Phillip Adams (16 page)

‘Okay. Will you come here tomorrow at nine-thirty?'

‘See you then.'

That was always the extent of the call. The next day, as arranged, I pressed the security intercom on the front door of his office in Paddington, Sydney.

‘Yes?' said a voice.

‘It's Philip Luker.'

‘Come in, Philip.'

He welcomed me warmly and remarked that, as we were both wearing black shirts, ‘People won't be able to tell us apart at the book launch.' Adams went into the small, dark kitchen next to his large office and living room. He made each of us a cup of tea, two teabags each. The phone rang. It was his executive producer at
Late Night Live
. They discussed the interviews Adams would conduct that night. I set up my tape recorder on his desk and prepared to ask him for anecdotes about the dozens of politicians and other personalities he has known.

***

‘Bob Hawke is Australia's Bill Clinton,' Adams told me. ‘He's enormously affable, feeling the electors' pain and shedding the occasional ritualistic tear, but without much substance. Bob relishes the idea of becoming a welcome conciliator in a devastating dispute and used this tactic many times to settle strikes when he was ACTU ­president. It created a rush of affection for him.

‘But it's amazing how little Bob is considered these days. He's almost written out of the narrative.' For such a popular prime minister, Hawke does not have the gravitas within the party or the public of another former PM, Gough Whitlam.

‘I much preferred Bob's former wife, Hazel,' said Adams. ‘We set up the Children's Television Foundation to make children's TV. Hazel loved that kind of thing. We all expected she would have a long twilight with or without Bob, but it was not to be. It's immensely sad.' He was referring not only to Hazel's divorce from Bob, who had for many years conducted an affair with the writer Blanche d'Alpuget, but also to the fact that that in 2003 Hazel made public the fact that she has Alzheimer's Disease.

***

I asked Adams what his anecdotes were about other federal and state politicians. ‘The thing about Nick Greiner (premier of New South Wales from 1988 to 1992) ‘is that he set up ICAC' (the Independent Commission Against Corruption) ‘and if the same principles were applied nationally, it would be hard to find an Australian political figure who would not be removed from office.'

ICAC returned to haunt Greiner when it ruled that his executive job offer to Independent MP Terry Metherell was corrupt. Four independent MPs decided not to support the government and Greiner resigned, although he was later cleared of corruption.

Adams continued, warming to the theme of political anecdotes: ‘You know, on the day Nick lost office, no-one came to see him or shake his hand, which shows what a dreadfully tough business politics is — other people can fail quietly, but not politicians.'

‘What about Joh Bjelke-Petersen?' (the notorious National Party premier of Queensland from 1968 to 1987).

Adams said that after most premiers decided to have a film corporation like South Australia's, Bjelke-Petersen gave the job of running his to his aide-de-camp and heavy hitter.

‘I'd never met the man,' Adams said, ‘but one day two federal police called to see me and ask me questions about gifts they said I'd received from this head of the Queensland film body. So I said, “What gifts?” and they read out a list of gifts like gold watches. I said I'd never seen these gifts and that I wouldn't have accepted them anyway. Turns out the film boss had been buying the gifts for himself and recording them as gifts for me.' Adams said with a laugh. ‘He was relieved of his gold timekeeper before doing time himself.'

Adams met Joh several times and although he loathed everything the premier did in Queensland, Phillip nevertheless found him delightful, charming and amusing. ‘It's annoying meeting people you want to hate and not being able to hate them,' Phillip said. He told me the story of a film producer who went to see Joh to ask whether the Queensland Government would help him make a film in that state. “What's in it for me?” Joh asked him. The producer went through his sales pitch again while he pondered the question and Joh again asked, “What's in it for me?” The producer left without offering the premier the bribe he sought. Joh's government started to fall apart after ABC Television exposed rampant police corruption in Queensland in a
Four Corners
program. Joh died in 2005.

‘While you loathe people like him being around,' Adams told me, ‘you miss them when they've gone.'

***

I asked him about Bob Brown, the openly gay leader of the Australian Greens. Phillip said Bob is one politician with ‘total integrity, although as a party the Greens sometimes drive me nuts. People don't realise that Bob started green politics in Australia and what he did with the Franklin River in Tasmania was the first time any green group had really organised themselves politically.' Brown led Australia's biggest conservation battle, in 1982, to save the wild Franklin from being dammed for hydroelectricity.

Adams continued, ‘Bob showed that environmental activism could have political expression through a party. He's still there. At a Sydney Town Hall meeting on illegal migrants, he got a standing ovation before his speech. In his strange, amateurish way, he showed he was a person of total integrity. I have great respect and affection for him.'

***

What about Carmen Lawrence, the West Australian Labor premier from 1990 to '93? Adams said, ‘She's terrific on social justice issues. She should have been a prime minister.'

While a nasty hiccup destroyed Lawrence's political career — a Royal Commission found that she had misled the State Parliament concerning her knowledge of and role in the tabling of a petition — her media presence remains: Phillip often gets her on
Late Night Live
.

‘One night I had three women on the program,' Adams said, ‘Carmen and two British Labor MPs who had voted against Tony Blair backing George Bush's invasion of Iraq. I found that all three of them were lapsed Catholics. I wouldn't mind joining the Catholic Church briefly so I could become a lapsed Catholic myself.

‘It's all too easy to denigrate politicians. People globally have poor regard for MPs. There are good people in all parties.'

***

Then I asked him about Joan Kirner, the Labor premier of Victoria from 1990 to '92.

‘I once spent an hour with her at a public meeting in Melbourne,' he said, ‘and I admired the way she used various strategies to handle people who came up to speak to her. I learned from her tactics, because I have similar problems with people who recognise me. I never know whether they'll punch me or pat me on the back. I find aggression — but preferably without a punch or a knife — easier to handle than affection.'

***

Joan Kirner was ousted by the Liberals under Jeff Kennett, who was premier of Victoria until 1999.

‘Jeff was somewhat toxic,' said Adams, ‘but you had to be gobsmacked by his audacity. He closed local councils, ran a Reagan and Thatcher-style privatisation campaign and transformed Melbourne, which had been slowly dying. Like Keating, Kennett used power while he had it. But he terrified people.'

***

Next came Neville Wran, the New South Wales premier from 1976 to '86.

‘The first time I met Neville was when I arrived in Kerry Packer's office to talk about film finance and there was Neville, looking embarrassed, being a Labor premier, to be seen with the personification of rampant capitalism.

‘Neville was doing a deal with Kerry to sell the state lotteries jointly to him, Rupert Murdoch and the British racehorse owner Robert Sangster. I was horrified about it and after Neville left, I told Kerry, “This is terrible, the worst kind of privatisation. You don't need money from lotteries.” Kerry said he wanted to see whether Neville could deliver.'

Adams concluded that Nifty, as Wran was called, was building himself a media buffer zone by selling the lotteries to two media magnates, Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch.

Another time, Neville Wran, Kerry Packer and Adams had dinner together. ‘Neville is a great raconteur,' said Adams. ‘When he's telling a story, he walks around the room; it's a show. When he left, Kerry said, “I'm worried about Neville. He's got no money.” I replied, “You mean he's got no money like you've got money.” Kerry said, “He's got no fucking money.” I was pleased to hear that rumours about Neville accumulating money were untrue.'

Neville Wran once told Adams, ‘What you've got to look out for is politicians who go to the races a lot and bet heavily.' He told Adams about shysters and lobbyists who came to his office, high up in a city building, to offer him money and he said to them, ‘I'm going to chuck you out the fucking window!' Once, when Neville's wife, Jill Hickson, organised a celebration of Neville's successful term as premier, each of his ministers was required to do a turn.'

***

‘Bob Carr, who was Neville's minister for planning and the environment, chose to do a song and dance act.

‘It was not a pretty sight,' Adams told me. ‘Like me, he lacks physical co-ordination. When he was made leader of the NSW Labor Party' (in 1988) ‘he came to my studio at 2UE very depressed. He didn't want to be premier; he wanted to be federal foreign affairs minister, because that was his passion, along with American history and politics. He is very intelligent and interesting but I always thought he was a disappointment as New South Wales premier.' Carr reigned from 1995 to 2005.

‘Towards the end of his political career,' Adams continued, ‘I asked to see him to record five minutes on George W Bush's imminent visit to Australia. Two hours later I'd taped enough for two programs and Bob showed no sign of stopping. What amazed me was that at no time did the phone ring or his chief of staff come in. I suddenly realised that a modern premier is front of house and does photo ops and public occasions, and ten-second grabs for the 6 p.m. news. The real work is done elsewhere. Bob was passionate about the environment and opened a lot of national parks but didn't really get on top of the central issues that would plague New South Wales for years to come.'

***

Adams said the most impressive social reformer of all Australian premiers was Don Dunstan, who openly declared himself gay but only towards the end of his career as South Australian premier from 1967 to '68 and 1970 to '79. At Adelaide University he met his first wife Gretel and they married in 1949, four years before he won the Norwood seat he held for the next 26 years. In the late 1960s, he was still energetically heterosexual and in 1974, as premier, he had an affair with one of his staff, a Malaysian, Adele Koh. Gretel and he were divorced and he married Adele two years later after she told him she was pregnant. By that time he was sexually ambiguous and after she died of cancer in 1978, he read in her diary that she had not been pregnant. The next year, he announced his sudden resignation as premier. (Apparently the media attended his home for this televised announcement which he made at home in his pyjamas after collapsing and sleeping for 40 hours.) In 1986, he met Stephen Cheng, they became partners and in 1994 jointly opened a restaurant, Don's Table. Don died of cancer, aged 72, in 1999.

Adams called Don ‘the Pierre Trudeau of Australia' although more consequential. Trudeau redefined Canada as its prime minister in the 1970s and '80s. Don Dunstan recognised Aboriginal land rights, decriminalised homosexuality, appointed the state's first female judge, relaxed censorship and drinking laws, overhauled the upper house of parliament, lowered the voting age to 18 and encouraged the arts. With Phillip's help, he established the South Australian Film Commission (see Chapter Four) and nationally he helped abolish the White Australia Policy. Adams told how he was invited to the tenth anniversary of Don's death in February 2009. Everyone who could find one wore a Dunstan-style safari suit. The Premier, Mike Rann, announced the formation of the Australian Centre for Social Innovation, with Phillip as chairman.

***

Mike Rann, who was Don Dunstan's press secretary and speech writer, did the same jobs for Don's successors as premier, Des Corcoran and John Bannon, and was elected premier himself in 2002. His Labor Party won again in March 2010, although it lost two seats. Phillip said, ‘Mike energetically pursues Don's commitment to social change and justice and likes people to realise this.' Al Gore, the former US vice-president and the world's best-known environmental activist, named the South Australian Government as the one doing the world's best job on climate change. South Australia has little manufacturing industry, an ageing population and is at the dry end of the Murray River.

***

Adams praised Rupert Hamer (Victorian Liberal premier from 1972 to '81) because, like Don Dunstan and Mike Rann, he was good on cultural issues. Adams told me, ‘When Rupert attended the launch of the Melbourne Film Festival, he got a standing ovation from the largely left-wing audience. Another time, after I convened the Friends of The Age to try to keep
The Age
independent, Rupert phoned me to say he would hold a judicial inquiry into
The Age's
independence — the Norris Inquiry' (see Chapter Seventeen).