microwave oven.’ Barton described the pre-prepared meals to be provided.

‘Well, about the wharf—you’ll have to have men to throw the ropes.’

‘No, no, no, we’re going to magnetise the wharf . . .’ Barton patiently explained.

Freddie Gardiner recalls it was about this stage that the union boss exploded, jumping from his chair in a fury and literally shoving Gardiner and Barton out the door and down the steep staircase.

Undeterred, Barton had his team adjust the design so there was not a single piece of rope aboard the planned vessels. Instead, an advanced docking system recently developed overseas would be used. It comprised a purpose-built dock which was magnetised. As the ship eased into the dock, magnetic forces brought it snugly to rest, rather than having to handle coils of messy rope. Tenders for construction were called for from ship-builders in Holland and Australia.

Barton had approached a London financier (far cheaper, given the high interest rates in Australia at the time) for the massive loan required. However, given Tiger Line would be in competition with a government shipping line, the lender had concerns. If Barton could convince the Tasmanian government to guarantee half the $30 million loan, the London bankers would be happy. This required legislation to be passed, but by April 1978 this had been done. Tasmania’s $15 million guarantee was looking possible and its local media announced the new line appeared ‘certain to be in operation by June next year’.

While the vessels could be built overseas faster and more cheaply, Barton discovered that an Australian contract was not only politically wise but would ensure Tiger Line was eligible for several million dollars of federal financial incentives. However, construction tenders would need to be called by 30 June and the ships built within a year.

Barton continued lobbying the prime minister and the premiers of three states. In a letter to Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser on 4 May, he raised some areas where ‘assistance’ would be useful. There was the delicate matter of operating the new vessels without the use of Seamen’s Union members—a radical departure from tradition, but one that Barton hoped might attract ‘some sympathetic support from your Government administratively and politically’.

Meanwhile, the Victorian government had also been asked to guarantee an $8 million loan for the project. It was unwilling to make a decision until the Tasmanian government committed.

On 6 June Barton wrote to the acting Tasmanian premier to downplay the impact of union opposition. In fact, the major maritime unions had whipped their members into a frenzy—threatening to oppose the re-endorsement of any Labor member who supported the line.

Barton was forced to go into sales mode, and Mary Ellen stepped in to schedule a raft of radio, print and television interviews for her partner. With the issue the hottest topic in Tasmania for a long time, Barton was kept busy arguing the benefits—increased employment, increased mainland trade, faster and safer transit of goods—of his proposal.

On 29 June the Tasmanian Cabinet bowed to pressure from the trade unions, its own highly conservative Department of Transport and from some parliamentarians anxious not to upset vocal constituents. It would not be guaranteeing Barton’s loan.

Publicly, Barton vowed he would go to New South Wales premier Neville Wran for backing instead, but it was a lost cause. Having missed the deadline for tax rebates, it would be financial lunacy to have the ships built in New South Wales shipyards. The opportunity to reduce Tasmania’s trade barriers had been killed by those it would most benefit. Instead Tasmanians were faced with an expanded IPEC AIR service, at six times the cost of the proposed fast sea link. In the year to follow, IPEC would even commission a poll of Tasmanians—77 per cent supported the proposed sea service. But in the face of obstinate unions terrified of change, it was all in vain.

As July 1978 drew to a close, exasperated at the obstacles, Gordon Barton needed a holiday. Mary Ellen also was ready for a change. She took extended leave from Estee Lauder. Barton, Mary Ellen and their respective children disappeared to Europe for three months. This European break would renew a dream that would take Barton, his family and the entire IPEC Group in a whole new direction.