John Gorton goes to Oxford OXFORD, England, February 1932 Brasenose College at Oxford University is famous for educating an elite to be the future prime ministers, judges, governors and Whitehall mandarins of Great Britain. For 500 years, the sons of the aristocracy (women were admitted for the first time only in 1974) were sent to…
A “real” bastard in The Lodge John Gorton was a bastard. He was born a bastard because he was conceived out of wedlock. His father was in a de facto relationship with a woman other than his lawful wife when he was born. While many of his predecessors at The Lodge – as well as…
The Prime Minister and I both become ASIO targets MURWILLUMBAH, 4 December 2007 Postal workers in the Tweed Valley, a sugar cane and banana-growing shire just south of the Queensland border, deliver mail to outlying rural properties on a motorbike. The intrepid couriers are mainly retirees earning a few extra bob on contracts with Australia…
Why exodus of Labor senator doesn’t make the news A ridiculous amount of media space is being given to the spate of Liberal Party resignations, both male and female, on the eve of forthcoming Federal Election. An eve-of-poll exodus by Federal MPs is not new. It has been going on for decades and it is a…
John Gorton’s Road to Bali SAIGON, Sunday 9 June 1968 When John Gorton became Prime Minister in January 1968 the major item on his domestic and foreign policy agenda was the Vietnam war. Against the strenuous advice of his own military, political and intelligence advisers, Gorton decided to visit Australian troops in Vietnam at the…
