Wed, 13. May 2020
Politics, Alan Jones & the 1978 Earlwood By-election
It was June 1978. The home phone rang and an authoritative sounding voice introduced himself. "I'm Alan Jones".
He said he was from Quirindi in North West NSW and he ran an airline. He wanted to become the Liberal candidate for Earlwood and was seeking my support.
The voice may have been eloquent but it was disturbingly loud and uncompromising. There were no pauses to invite a response or a question.
Earlwood had been held for the Liberal Party since 1951 by Sir Eric Willis, who became NSW Premier in 1976 but lost the Premiership in the State election by just one seat to Neville Wran later the same year, became Opposition Leader for two years and resigned from Parliament in 1978, causing a by-election.
As a party member and Vice-President of the Earlwood State Electorate Conference of the Liberal Party, I was one of the thirty local members of the fifty strong candidate pre-selection panel.
That phone call from Jones was not a two way conversation. He informed me of his qualities and why he deserved the nomination as Liberal candidate. When the call ended, I was left with an overwhelming initial impression that this man had the "gift of the gab" but not much of a willingness to listen to other people. I thought he was a treasure hunter, seeking an easy pathway to a safe entry into politics.
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The pre-selection was held in the NSW Liberal Party headquarters in Ash Street, Sydney. The candidates were each given ten minutes to make a pitch to the panel. Jones speech was impressive oratory - but I figured that a local candidate was essential and voted for Brian Brown, an experienced campaigner, who was President of the Bexley North Branch. However, it was clear that the twenty head office pre-selectors voted as a block for Jones and only six local pre-selectors were needed to fall for Jones' charm to see him over the line.
After the pre-selection, I recall having a conversation with one of the senior Head Office officials. I urgently made the case to him that during the upcoming campaign we should not publicise Mr. Jones' outsider status. My plea was ignored. Next day the papers carried published articles: "Liberal Party selects Alan Jones from Quirindi in North Western NSW to contest the Earlwood by-election".
It was a direct gift to the ALP.
Rule No 1. Don't pre-select an outsider in a marginal by-election.
Rule No 2: If you break Rule 1, don't broadcast the news to your opponents. They will use it against you.
We didn't know it at the time - but that head office inspired Jones pre-selection victory was the single catalyst for the destruction of the Liberal Party as a force in NSW politics.
Jones quickly moved into a modest unfurnished flat in Homer Street, Earlwood but to no avail. The ALP pre-selected a local candidate who campaigned as a true local. His name was Ken Gabb. So the election would be "Gift of the Gab" versus Ken Gabb and Mr Gabb made sure all his electors knew his opponent came from somewhere out in Whoop-whoop.
I started the campaign as Alan's publicity director but I was only a few months into new employment as an electrical engineer and could not take any time off. Feeling that I was unable to contribute as much as I wanted to this unusual campaign, I stood down as publicity director but remained on the campaign committee.
By-elections are different to general elections and none of us in the electorate had by-election experience. I also noticed that Liberal Party HQ were mostly absent.
Whilst there was a considerable undertone amongst party members regarding Jones, most of them worked hard for him.
I was also forming the opinion that Alan had little idea how to run a campaign of any sort in a district where he was a stranger in town. He showed little sign of identifying with the "Struggle Streets" of Earlwood.
He seemed an impressive talker when giving speeches but my opinion is that the louder and faster people talk, the less thought they put into what they say. As the poem Desiderata says: "Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit".
Jones was like a fish out of water when handling routine campaign matters - and he did not always endear himself to his own campaign workers with his brusque manner. Most regarded him as an untalented blow-in. In particular, there were rumblings when he insisted on unconventionally using an image of little boys as the feature image on the main pamphlet.
Misogyny tendencies were evident too. My wife was six months pregnant and the first time she walked into the campaign headquarters to help, he rudely demanded she go and make him a cup of tea. Charming.
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Polling day finally arrived - 15th July 1978 - and we were still optimistic. Liberal Party campaigners were out in force at every polling place, including many volunteers from around Sydney.
Despite reservations about Jones, it never really occurred to any of us that he might lose. The Liberal Party had held this seat for nearly three decades.
In those days I had become the Tally Room statistician and during the evening after polling closed at 8 pm, I sat in the Bexley electorate office of the Federal Member for St George, Maurice Neil MP, waiting for scrutineers to call in the results. Also present were Maurice Neil, Alan Jones, Peter Coleman MLA (NSW Opposition Leader) and the fifth man was his Offsider, I think his surname may have been Solomon. He had a lot more to say than Coleman, whose political leadership depended on Jones retaining the seat.
I was ready to receive the results for each polling place and record them against the previous results in the 1976 State election. We had no radio or TV in the room, so we were totally immune to any outside commentary. The only sounds came from the constant traffic on Forest Road. Everyone was nervous.
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Maurice Neil took the scrutineers calls and repeated the numbers to me. I entered them on a chart, kept an accurate running total and calculated the percentage swings. (It was hard work as there were no computer spreadsheets in those days).
The initial swings were consistently much larger than the overall 4.5% swing needed by the ALP and even with only half the results tallied it had become crystal clear that Gabb and Labor had won. I saw it as my duty to inform Jones and the Leader of The Opposition that the by-election and the seat of Earlwood had been lost.
When I did, Jones did not speak. All these years later, I reckon that was probably the only time he ever stopped talking.
Maurice nodded - he knew the booths as well as I did. Coleman remained quiet.
However, the Offsider took offence. Glaring at me, he growled that my "presumptuous opinion" was not desired and that I should "get on with my job". I stared back at him for a while but this was not a moment for a shouting match with a fact denying idiot. No-one else spoke. I could have picked up my tally papers and walked out with them but decided to retain my dignity, by not engaging with the bully. I continued with the rest of the tally.
The results kept coming and once they were all received, I again informed the candidate and the Opposition Leader that Earlwood had been lost. Offsider still looked angry with me. The Opposition Leader, Mr Coleman was more gracious. We exchanged a few words and he thanked me for my work. In retrospect, it was clear that the wider ramifications of the by-election loss were racing through his head. It was catastrophic for the Liberal Party - and for Coleman it was the beginning of the end.
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From a 4.5% two party preferred majority in 1976, the final by-election result was turned into a 3050 votes first preferences loss: Gabb (ALP) 52.62% Jones (Lib) 42.04% and if the preferences of the other six candidates were split 50:50 the TPP result would have been ALP 55.3%. Liberal 44.7%.
Governments normally suffer very big swings against them at by-elections. This time they won a colossal swing towards them of almost 10%. In a by-election!
Jones was the wrong person for the job and his disastrous loss of a safe seat was a blow which triggered the decimation of the NSW Liberal Party and boosted Labor into twelve years of dominance.
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Weeks after the declaration of the by-election poll, a triumphant Premier Wran called a general election to capitalise on the debacle.
Inexplicably the Liberal Party Head Office re-endorsed Alan Jones for Earlwood (without a pre-selection). The campaign resumed all over again!
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At the general election on 7th October 1978, Jones lost Earlwood for the second time in twelve weeks, this time with an even worse result: Gabb (ALP) 61.6%. Jones (LIB) 38.4% - a staggering 16.1% swing over the two elections.
Across NSW, the Wran Labor government increased its majority by a landslide. Unfortunately, Peter Coleman lost his own seat and as a consequence was no longer Opposition Leader. He at least, deserved better than this Alan Jones head office inspired political circus - unless he was part of the head office push to pre-select Jones, in which case he reaped what he sowed.
I found out later that Jones had previously run as an unsuccessful Country Party pre-selection candidate in Eden-Monaro and subsequent to Earlwood made two further failed attempts to enter politics, before going into radio broadcasting and turning first 2UE, then 2GB into right wing propaganda outlets.
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Main Election Leaflet (dual fold):