NEVILLE WRAN’S MEDIA ANTAGONISTS

NEVILLE WRAN’S MEDIA ANTAGONISTS

 THE ASSASSINATION OF NEVILLE WRAN by Milton Cockburn

 Connor Court, July 2024

ISBN:  9781923224148

RRP: $29.95 (pb)

Reviewed by Gerard Henderson

Milton Cockburn’s The Assassination of Neville Wran is an important book with an incomplete title.  Neville Wran (1926-2014) was a successful Labor premier of New South Wales from 1976 to 1986 – who died of natural causes.  He won elections in 1976, 1978, 1981 and 1984 – and retired from politics undefeated.  In short, he was one of Australia’s most successful politicians at the State level. A better title would have been “The Attempted Media Assassination of Neville Wran”.

The media’s attempted assassination of Neville Wran

In his book, Milton Cockburn – a former editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, who was an adviser to premier Neville Wran for four years – takes aim at a range of journalists, academics and some others who were or are involved in the public debate alleging that Wran and some of his ministers were corrupt.  Here’s a little list of Wran antagonists

Richard Ackland, Linton Besser, Frank Bongiorno, Bob Bottom, Clarrie Briese, Creighton Burns, Richard Cooke, Fia Cumming, David Hickie, Jonathan Holmes, Tony Jones, Bernard Keane, David Marr, Chris Masters, Kate McClymont, Caro Meldrum-Hanna, Andrew Rule, Margaret Simons, Rodney Tiffen, Brian Toohey, David Waterhouse and Evan Whitton.

There is no evidence that Neville Wran was corrupt. This is conceded by Rodney Tiffen, an emeritus professor of politics at the University of Sydney who is a Wran critic. Writing in the online journal Inside Story on 31 August 2021, Tiffen had this to say:

When we are trying to decide whether a political leader or a government is corrupt, we are faced by two opposite but equally important obstacles. One is the secrecy surrounding corrupt behaviour. The other is that false accusations and groundless rumours aren’t unusual, especially about successful politicians. Despite gossip to the contrary, no persuasive evidence exists to support the view that Wran was corrupt in the sense of seeking personal financial gain. Nor is there persuasive evidence that Wran directly or indirectly sought to advance any criminal interests, or had any direct or indirect relationships with such criminals. What is offered as evidence of Wran’s corruption can sometimes be laughable….

Certainly, Tiffen is critical of the way Wran handled allegations of corruption during his time as NSW premier. But he acknowledges that Wran was not corrupt.  Moreover, he concedes that Wran was the victim of gossip. Cockburn has much to say about this in his final chapter:

The anecdote [by a Wran critic] illustrates how, in Sydney, one fact – a newspaper report of Wran’s press secretary sitting next to [George] Freeman [on one day at a royal commission] becomes, over time, a mythology that Wran sat with Freeman [on all days]. It also illustrates one of the difficulties when examining allegations about Wran or any other prominent figure. Too often gossip passes for fact. This is exacerbated by journalists reporting gossip without any attempt at fact checking or corroboration. Examples of this journalistic laziness – journalistic malpractice is a more correct description – have been given throughout this book.

And, so they have. Two most prominent examples involve the ABC TV Four Corners program – another involves a three-part ABC TV documentary.

Enter the ABC via Four Corners & “Exposed” programs – Starring Chris Masters, Jonathan Holmes, Tony Jones & Caro Meldrum-Hanna

• On 30 April 1983, the ABC TV Four Corners aired a program titled “The Big League”. Four Corners ran the line that Wran had influenced a committal hearing by instructing chief stipendiary magistrate Murray Farquar that Kevin Humphries should not be committed for trial for misappropriating money from the Balmain Rugby League Club. Humphreys was president of the NSW Rugby League at the time. Magistrate Kevin Jones said that he had heard Farquar say: “The Premier’s contacted me; he wants Kevin Humphries discharged.”

Wran stood down as premier until he was cleared by a royal commission conducted by Sir Laurence Street, the chief justice of NSW. Street found that Farquhar had told Jones that Wran wanted Humphries discharged – but that Wran had not issued such a directive. In other words, Farquhar just made this up – he was subsequently jailed for interfering with the course of justice.

The Four Corners presenter Chris Masters has conceded to Cockburn that the program should have made the point that Farquhar may have used Wran’s name without Wran’s knowledge. Masters added: “I would say that Wran did not get a fair go and I am sorry that this is the case.” The Big League went to air in 1983 – Masters’ apology was made to Cockburn four decades later when Wran was dead for ten years.

However, Jonathan Holmes, who produced The Big League, defended the program – which included a reconstruction of what Farquhar was alleged to have told Kevin Jones about Wran. Holmes told Cockburn:

Our job was to describe the events that we had been told occurred …whether you relay that information via reconstructions, or in print, or in a reporter’s soliloquy, the information is the same and implicates Wran.

What Holmes is essentially saying is that Four Corners believed what it wanted to believe.  Masters acknowledged that the program should have made the point that Farquhar may have used Wran’s name without Wran’s knowledge. A glaring omission. But Holmes just said, without conceding fault, that Four Corners never contemplated the fact that Farquhar might have been a lying name-dropper. A serious omission, don’t you think? Especially when the (alleged) comment was conveyed by means of a televised reconstruction.

• On 10 November 1986, Horses for Courses went to air on Four Corners – the presenter was Tony Jones. The program focused on the proposal that a large hotel casino be constructed at Darling Harbour in Sydney. Tony Jones was later to claim that, among other things, the program was “a story about how illegal gambling, which flourished during a period when casinos were not allowed in Australia, actively led to corruption in the highest levels of government”.

The story reported that an employee at a casino – Valerie Murphy, who was interviewed on the program – alleged that while working in the casino she overheard a conversation between a businessman and another person. In the conversation, a senior NSW politician was named by the businessman as being paid a percentage of the casino’s profits to ensure protection for its operation in Sydney.

The program did not name Wran as the senior NSW politician. However, many viewers would have identified the reference to “a senior NSW politician” as being a reference to Wran. Researching this book, Cockburn discovered that the now deceased Valerie Murphy had given the name of the other person to NSW Police.

Cockburn traced the person who emphatically denied that any such discussion had taken place.  It turned out that Four Corners did not interview the second person.   Cockburn takes up the story:

Tony Jones did not respond to emails I sent him asking whether the program had corroborated Valerie Murphy’s claims with the other person. I also wanted to ask [Tony] Jones why the program considered Valerie Murphy, who is now dead and who had struggled with addiction and mental health issues, a reliable uncorroborated source. The Four Corners’ claim that the financial involvement of “a senior NSW politician” is hearsay and would be inadmissible in any court.  Indeed, it is hearsay which has been denied by one of the parties to the alleged conversation.

In short, there was no credible evidence to support the Four Corners’ story.

• In March 2021, ABC TV broadcast a three-part program titled Exposed: The Ghost Train Fire concerning a fire on the Ghost Train at Luna Park in Sydney on 9 June 1979 in which six children and one parent died. This is what Cockburn has to say about the program, which was presented by Caro Meldrum-Hanna:

The three-part program, broadcast in March 2021, cost $2 million, the most expensive single program by the ABC. Three journalists worked full-time on the program for 18 months and, according to the credits, more than 50 other staff were involved in various stages. A replica of the ghost train was built and burned to the ground for the sake of verisimilitude. 

The program drew a  number of conclusions: that the fire had been deliberately lit by a group of bikies; that the bikies were acting on the instructions of Sydney crime boss, Abe Saffron; that Saffron ordered the fire because he wanted to gain control of the harbour-site side for commercial development purposes; that the cause of the fire had been deliberately covered up by corrupt police; that Saffron eventually gained the lease for Luna Park through a Saffron-linked corporate vehicle; and that Neville Wran was instrumental in both delivering the lease to Saffron and in the cover up of the crime.

The ABC produced scant evidence for any of these conclusions.  It would later emerge that the program, with the knowledge of ABC editorial management, breached the corporation’s published Editorial Policies on the need for corroboration. The program was also accused of selectively editing interviews and of ignoring evidence which contradicted its conclusions.

Cockburn demolishes the allegations made by Exposed: The Ghost Train Fire. On the available evidence, the fire was probably caused by an electric fault or by someone disposing of a cigarette or match in nearby rubbish. But the program ran the conspiracy line that the fire was an act of arson. At one stage in the program, Meldrum-Hanna asked viewers: “Why would Neville Wran get involved in this [act of arson]?” But the program produced no evidence that Wran had any involvement in the fire – and did not establish that the fire was an act of arson.

In another case of journalists believing what they want to believe, the program claimed that Rosemary Opitz, a female consort of Abe Saffron, claimed that on occasions Neville Wran attended Friday night drinks at Saffron’s house in the company of others. Meldrum-Hanna and the Ghost Train Fire team accepted this claim without corroboration. As Cockburn comments, the idea that the high profile and politically astute Neville Wran would mix socially with Saffron – who was known as Mr Sin – is ridiculous. Moreover, if Wran did, it is unbelievable that no one would have said so before 2021 when the program went to air.

In spite of this, the legally trained Richard Ackland declared that there was “strong evidence that [the fire] was down to bikkies engaged by Saffron”. This is absolute tosh. In any event, most arson attacks take place at night – not on a Saturday evening in a crowded place. Moreover, there is no plausible evidence that Saffron had any interest in the future of Luna Park – which was, and remains, Crown Land – since there was scant prospect of it being developed.

After some public pressure, the ABC commissioned an external review of the program by Chris Masters and Rodney Tiffen – both critics of Wran. Despite praising aspects of The Ghost Train Fire, the report found that there was no solid evidence to support the program’s most serious claims with respect to Wran having been close to Saffron and involved in arson.

The artist Martin Sharp (1942 – 2013) is not mentioned in Cockburn’s book – presumably because Sharp never associated Wran with the Ghost Train fire. However, it’s worth nothing that Sharp was an influence on the ABC program.

Writing in ABC Backstory on 13 March 2021, Natasha Johnson said that the Exposed series producer Jaya Balendra had been told by a friend (Skye McCardle) that Sharp believed that the fire had been deliberately lit and had a large collection of material on the incident.

Balendra drew this to the attention of Caro Meldrum-Hanna. Balendra told Johnson:  “A lot of people had dismissed Martin Sharp as the eccentric conspiracy theorist, a crazy old artist; but he is the posthumous hero of this film; he was a great citizen journalist and he was definitely on the right track [about the fire].”

This is absolute tosh. The Ghost Train Fire team obtained access to Sharp’s material – but found nothing in it that would advance his conspiracy theory.  In her biography Martin Sharp: His Life and Times (Allen & Unwin, 2017), Joyce Morgan referred to her subject’s “elaborate conspiracy” about the fire.  According to Morgan, “Martin’s pursuit of the symbolic meaning of the fire led him into a dark labyrinth from which some believe he never recovered”.  Martin Sharp went so far as to liken the Luna Park fire to the biblical Temple of Moloch.  Enough said.

Enter Wran antagonists at Fairfax Media and elsewhere – starring Andrew Rule, Kate McClymont, Linton Besser and Richard Ackland

The various ABC TV programs had the most damaging effect on Neville Wran’s reputation. But they were but part of a campaign against Wran – which also found expression generally at the taxpayer funded broadcaster. As well as in what was until recently described as the Fairfax media – The Age, Sydney Morning Herald and The National Times (which was published from 1971 to 1986 and became The Times on Sunday until 1988).

However, one of Wran’s prime antagonists – with no significant links to either the ABC or what is now Nine’s newspaper – was and remains the Melbourne-based  Andrew Rule (who has written for various newspapers). As Cockburn documents, Rule even accused Wran of interfering in the course of justice by encouraging homicide detectives to cover up a murder. The imputation is made in Rule’s book Chance (Macmillan 2021). Cockburn comments that the allegation turns on “the uncorroborated claims of two men”.

It is not only the late Neville Wran who has been subjected to the most serious allegations when he was dead and unable to sue for defamation. The same is the case with some of his one-time political colleagues.

The Assassination of Neville Wran documents allegations of corruption made against Eric Bedford and Paul Landa by Kate McClymont and Linton Besser in their 2014 book He Who Must Be Obeid (Vintage Books, 2014). Both Bedford and Landa were members of the Wran government – and both were deceased when the McClymont/Besser book was published. Cockburn demolishes their claims. The publisher made a minor correction to one of the false claims with respect to Bedford. That’s all.

Wran had flaws – but was not corrupt

The Assassination of Neville Wran is not uncritical of Wran or his Labor government. The author acknowledges that Wran made serious errors concerning some appointments. Moreover, Wran inherited a police force which was in part corrupt – and retired from politics before it had been completely reformed.  But Wran was in no sense corrupt.

Cockburn also addresses the criticism – made by Andrew Rule and some others – that Wran’s considerable wealth at the time of his death was attained through corruption.

Cockburn established that when Wran left politics, his assets consisted of a large house in Woollahra and a generous parliamentary superannuation. His salary as a politician for some 15 years was not high compared with what he had earned as a barrister and he had gone through a divorce in 1975. Wran made his money in the decade after he left politics. Cockburn explains how – during his time working at Whitlam-Turnbull Co and then Turnbull Partners Ltd (that was bought out by Goldman Sachs in 1997). Cockburn writes:

[Malcolm] Turnbull refuses to make the claim himself but there is no doubt that it was Turnbull, later to enter federal politics and become Liberal prime minister (2015-2018), who made Wran a multimillionaire. Nick Whitlam’s contribution, over a shorter period, should also not be forgotten. If Andrew Rule wants an explanation of how Wran could accumulate “a property portfolio and other assets worth $40 million”, he need look no further than Malcolm Turnbull and Nick Whitlam for explanation. Wran’s 10-year business partnership with Turnbull gave Wran wealth and a financial security he had not had since his divorce in 1975. [In fact, Wran’s estate was around $25 million not $40 million.]

So, Wran earned big money after politics. And then there is the fact that Wran was tight with his money. Cockburn quotes Labor Party operative Jack Ferguson saying to fellow Labor Party operative Rodney Cavalier: “He [Wran] takes every penny a prisoner.”

The silence Of Wran’s critics about Milton Cockburn’s book

The point of The Assassination of Neville Wran is to document the reliance on gossip and the tendency of some journalists to believe what they want to believe. However, unlike those members of the media and academe whom he criticises, Cockburn supports his claims with evidence. He does not believe what he wants to believe. He is dismissive of hearsay evidence. He is wary of gossip. And he detests lazy journalism and he believes in the presumption of innocence.

Milton Cockburn is most critical of the treatment of Neville Wran by the ABC and what was then Fairfax Media – The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. At the time of finalising this review, both the ABC and The Age/Sydney Morning Herald had totally ignored Cockburn’s work. However, extracts were published in News Corp’s The Weekend Australian and Nine’s Australian Financial Review. I understand that no one criticised in the book has complained to the author or publisher.

The Assassination of Neville Wran provides yet another example of the fact that so many journalists who criticise others are very sensitive to criticism.

Gerard Henderson is a columnist for The Weekend Australian and the creator of the blog Media Watch Dog. His most recent book was Cardinal Pell, the Media Pile-on & Collective Guilt (Connor Court updated edition 2024)