THE ABC AND OTHERS VERSUS NEVILLE WRAN – MILTON COCKBURN

Neville Wran is the most electorally successful Labor premier in NSW history. In 13 years leading the Labor Party in Australia’s largest state, Wran did not lose an election or lose a seat at a by-election. Wran’s political influence extended beyond NSW. Despite this record, journalists now commonly describe the Wran Government as a “byword for corruption” and “riddled with corruption”. An ABC TV Four Corners documentary alleged Wran had a friendly relationship with prominent crime figure Abe Saffron; had covered up Saffron’s involvement in the Luna Park fire. In his new book The Assassination of Neville Wran, Milton Cockburn debunks the conspiracy theories re Wran – forensically and with the support of evidence previously unreported. On Wednesday 31 July 2024, Milton Cockburn addressed The Sydney Institute to discuss the baseless denigration of Neville Wran

THE ABC AND OTHERS VERSUS NEVILLE WRAN

MILTON COCKBURN

Last year, while I was still working on this book, a marvellous wake was held for one of my old friends, Robert Milliken. We met in the early 1980s at the old Fairfax newspaper company and the wake was something of a reunion of Fairfax old-timers.

During the afternoon, I spoke to a woman who, when I was a novice journalist, was regarded as a journalistic goddess. When I told her what I was working on, in response to her question, she told me: “I’ve got a Neville Wran story.” She then proceeded to tell me a mildly scandalous story about Wran. Her source it turned out, her sole source, was the granddaughter of a neighbour, who was a waitress at a restaurant. I was taken back, not by her story, but by the fact that this venerable journalist, trained in the days when multiple sources were mandatory, now regarded a young waitress as a reliable, uncorroborated source.

On another occasion, when a non-journalist friend asked me the same question, and I told him, replied: “Are you going to cover his bisexuality?” I can assure you that certainly caused belly laughs among former Wran staffers and his friends when I relayed the conversation to them.

Both incidents illustrate a difficulty which confronts anyone who is writing about a public figure in Sydney. As I write in the book: “Sydney, more than any other Australian city, floats on malicious rumours and unsubstantiated gossip. Scandalmongering is a currency for many.” Too often gossip passes for fact in this city. This is something all journalists should have drummed into them early in their careers.

Very few public works projects begin or are completed without an allegation of someone “copping a quid”, usually emanating from unsuccessful bidders or project opponents. Family members, unhappy with their financial lot, hurl accusations against other family members and their associates.

Neville Wran is not the only public figure to fall victim to this Sydney disease, but he is certainly one of the most prominent. And in the first chapter of my book, I list several unsubstantiated pieces of gossip about Wran – all easily disproved – even though these are not the substantive content of this book. All have been published, without corroboration, after Wran’s death.

Wran spoke of this phenomenon after his complete exoneration by a royal commission of an allegation that he had perverted the course of justice. He said: “After the findings of the Street Royal Commission, we were all entitled to believe that the tactic of smear and innuendo, of guilt by association, of rumours without substance would stop. But every time some fabrication is completely disposed of, another allegation is fabricated…The very frequency of allegations, their repetition and regurgitation, no matter how many times they are proved to be false, becomes proof that something is wrong”.

My favourite fabrication is a supposed lunch-time meeting between Wran and crime boss Abe Saffron at a popular restaurant – a restaurant which did not come into existence until five years after this meeting allegedly took place. Of course, such gossip can only be published because of the law that the dead can be defamed but the relatives of the dead have no legal recourse against such defamation.

In this book, I also address the various events which are cited as “evidence” that Wran was personally corrupt and had run a corrupt administration. These are not just the more recent ones, such as the now thoroughly discredited ABC Luna Park fire documentary in March 2021 and the laughable claims by former chief magistrate Clarrie Briese in his book published in 2021.

I have also gone back to Wran’s time in government and objectively and forensically examined, in separate chapters, various incidents and events of that time which are claimed to cast a shadow over his reputation.

These include:

• Wran’s reluctance to tackle corruption in the NSW Police Force and his promotion of a senior policeman, Bill Allen, later found to be corrupt.
• His long friendship, beginning in the 1940s at Sydney University Law School, with controversial bookmaker Bill Waterhouse.
• The extension of the term of chief magistrate Murray Farquhar, later found to have been corrupt, leading to the Street Royal Commission.
• An allegation of political patronage arising out of the so-called “Age tapes”.
• Wran’s dealings with media moguls Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch.
• Claims Wran sought to protect his corrective services minister, Rex Jackson, after revelations of corruption of the prisoner early-release scheme.
• And corruption allegations (made after their deaths, of course) against two Wran Ministers, both known to be close to Wran.

A separate chapter details how Wran accumulated his wealth since the size of his estate has also fed rumours of corruption. I have conclusively demonstrated that it was Malcolm Turnbull, with early help from Nick Whitlam, who made Wran a wealthy man – although not as wealthy as the media reported on his death.

My conclusion, following this detailed examination, is the reason for the title of the book: The Assassination of Neville Wran. Objective readers of the book, I believe, will agree that I have disproved the corruption narrative about Wran.

I have been critical of much of the reporting of these incidents and events, including from some very distinguished journalists. Some of it is the result of journalistic laziness, including a failure to carry out basic checking. Much of it is journalistic malpractice, including a failure to corroborate allegations and simply reporting allegations and gossip as fact.

Given The Sydney Institute has highlighted the ABC in the title tonight, I should mention that as well as exposing the shocking journalism of the ghost train fire documentary, I have also exposed the poor journalism involved in an earlier Four Corners program, which made allegations about Wran without having the courage to name him.

I am not referring to the controversial Four Corners “The Big League” program in 1983 which led to the Street Royal Commission. I concede that this program had reliable and multiple corroboration for its central allegation – that Murray Farquhar had used Neville Wran’s name in trying to fix a committal hearing. It also had the guts to name Wran, which the later Four Corners program in 1986 did not, obviously because Wran was still alive. My criticism of the “Big League” program is that it didn’t concede in the program that Farquhar may have been using Wran’s name for his own nefarious purposes, as the royal commission subsequently found. Both the journalist, Chris Masters, and the executive producer, Jonathan Holmes, have subsequently conceded that the program should have done so.

In the final chapter, I explore the issue of why Wran has attracted so many claims of corruption. I was struck by the contrast with former Labor Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, following the publication of Troy Bramston’s very substantial biography of Hawke. Bramston, who had the full co-operation of Hawke, reveals the financial support given to Hawke before entering Parliament by business friends, including transport magnate Sir Peter Abeles. He reports they “paid his hotel bills, picked up the tab at the Boulevard Hotel . . . provided him with drinks, cigars and women”. Abeles, according to Bramston, also paid Hawke’s mortgage and his children’s private school fees, as well as bailing him out of gambling debts.

These revelations received very little publicity when the biography was released and since. Sex trumps money in public appeal. Commentary on the book centred on Hawke’s frenetic sexual exploits, even though these did not come under the heading “breaking news”. There is no evidence the financial revelations have impacted, or will impact, on Hawke’s considerable reputation and popularity. Nor, I stress, do I regard this as evidence of Hawke behaving corruptly while in office.

Such a revelation about Wran, however, would be regarded as “game, set and match” by those who accuse him of being corrupt. I have spent several pages in the book addressing an uncorroborated allegation that Wran accepted $5,000 from his bookmaking friend Bill Waterhouse just before the 1976 election This has been put forward as evidence that Wran was “as bent as a $3 note”. I have shown that this transaction – if it indeed occurred – is most likely to have been an election donation, not a payment to Wran personally. Those here tonight of my age will recall that the bookmakers’ turnover tax was an issue in that election campaign.

In this final chapter, I examine various theories which have been put forward about why Wran attracted corruption rumours during his time in office. Some of these I find persuasive; others I find less convincing. One theory which I find persuasive is that Wran’s initial reluctance to “clean up the cops” (to use Frank Walker’s phrase) fed suspicions among some. Max Walsh wrote after Wran announced his resignation as premier: “It was the failure to move [to reform the police] at the outset of his administration which fuelled speculation of underlying corruption within the ranks of the Wran government”. Walsh was a respected former editor and commentator and this undoubtedly was “group think” in certain journalistic quarters and among some political activists.

In the book, I outline why I believe it was naïve to expect Wran early in his premiership, and with a one-seat majority, to begin a clean out of the Augean stables. I cite opinion polls showing just how favourably the NSW public viewed the NSW Police Force in those days. A more reasonable criticism, in my view, is the Wran government was slow to taken this on when the political environment became more amenable to reform. When Wran did move it was with characteristic decisiveness, assisted by a reforming police minister in Peter Anderson. By then, however, it was seen as something that he was forced to do and for which his government has received little credit.

Of course, this theory, and others I discuss, do not explain why Wran has attracted so many allegations of corruption after his death. The explanation for this rests squarely with parts of the media and goes to the journalistic laziness and malpractice I referred to earlier. And, of course, our defamation laws, which encourage journalists to “bring out your dead” have enabled such malpractice.

Too often hearsay is considered acceptable evidence of guilt. Inconvenient evidence to the contrary is now blithely ignored. Gossip is now regarded as truth. Conviction of corruption has replaced suspicion.  Journalists no longer explore the background and motives of those making allegations. The requirement for allegations to be corroborated by an independent source, let alone multiple sources, is now considered old fashioned.

The defamation laws have become a convenient excuse for journalists for not having sought to establish the truth or otherwise of allegations while Wran was alive. Those same journalists have taken advantage of the defamation laws to declare open season on Wran’s reputation after his death.

The freedom from legal consequences of defaming the dead is a legal privilege for journalists. Many journalists no longer accept that with legal privilege comes moral responsibility. Still the media wonders why parliaments are so reluctant to liberalise the defamation laws.

One journalist who has published several allegations after Wran’s death has claimed: “All we owe to the dead is the truth.” This is a noble sentiment but allegations, without evidence or independent corroboration, do not establish guilt. Gossip and hearsay are not truth. Journalists should be healthily sceptical of those who hurl allegations and should not automatically accept such people as virtuous and pure of heart.

Allegations about the dead should receive the same care, corroboration and scrutiny as allegations about the living. The character assassination of Neville Wran is mainly attributable to the media abandoning the moral responsibility which once went hand in hand with legal privilege.