Post by Flash on Aug 29, 2006 17:16:54 GMT -5
primeministers.naa.gov.au/timeline.asp?action=show&viewAll=true
Journalist's unique perspective on PMs past and present
Mike Steketee
August 30, 2006
Wallace Brown
Journalist. Born Sydney, July 15, 1930.
Died Canberra, August 22, aged 76.
IF journalists write the first rough draft of history, then Wallace Brown contributed more than his fair share. And he did so from a rare perspective.
Not many writers can compare and contrast Robert Menzies and John Howard, based on their personal relationship with, and observations of, both. Brown's 38-year career as Canberra political correspondent for Brisbane's The Courier-Mail spanned the reigns of Menzies and Howard and eight prime ministers in between. He also saw 11 Opposition leaders come and go, 17 general elections and 38 federal budgets.
That seems like enough politics for the most dedicated junkie. But, right to the end, Brown retained a boyish enthusiasm for unearthing a good story.
In his 2002 book Ten Prime Ministers: Life Among the Politicians, he ended with what he called "a little frolic and controversy": his ideal cross-party cabinet. It included Menzies as prime minister, Bob Hawke as his deputy, Gough Whitlam in foreign affairs, John McEwen in trade, Paul Keating as treasurer, Garfield Barwick as attorney-general, Malcolm Fraser in education, Bill Hayden in health and Kim Beazley in defence. John Howard did not make it in the first 15 but he did include him on an Opposition front bench as shadow minister for secondary industry and industrial relations.
That did not stop Howard paying Brown a generous tribute this week as one of Australia's finest press gallery journalists. "He was a shining example to young journalists in the gallery and was respected by both sides of politics. His reporting was insightful, well-sourced and sometimes provocative but always with an eye to domestic affairs in Queensland."
It is an assessment shared on both sides of politics. Former Labor leader Hayden, who shared a plane to Canberra with Brown when he first came there after the 1961 election as a 28-year-old newly elected MP, says: "I thought he set a particularly fine example of journalistic standards. He was quite discreet and thoroughly reliable and trustworthy, qualities which I think rising journalists should aspire to.
"Unlike (The Daily Telegraph's) Alan Reid, who was seen as the doyen of the gallery, he never tried to play the political game. He had too many principles for that."
Hayden was talking of a different age in political journalism, when the press gallery was much smaller and journalists worked cheek by jowl with politicians in an overcrowded Old Parliament House. Politicians more readily took journalists into their confidence, knowing that "off the record" meant these thoughts would not be reported, not even as the view of "senior sources". Perhaps it was too incestuous but it did make for better-informed journalists.
Though Brown spent almost half a century in journalism, including most of his first 10 years in Brisbane, it was a career he fell into by accident. Not knowing what he would do after completing his arts degree at the University of Queensland, he was recruited by his English professor, who had been approached by the editor of The Courier-Mail saying he needed a journalist. It is quite a contrast to today, when hundreds of young men and women with impressive academic qualifications are clamouring to enter the profession.
On his arrival in Canberra, Hayden told Brown: "Wally, I think you'll last a bit longer here than I will." He was right, although Hayden was to spend 28 years as a politician and another seven as governor-general.
In Ten Prime Ministers, Brown lamented the serious decline in parliamentary standards and the politicisation of the public service, as well as the loss of humour in politics, "serious Australian funniness, true sophisticated mickey-taking". He quoted Labor frontbencher Eddie Ward as an example of "how to hit hard, yet with polite maturity, where it really hurts". Ward said of Menzies, who had a commission in the citizen forces before World War I but did not go to war at the request of his parents: "The right honourable gentleman had a brilliant military career, cut short by war."
In 1995, Brown received a Medal of the Order of Australia for services to journalism. It was in recognition of a long career but also of a style of journalism marked by goodwill and a remarkable (to modern eyes in a more cynical age) lack of rancour or vindictiveness. He was the gentleman journalist.
Brown died after a three-year battle with motor neurone disease. Three weeks earlier, he completed his second book, At Random: Anecdotes from a Lucky Life.
He is survived by his wife, Valerie, and three children, Matthew, Bina and A.J.
Journalist's unique perspective on PMs past and present
Mike Steketee
August 30, 2006
Wallace Brown
Journalist. Born Sydney, July 15, 1930.
Died Canberra, August 22, aged 76.
IF journalists write the first rough draft of history, then Wallace Brown contributed more than his fair share. And he did so from a rare perspective.
Not many writers can compare and contrast Robert Menzies and John Howard, based on their personal relationship with, and observations of, both. Brown's 38-year career as Canberra political correspondent for Brisbane's The Courier-Mail spanned the reigns of Menzies and Howard and eight prime ministers in between. He also saw 11 Opposition leaders come and go, 17 general elections and 38 federal budgets.
That seems like enough politics for the most dedicated junkie. But, right to the end, Brown retained a boyish enthusiasm for unearthing a good story.
In his 2002 book Ten Prime Ministers: Life Among the Politicians, he ended with what he called "a little frolic and controversy": his ideal cross-party cabinet. It included Menzies as prime minister, Bob Hawke as his deputy, Gough Whitlam in foreign affairs, John McEwen in trade, Paul Keating as treasurer, Garfield Barwick as attorney-general, Malcolm Fraser in education, Bill Hayden in health and Kim Beazley in defence. John Howard did not make it in the first 15 but he did include him on an Opposition front bench as shadow minister for secondary industry and industrial relations.
That did not stop Howard paying Brown a generous tribute this week as one of Australia's finest press gallery journalists. "He was a shining example to young journalists in the gallery and was respected by both sides of politics. His reporting was insightful, well-sourced and sometimes provocative but always with an eye to domestic affairs in Queensland."
It is an assessment shared on both sides of politics. Former Labor leader Hayden, who shared a plane to Canberra with Brown when he first came there after the 1961 election as a 28-year-old newly elected MP, says: "I thought he set a particularly fine example of journalistic standards. He was quite discreet and thoroughly reliable and trustworthy, qualities which I think rising journalists should aspire to.
"Unlike (The Daily Telegraph's) Alan Reid, who was seen as the doyen of the gallery, he never tried to play the political game. He had too many principles for that."
Hayden was talking of a different age in political journalism, when the press gallery was much smaller and journalists worked cheek by jowl with politicians in an overcrowded Old Parliament House. Politicians more readily took journalists into their confidence, knowing that "off the record" meant these thoughts would not be reported, not even as the view of "senior sources". Perhaps it was too incestuous but it did make for better-informed journalists.
Though Brown spent almost half a century in journalism, including most of his first 10 years in Brisbane, it was a career he fell into by accident. Not knowing what he would do after completing his arts degree at the University of Queensland, he was recruited by his English professor, who had been approached by the editor of The Courier-Mail saying he needed a journalist. It is quite a contrast to today, when hundreds of young men and women with impressive academic qualifications are clamouring to enter the profession.
On his arrival in Canberra, Hayden told Brown: "Wally, I think you'll last a bit longer here than I will." He was right, although Hayden was to spend 28 years as a politician and another seven as governor-general.
In Ten Prime Ministers, Brown lamented the serious decline in parliamentary standards and the politicisation of the public service, as well as the loss of humour in politics, "serious Australian funniness, true sophisticated mickey-taking". He quoted Labor frontbencher Eddie Ward as an example of "how to hit hard, yet with polite maturity, where it really hurts". Ward said of Menzies, who had a commission in the citizen forces before World War I but did not go to war at the request of his parents: "The right honourable gentleman had a brilliant military career, cut short by war."
In 1995, Brown received a Medal of the Order of Australia for services to journalism. It was in recognition of a long career but also of a style of journalism marked by goodwill and a remarkable (to modern eyes in a more cynical age) lack of rancour or vindictiveness. He was the gentleman journalist.
Brown died after a three-year battle with motor neurone disease. Three weeks earlier, he completed his second book, At Random: Anecdotes from a Lucky Life.
He is survived by his wife, Valerie, and three children, Matthew, Bina and A.J.