There was a time in Darwin when the Revolution reared its head at the Murdoch owned Northern Territory News. The person who played a large part in this capitalist shock was Marxist journalist , the late John Loizou. It came in the form of workers’ participation in the running of the paper, which evolved out of the strike over the replacement of James Frederick Bowditch as editor of the paper.
Loizou briefed the Australian Journalists’ Association in Sydney in the negotiations . He pointed out that in a recent statement Rupert Murdoch had said the management of a newspaper was obligated to make sure it was run in a business like fashion. The AJA, Loizou said, should use this same argument and say journalists on a paper should have a say in the running of the editorial side ,especially if they thought management action was or could damage the publication , financially and in the eyes of its readers.
It was John’s proud boast that workers were given a say in the running of the paper for the first time in Australia . What is more , he chortled, the company negotiators in Sydney had not realised the importance of the agreement in the first instance . This whiff of Danny the Red did not last long as Cyclone Tracy blew the place apart ; journalists, including John, were scattered down south, the presses stopped running for a time at the NT News. When he finally made it back to Darwin , Loizou worked for the Darwin Council in the street labour team , there being no job for him at the News . However, being a top notch journalist , the News did re-employ him .
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My contact with John spanned more than half a century. I knew him when he first lobbed in town from Melbourne with the ABC , a fit footballer , then known as John Sparkes ( his stepfather’s surname ), adept at shorthand , which I had never mastered . At one stage , I was asked if I would recommend John as editor of the independent newspaper , Darwin Star . I did , he was appointed and the proprietors told me that , of all the editors , his time at the helm had been the smoothest and most financially productive . The two Darwin papers, naturally, were locked in a deadly circulation and revenue battle.
There was a lively column in the Darwin Star - Scurrilous - which John may have started . Once it took a shot at the editor of the NT News, John Hogan, over his attendance at Friday Club luncheons. Hogan was upset and complained to the Press Council. I well remember John ringing me, chuckling in his distinctive way, and reading out Hogan’s letter of complaint, a copy of which I recently came across in my files.
On another occasion, he rang , laughing so much it was hard to understand what he was saying , and blurted out hilarious details about an incident in which the late Freddy Fogarty , who often went the knuckle , had confronted a British butterfly collector armed with a net who had trespassed on Kulaluk land. Methinks the net was snatched from the uppity butterfly man and brought down over his head.
When I was secretary of the Darwin sub-branch of the Queensland AJA,I don’t think John was ever a financial member .This did not prevent him from attending meetings, being very vocal and becoming disgruntled when told he could not vote on an issue .
Over the years , John and I had many discussions and he often made startling statements , like his claim that he could sail a boat to Mozambique and pick up a printing press and bring it back to Darwin. That brings to mind the time he was the skipper of the former drug boat Mariana which he was restoring on the hard at Doctor’s Gully. Being a good Marxist captain , he said the vessel would be run on democratic lines , all those who came aboard and lingered able to cast a vote on how things were run . This was fine in theory, but one night he ordered everybody off after some of the motley crew annoyed him.
John has been the subject of a premature wake in Darwin. Wake number 2 will take place after his funeral February 8-another opportunity to shout," Up the workers !" -(Peter Simon)
