AUSTRALIA WARNED ABOUT BANKS

It is doubtful that Bob Santamaria would have used such forthright language to describe Dr Evatt, the ALP, evil Communists and banks as this placard did in Wall Street, one of the many Occupy Wall Street demonstrations that continue throughout the US and overseas.

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Like so many influential players in Australia’s political recent past, the late Bartholomew Augustine Santamaria is now forgotten. A Catholic strongly opposed to Socialism and Communism, he was regarded as a hero by the Democratic Labor Party which split the Australian Labor Party. The son of Italian immigrants , he grew up in Mebourne .Late in life, however , he spoke out strongly about the dangers of monopoly capitalism. This, he repeatedly said, was as great a threat to civil society as communism. Santamaria was often heard on radio and TV and wrote for The Australian in the 1990s. He warned that the debt based credit creation system and private ownership of major banking institutions did not serve society and orderly government.

His comments about banks make interesting reading now that banks all over the world have had to be bailed out ,mostly with money from the public kitty with dire consequences for the social fabric .

Santamaria said international investment banks based in New York, London and Frankfurt had taken effective control of the levers of Australian economic policy since the 1970s. An interesting claim of his was that contractionary economic policies pursued in the "pro-market" 1990s had produced a long-term decline in real wages and forced mothers into the workforce, resulting in a breakdown of the family unit. The "market" was the greatest threat to the survival of the family and, more broadly, of Western civilization in the late 20th century, he added. UPCOMING : With Australian banks slugging customers for use of their bank cards, charging high overseas transaction fees and delaying the passing on of RBA interest cuts , a look at the warnings about banking down through the years .

GROTTY WESTPAC BANK RESPONSE

After sending an email to the Westpac head office PR machine , again drawing the attention of the bank’s CEO ,Gail Kelly, to the state of the shabby Casuarina branch , Little Darwin has received what passes for a reply in PR terms . It raises more questions about one of Australia’s big four banks. Westpac Regional General Manager , Northern Territory , Suzi Hullick, said “ we” ( the Royal we seems to be in vogue after all the heady celebrations in London ) are fully aware of the issues and the state of the branch. She had even been visiting the branch fortnightly as part of plans for a more permanent solution. Funds had been allocated to refurbish the branch “some months ago”. Unfortunately, there had been “some challenges with contactors and our obligations in terms of our lease.”

Her email went on to say littledarwin.blogspot.com had provided some valuable “customer feedback”. Shucks ! The bank was working through this as a matter of urgency . "I am positive of some action in coming months."

That Westpac is still dithering around , hoping for some remedial action as"a matter of urgency" in coming months when the Third World look has been extant for many months makes you wonder.

For a piddling amount, the spew/urine /Bombay Belly splash patterns etched into the footpath outside the main entrance could be washed away ; the customer chairs with plastic missing from the armrests and corroding metal showing through could be replaced by whipping out to Harvey Norman and buying replacements ; a signwriter could do a quick replacement for the large one at the reception desk from which letters are missing ; the well worn punch and stapler could be donated to A.G. Sims and turned into razor blades in Korea. Little Darwin could arrange this in one day without a board meeting or having to ring a call centre in Zimbabwe. No major refurbishment, just a bit of easy, prompt action .

Little Darwin cheekily asked if Gail Kelly was related to Ned , but received no reply . Ms Kelly attended the Business Summit in Brisbane at which the business community was urged by PM Julia Gillard to speak up for the Australian economy, show that the economy is strong . The economy does not look too flash when you judge it on the shabby appearance of the Casuarina Westpac branch , which portrays an image more like downtown Athens .The long running rundown state gives the impression that customers are being treated a la Goldman Sachs-as Muppets–and even ,God forbid, that Westpac is complacent like JPMorgan , who just dropped a cool 2 billion, for which they are sorry . Anybody for putting their dosh under the mattress ?

An angry bank customer, on being told of the Westpac response asks : How long does it take to connect a hose ? She ,too, is affronted by the shabby state of the Casuarina banking precinct. Recently she drew the attention of the staff at the SAO biscuit dipped in Vegemite to the growing constant litter and rubbish , with an occasional garnish of junk food glued to the pavement, near its ATM. Like Westpac, there has been zero base points response at the Commonwealth, and she is on the warpath . UPCOMING: A series on banks which have come close to bringing on another Depression.

OLYMPIC PERFORMANCE BY LINDY CHAMBERLAIN PANNED

In perusing a mass of Chamberlain case documents , a Little Darwin writer came across a scornful comment about the bizarre scenario that had Lindy Chamberlain , in the space of a few minutes , cut her daughter’s throat, without getting any blood on her clothes , hide the body, hide the matinee jacket , dash back to the barbecue area at Ayer’s Rock, with people standing nearby all the time . To achieve this amazing feat, the critic said she would have had to move faster than Sebastian Coe , the then great British middle distance runner of the 1980s who won four Olympic gold medals and set several world records. Lord Sebastian Coe is now the current  face of the  British Olympic Games .
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An NT government insider told Little Darwin the jury’s guilty verdict had taken the corridors of power in Darwin by complete surprise as it was felt there was so little evidence on which a conviction could be returned . With the jury returning after 8pm , ministers who had gone home or were dining out , had to be frantically contacted with the sensational news.

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In London in July 1988 , Wollongong University (NSW) historian , Dr Stuart Piggin, attending an Australia 200 bicentennial conference on Australia, sponsored by the British Australia Studies Association, said the Chamberlains had been the victims of a " raging inferno of prejudice " similar to 16th century witchhunts. An “appalling miscarriage of justice " had been carried out in which not one single fact pointing to their guilt was substantiated. Prejudice and ignorance , he was quoted as saying, had spread a tidal wave of rumor, much of it originating with lawyers, police, scientists and journalists . He referred to the "hurt pride"“of NT authorities who "became paranoid in their quest for revenge " after the Chamberlains had been cleared by the first coroner, Denis Barritt. He was also particularly scathing of the evidence given by forensic scientist, the late Ms Joy Kuhl, and was reported as saying Kuhl had told reporters in a bar : "She is, you know, a witch , I could feel her eyes burning holes through my back."
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After the latest coronial inquiry, which attributed the death of Azaria to a dingo, Mrs Chamberlain-Creighton, spoke about the way she had been treated by reporters . She mentioned one in particular who used to fall asleep during hearings , wake up, and then go and ask the government what it wanted written up . Strange indeed . Little Darwin has been told that a person given to erratic behaviour and repeated fantasies had revelled in the Chamberlain case and undoubtedly played a large part in spreading tales about the Chamberlains. Another source said the belief – almost fear- that the death of Azaria by a dingo could cripple the tourist trade had not been followed up by reporters , but it was now too late . Another said it was a case of a Darwin clique over- reacting .

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LINDY CHAMBERLAIN LINKED TO PROMINENT AUSTRALIANS

One of the many pieces of ephemera in the Chamberlain Case.

National Library of Australia manuscript librarian ,*Graeme Powell , delivered a fascinating speech entitled THE CHAMBERLAIN PAPERS, to a symposium at Macquarie University, Sydney, in 2005 . With Lindy Chamberlain in the audience , he said -

It may seem a bit far-fetched, but Lindy Chamberlain has something in common with Sir Henry Parkes. And also with Miles Franklin, Douglas Mawson, John Monash, Manning Clark and Peter Sculthorpe. They belong to a small group of Australians who have been good at keeping written records. In my experience, most people keep some of their photographs, but when it comes to written records it is a different matter. Legal and property documents may be carefully kept, but sooner or later most people discard the letters, diaries, notes, cuttings and other written records that document their lives and those of their families and friends. Even when good personal archives have been assembled, only a small number end up in libraries, archives or other public institutions. Of the many millions of people who have lived in Australia in the last two centuries, only a few thousand can be said to have had well documented lives. Lindy Chamberlain is one of the few.

Before I describe the Chamberlain Papers, I should say something about the National Library as a collector and preserver of documents. The Library has quite a lot of functions, but one of the most important is to document Australian history and society in all its diversity. It often says it does this comprehensively, but that is a bit of an exaggeration. It collects documents in the narrow sense –until recent times, nearly all its holdings were paper, paper which contained printed, typed or handwritten inscriptions.

Vast quantities of documents of this kind are created every day, most of them are destroyed, some end up in other Commonwealth institutions or in State and regional archives, libraries and museums. So in reality the Library, like every other institution, has to be selective and in deciding what to seek or accept it puts a lot of stress on the word “national”. Although it collects very widely, it focuses in particular on national events, national movements, national problems and issues, social change at the national level, and individuals who have achieved national fame, power or influence. The Chamberlain Case and the controversy and reactions it aroused throughout Australia for ten years or more were clearly national events and they had to be well documented in the National Library.

At first, the Library did not need to make a special effort, as a lot of Australian material comes to the Library automatically. Under the legal deposit provisions of the Copyright Act, it is entitled to copies of all items published in Australia. So from 1980 onwards law reports, newspapers, magazines, pamphlets and eventually books referring to the Chamberlain Case poured into the Library and were dispersed among its collections. Much of that published material remains indispensable for anyone studying the Chamberlain Case.

Away from the mainstream, however, many publications were produced in small numbers, using cheap printing or duplication methods, by local organisations and individuals. Depositing copies in a library would not have occurred to many of them and libraries had to hunt for such works and cajole the publishers into giving us copies. In 1986, for instance, the National Library wrote to the Chamberlain Information Service at Cooranbong seeking copies of its Azaria Newsletter. [ Little Darwin specifically mentioned this publication in a previous post.] Nothing happened for a year or so, but eventually the Service sent copies and suggested the Library also approach the Chamberlain support groups throughout the country. It provided a list of 18 addresses and letters were duly written. Some groups had vanished, but several responded and the result was a series of acquisitions which have continued right up to the present day.

In seeking material from the support groups the Library unwittingly was shifting its focus from publications to archival records, including records of a private and personal nature. These bodies were willing to transfer newsletters, circulars, leaflets and newspaper cuttings, but they also offered correspondence, financial records and tape recordings. These collections documented not only the public campaigns, but also the internal workings of the groups, decision-making, the divisions and squabbles, and the relations with other groups and with Lindy and Michael Chamberlain.

Over the years, the Library received about a dozen substantial collections of Chamberlain support groups. In Queensland, for instance, Betty Hocking transferred the archives of the National Freedom Council, formerly the Plea for Justice Committee. In Melbourne Phyllis Boyd passed over papers that she and her husband, the sculptor Guy Boyd, had accumulated, particularly relating to their petition “A Plea for Mercy” and their lobbying of politicians and other public figures. Liz Noonan in Adelaide transferred many papers of the Northern Territory support group, including legal papers, correspondence, records of meetings of the group, tape recordings and publications.

These individuals and groups often suggested other people who might have retained records. An important personal collection was assembled by Norman Young, who is speaking at this conference. He passed over 51 volumes of transcripts of the two inquests, the trial and the Royal Commission, as well as correspondence, scientific papers and other material. Although the transcripts are not unique, the convenience for research of having all this material together in the Library is enormous and this collection has attracted an exceptional number of researchers to our reading room.

The archives of the Boyds and some of the other supporters contained letters of Lindy and Michael Chamberlain. However, for some reason the Library was slow in asking the Chamberlains about their own papers. It was Lindy Chamberlain herself who in 1992 phoned the Library and asked whether it had any interest in her papers. She said she had only destroyed a few papers and had kept a great deal of correspondence, material relating to the trial and hearings, papers relating to her autobiography and the filming of Evil Angels. She said it was a large collection, the equivalent of four filing cabinets. This would indeed be a large collection, as personal archives go, but in fact the collection finally acquired by the Library was three or four times larger.

A colleague and I visited Cooranbong in 1992 and did a quick survey of the papers. We did not really know what to expect, as personal archives are often much smaller or much larger than we imagined from initial conversations. In this case, we could see immediately that the papers were extensive. They were mostly on the floor, some in boxes, others just heaps of loose papers, with letters mixed up with cuttings, leaflets, and an array of objects, some of which were to end up in the National Museum. In a short visit it was hard to assess the value of such a disorganised archive, but it did seem to us that it documented in detail a family tragedy and in addition public attitudes towards the Chamberlains and the public campaigns to secure Lindy’s release and exoneration.

When I returned to Cooranbong several months later, I found that the archive had largely been transformed. A large quantity of the papers had been filed, each file had a sticker with a summary of the contents, and they had been put in alphabetical order in boxes. The files were colourful, as Lindy had colour coded her correspondence. Letters addressed to her were in blue folders, letters addressed jointly to Lindy and Michael were in red folders, letters to her parents were in green folders and so on. In addition, the files were divided into specials and ordinaries. The filing, annotating and classifying by Lindy Chamberlain and her parents involved a huge amount of work and greatly enhanced the usability and the research value of the archives. It meant that we now had a good idea of the range and content of the material that we were acquiring.

The papers were received in instalments over a period of five years. They form a much larger and wide-ranging archive than we had envisaged when we first visited Cooranbong. They occupy 179 boxes. The figure may not mean much, but as a rough guide about 600 letters can fit in a box, so the quantity of papers is considerable. The bulk of the papers date from 1980 to 1990, but there are a few from Lindy’s earlier years and a fair number from the 1990s.

At the heart of the archives are the letters, cards and notes exchanged between members of the family, access to which is restricted. There are many other personal letters from friends and associates, witnesses and lawyers in the case, and leading figures in the support groups. There are an array of special documents: notes written by Lindy during the trial and in gaol, prison memorabilia. The tapes and drafts of Through My Eyes are of considerable importance, as are Lindy’s annotations of a series of scripts for the film Evil Angels. Other papers include trial transcripts, correspondence with the Chamberlain Information Service, cutting books and other papers compiled by relatives and friends, and files relating to book tours and lecture tours.

Correspondence makes up the bulk of the archive. We have often said there are 20,000 letters but we have not counted them and the number could be much higher. Some of the letters are from well-known and influential figures, such as politicians and lawyers, or from scientists, park rangers and other kinds of experts. Some were written by people who had met the Chamberlains or known them in earlier years. Most were written by strangers, who felt forced to write because they were convinced of Lindy’s innocence, or because they were disturbed by the judicial process, or because they considered her guilty, or because they had originally thought she was guilty and had changed their minds.

Here are a few opening lines taken at random out of a couple of the boxes: I am not exactly sure how to begin this letter, as I have never been inclined to write a fan letter before... I am reading Bryson’s account of the events surrounding the loss of your daughter and I feel compelled to write to you to express my support and admiration...Myself and my Auntie feel you are not guilty, you were used to make a big story to sell papers...Here is one person who no longer believes you are guilty of murder.. I have just been watching you on Sixty Minutes...Our family was grief-stricken by the jury’s decision today...I feel like I already know you, I saw the movie, read the book Evil Angels (an American correspondent) .

Many of these letters and cards are short and simple and repetitive. Considered as individual documents, they could easily be dismissed by historians as worthless. But as part of a huge accumulation they achieve historical significance. Taken as a whole, they provide tangible evidence of the private arguments and discussions that the Chamberlain Case engendered, as distinct from the arguments and claims in the media. Moreover, some of the letters are lengthy and dwell on the writers’ experiences, ideas and prejudices in relation to the courts, the police, politicians, the media, churches, as well as less tangible matters such as family relationships, bereavement, and behaviour. The papers therefore say a lot about Australians in the 1980s, as well as about the Chamberlains and the Chamberlain Case.

Quite often correspondents began their letters by saying they hardly ever wrote letters but felt compelled to write. Collections of papers held in public institutions tend to have been written or assembled by people who were powerful, comfortably off, highly literate and with a fair degree of self-confidence. Such people are represented in the Chamberlain Papers, but so are people from humble background and remote localities, who often had trouble expressing themselves, but who had strong beliefs, fears and prejudices. They usually wrote by hand, or on old typewriters, using a great variety of stationery. I think in years to come historians and other researchers will be grateful that Lindy Chamberlain kept their letters, as well as all the other papers, and offered them to the Library. In 1989, the year after her conviction was quashed, the World Wide Web came into existence and over the next decade it drastically changed the ways people communicate with each other. I suspect that the Chamberlain Papers will turn out to be one of the last of the great collections of personal papers assembled in Australia.
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*Graeme Powell, now retired , was manuscript librarian at the National Library of Australia, a position he first occupied in 1969. From 1979 to 1987 he was in charge of the Australian Joint Copying Project in London. While working in the Australian High Commission he was involved in the attempt to transfer to Australia the assent copy of the 1900 Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act. (Thanks to the National Library and author for permission to run this important document relating to a major Territory and national case.)

AZARIA CHAMBERLAIN BOOK ENDING

Screen grab shows Media pack reflected in glass doors of the Darwin Magistrates' Court. Mrs Chamberlain -Creighton said there had been some "skunks " in the media over the years of her ordeal and the ABC streamer said Rupert Murdoch had been branded a liar at the Leveson Inquiry .

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At the end of the coronial hearing, a copy of Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton’s autobiography, first published 1990, the blurb stating it tells of the justice system that betrayed her, was produced from a plastic bag by her American husband. It was taken to the bar table and inscriptions penned by people involved in the marathon case. One of those who signed the book was her lawyer, Stuart Tipple, who wore a red tie with a dingo pattern . Another was former barrister , John Bryson, author of Evil Angels , made into the film, A Cry In The Dark, starring Meryl Streep. Bryson was one of those hugged by Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton.

Outside the court , Bryson said the appellate courts of the land –Federal and High Court- had failed the Chamberlains. There had been plenty of opportunities for the courts to have stepped in and prevented the ordeal from going on and on, he said .

During the long running saga, the Northern Territory News savaged Bryson in an editorial , on March 21, 1987 , responding to southern criticism of the Territory . Bryson, it said, had written a lurid and a patently inaccurate account which had been run prominently in several southern newspapers about “ the heartlessness of the Northern Territory’s politicians and police and the events leading to Mrs Chamberlain’s release.” It declared his book should be thrown into the nearest dustbin and forgotten. The paper vowed it would challenge his “fabrications.”

The editorial went on to say Mrs Chamberlain had been given every possible avenue to prove her innocence. “Fair go”, it continued, may not mean a great deal to southern critics of Territory justice, but it clearly meant something for Territorians. Never had there been such a vitriolic attack on the conduct of justice by a State or on the Federal Courts or on a police force as had occurred in this case.

The editorial said southern critics did not know what they were talking about and indicated they had been carried away by emotional hysteria or were plainly incapable of looking at the facts dispassionately . Looking through a mass of media clippings about the case , you see inspiration for more books, ideas for follow ups, new angles, odd comments and claims, indications of a growing xenophobic attitude to them thar southerners.

Blinking nervously, NT Attorney-General, Rob Knight, himself having been attacked by Territory wildlife- aggressive plovers outside the Wedding Cake - told the media the NT Government would not be offering an apology to the Chamberlains-then slipped into election mode. Strangely, CLP leader, Terry Mills , did not offer an apology to the family despite the fact that his party was in power throughout the bulk of the case. It was up to the current ALP government to do so, he said. It seems the affair could come back and bite a few people at the ballot box .

RETURN OF THE BLACK KNIGHT -The Pete Steedman Chronicles

Veteran campaigners, innovative publishers and activists in Australia and overseas, Pete Steedman and Phillip Frazer, who have taken on powerful interests throughout much of their lives , recently reunited over a drop of red at Pete’s hideaway in the soggy hills outside Melbourne.
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Steedman is back in town ! News of Pete Steedman’s return in late 1972 reverberated throughout Melbourne , Canberra and beyond , in academic , media , political, police and national security circles , no doubt resulting in a variety of reactions- surprise, twitching, muttering and delight. When he had left Melbourne for swinging London as a freelance journalist in 1969 he was almost a household name because of his strong stand against involvement in the Vietnam War and conscription when he was editor of the university papers, Lot’s Wife and Farrago , at the time supposedly studying economics and politics.

He had been railed against by the Right in parliament, received death threats , and the Federal government had even explored the possibility of bringing in special legislation to charge him with sedition . His editorship of a new national political weekly BROADSIDE had been too boisterous for its conservative backers, the Melbourne Age, which pulled and pulped two editions. Broadside’s stirring adventures in comic form of a whip wielding shapely damsel called FABULA in thinly disguised Canberra and other corridors of power had caused uproar, also intense reader interest.

Leaving the pyrotechnics and flak behind , Steedman took the overland route to the British capital , meeting up with his partner, Julie Reiter , in India ,their adventures and misadventures covered in earlier Little Darwin posts . Also covered was the hilarious and dangerous trip Pete and Julie made in a dodgy Bedford van from London to Morocco with architect Peter Burleigh whose Bulldust Diary , complete with his distinctive illustrations, is currently running in Little Darwin . After packing about five lifetimes of incredible adventures into a few years in London, Pete and Julie decided to return to Melbourne.
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With Julie expecting and Gough Whitlam about to be elected, giving birth to a new feeling of jubilation in the nation , Steedman began work as Publishing Manager for Stockland Press , a conservative company whose shareholders were members of the farming community. With his extensive experience in publishing here and London , abreast of the new web offset printing system , he was brimming with ideas . In town was his co-editor from the university newspaper days , former medical / arts student majoring in politics , Phillip Frazer. Frazer had founded the weekly teen pop magazine , Go-Set ,which had a circulation of 70,000 , and a permanent staff of 25 in four capital cities . Other publications Frazer brought out were Revolution, High Times ,The Digger.

A major coup for Frazer was the Australian edition of Rolling Stone , first run as a supplement in Revolution in 1970, then as a separate magazine in 1972. (Frazer went to New York in 1976 and became an editor of Seven Days, a U.S. alternative newsmagazine, then worked on other U.S. political magazines including The Nation, the anti-nuclear power organization No-Nukes, and in 1981-82 edited Ralph Nader’s Multinational Monitor. In the 1990s he published the liberal Washington Spectator newsletter, and published, edited and wrote the environment newsletter News on Earth. In 1999 he founded, and has since published and co-edited the newsletter The Hightower Lowdown with Texan Jim Hightower. The Lowdown, with more than 100,000 paying subscribers, is one of the biggest circulation political publications in the US, notable for its criticism of the Bill Clinton , George W.Bush and Barack Obama administrations for being beholden to corporations and a corporatist ideology. Little Darwin has carried a Hightower profile and intends to post further interesting comments by him , many of which appear on Nation of Change - Progressive Journalism for Positive Change - that are relevant to growing issues of importance to Australia , ranging from Afghanistan to banks and Monsanto . )

Frazer had recommended Steedman to the Stockland Managing Director , Mike Woods, a farmer ,who was wanting to expand the business and needed new ideas and someone to implement them. He had grown to like Frazer and was infatuated with the characters Frazer introduced. Woods and Steedman drew up loose plans for changes in the company and how to move Stockland on to bigger and better things. Frazer and Steedman considered they had “captured” a company that gave a chance for the expansion of Frazers operations.

When Steedman started at Stockland he did an audit of all their operations and found it was a good company, but too small to survive the consolidations that were about to happen. They didn't believe him, within a couple of years of him leaving they were taken over. The printery basically consisted of two businesses-one using the old style hot metal letterpress production, the other the versatile new web offset technique. There was no way he could rationalise this situation as it would mean the end for the half dozen employees working with metal. To keep them in work , he devised a scheme of getting out of print and copyright Australiana , regional histories ,that would appeal to the 20,000 subscribers in the rural paper, Stock and Land, that was the major publishing task of the company.

At the same time, he made increasing use of offset, a process that Stockland were only just learning about. Steedman got rid of small run print jobs and some religious publications that the company had carried for years and brought in university papers, ethnic publications , Frazer's The Digger. The political and satirical weekly , Nation Review, called The Ferret (lean and nosey), was also printed at Stocklands , launched in 1970 by independent publisher Gordon Barton who opposed the Vietnam War along with Steedman. Contributors included cartoonist Michael Leunig, Germaine Greer, Phillip Adams, Mungo MacCallum , Sam Orr. A separate company- Peelprint – managed by Steedman, was set up to print all the “radical publications.”

Monopolistic distribution companies made it difficult for new publishing ventures to establish themselves in Australia , greatly reducing their circulation and profitability.
Steedman put a lot of thought and effort into trying to create a new distribution network. His grand plan was to have publications come off the Stockland presses , pass through a hole in the wall to an adjoining property where they would be bundled up and picked up by trucks using a rear lane , eventually delivered to outlets other than newsagents –milk bars and other shops. He bought the terrace house next to the printery but the plan did not come to fruition.

Gregarious, he mixed with people from all walks of life- journalists, DJs , actors , politicians ,musos , unionists , even Anglican minister Peter Hollingworth , later a bishop and a Governor –General of Australia . Hollingworth , in the Brotherhood of St Lawrence , consulted Steedman when he approached Stockland to print a book he had written about the poor and underprivileged in Melbourne. It was to be called Always With Us, reflecting the saying that the poor are always with us. Steedman strongly stated the title meant nothing and would not sell. It was renamed The Powerless Poor , went into two editions and then paperback. Forthright, with a kind of crash through or crash attitude similar to PM Gough Whitlam, Steedman was larger than life, interested in fast cars , motorbikes and black leather jackets.

ENTER CYCLONE TRACY . On December 26, 1974 , Steedman received a call from a friend who had been seconded to the Social Security Department to set up systems to cope with a disaster which at that stage nobody knew much about. Steedman was specifically contacted because of his expertise in communications and was asked to design a system to service the thousands of people that were expected to be evacuated from the cyclone destroyed city of Darwin. As a result, he was made a welfare officer and brought out a paper called the Darwin Newsletter , at first printed at Stockland Press , for refugees scattered throughout the nation, with an eventual circulation of 20,000.[See THE CYCLONIC NEWSPAPER PAPER in Little Darwin , December 10, 2010.] The Darwin Disaster Welfare Council also asked him to write a report on the social , economic and political effects of the cyclone and the response of administration to the disaster.

After spending nine months in Darwin , during which he said he went a bit “troppo”, he returned to Melbourne and enrolled at Latrobe University to take a post-graduate degree in media and communications . While in Darwin, Steedman’s wife, Julie, had enrolled as a mature age student in Ceramics at the Caulfield Institute of Technology (CIT). Steedman planned how, on his return to Melbourne, he could fit in with Julie’s new involvement . As all jobs at academic institutions had as a prerequisite- a degree- and since he had spent many years at two universities without picking up a piece of paper, he figured that he may have to upgrade.

The newly opened LaTrobe University had a special entrance into the post graduate B.Ed that took into account subjects passed as well as industry experience. On this basis he was accepted at the university . Since the course was basically what he’d been doing for over 10 years, he was able to do the two year course in one with high distinctions. He commented at the time that he had either suddenly gotten a lot smarter, or the education system had deteriorated significantly. He opted for the latter.

When the opportunity arose , he applied for the position of Promotions Officer for CIT and was soon made the head of a new Department of Information and Promotions, with a brief to increase student enrolments and develop a corporate image . In the first year, the intake increased by 43 percent and subsequent increases made CIT one of the most preferred places in the Victorian tertiary system. Steedman segmented his market and aimed literature at potential students, parents and the business community. He had an intense fight with many academics, especially those from Science and Engineering who felt they were being “cheapened” as academics and were being “sold like cornflakes”. Bluntly, he told them it was his way or they would have no jobs in the new year as enrolment numbers in those disciplines were minimal and decreasing. His three year campaign consolidated CIT as one of the major educational institutions in Victoria and it later merged with Monash University. He had saved jobs, revitalized an institution and created a new method of “selling’ education.”His approach was not to just "get bums on seats " but to educate kids and line up job prospects . His drive and forthright manner of expression perturbed some, but he achieved remarkable results.

At last month's launch of University Unlimited, the history of Monash University , thinly thatched Professor John Sinclair and Steedman were photographed with a page open showing them working on the university magazine, Lot’s Wife, back in 1966. Young Steedman , the editor, in black T-shirt, is described as a mixture of James Dean and Elvis. Sinclair , assistant editor, looks studious and more kempt. During the launch , playwright David Williamson recalled having once tried in a pub to “save” a girl upon whom Steedman was putting the hard word –but she did not want to be saved . NEXT : Steedman’s new baby – the Labor newspaper.

SENSATIONAL AZARIA CHAMBERLAIN CASE ELECTION ALLEGATIONS

Continuing Little Darwin’s series on unusual aspects of the Chamberlain witchhunt with further examination of ephemera in the file kept by Darwin agronomist , civil libertarian and activist, Robert Wesley-Smith .
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The Azaria Chamberlain case was a highly contentious issue in the 1984 election for the Northern Territory seat in the House of Representatives which saw the ALP incumbent , John Reeves , now a judge of the Federal Court and the NT Supreme Court , ousted by the former Territory Chief Minister, Paul “Porky” Everingham. Everingham’s win, with 28,747 votes ,represented a 3.3 swing against the ALP and was attributed to white voter anger at the Labor Government’s three –mine uranium policy and the decision to pass Uluru, formerly Ayers Rock, into Aboriginal ownership.

However, a controversial independent candidate in that election stirred up much angst in the Territory. He was journalist ,publisher Phillip Ward , who wrote the sensational book AZARIA! WHAT THE JURY WERE NOT TOLD after going to Ayers Rock and investigating the case. The book made allegations about many aspects of the disappearance of baby Azaria .

The book’s promotion pamphlet declared: For the first time ever in print, discover how the Chamberlain case was “rigged”. Discover how evidence was falsified. Read of vital facts withheld from the jury. See how the judicial process itself was tampered with. And discover why Lindy Chamberlain didn’t stand a chance. One of Ward's election pamphlets offered 10,000 copies of his book , selling for $6.95 in newsagents , so that voters could decide if “Lindy Chamberlain is guilty or innocent ---if Paul Everingham should be voted in or out .”

Like the Chamberlains, Ward was a Seventh Day Adventist and published what was said to be the nation’s biggest business newsletter with a circulation of 23,000. He said he entered the political contest because of his fervent belief that the Chamberlains were innocent and that Everingham had what he termed “ an anti-Lindy line”. Furthermore, he stated in writing that the Everingham administration had perverted the course of justice . This was , he added, a grave charge indeed, "not made lightly."

Giving his address as 25 Progress Drive, Nightcliff, Ward launched a strong campaign which attracted a lot of attention and comment . This included a series of single column newspaper advertisements which made startling allegations not only in connection with the Chamberlain affair but other Territory matters.He alleged a $250,000 swindle involving Berrimah Jail , interstate police being involved in payback against Michael Chamberlain who had opposed marijuana .

If elected, he promised to negotiate a combined Federal-Territory amnesty for "Territory police who provide self incriminatory evidence on drug dealing ". This claim was made under the heading AZARIA LINKED TO DRUG DEALS . It was redhot material , which some say enhanced Everingham’s chances of being elected . Ward took issue with the NT News when it insisted on running his statements under an advertisement on the grounds that section 331 of the Commonwealth Electoral Act said newspaper proprietors must do so at the top of political ads. This had not applied, he claimed, to seven CLP ads .

As it turned out , Ward received 1906 votes , 2.1per cent of the vote . He continued to make allegations about the case and was inevitably involved in legal action. All subsequent elections seemed tame affairs after the allegations that flew around in 1984. NEXT :More twists and surprise turns.