NEWS DESK
The men who remade the news
Police honour colleague
By David Harrisson THE Melbourne Press Club last week commemorated the death of Graham Perkin, one of Australia’s great journalists, 40 years ago. He was vitally alive in that room for the many who worked with him, and for those honouring the legend he has become, an enduring and inextinguishable presence in the annals of Melbourne. Ranald Macdonald, a former managing director of David Syme and Company who now lives at Flinders, appointed Graham Perkin editor and with him revived The Age, making it a newspaper of world renown. He spoke at the commemoration dinner. This is an edited text of his address:
A FUNERAL service will be held at the Police Academy, Wheelers Hill, on Tuesday (20 October) for Leading Senior Constable Simone Carroll, a mother in her mid-30s, who died last week. She is believed to have taken her own life at the Seaford Multi-Disciplinary Centre, Monday, after 12 years on the force. The coroner is investigating the incident, in which the policewoman is believed to have shot herself with her service revolver. The Seaford centre is one of the four in Victoria providing support and services for adults and children who have experienced sexual assault. It is believed that more than 40 Victoria Police officers have committed suicide since 1990. The Age reports that Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton last month ordered a comprehensive investigation into how to improve the mental health of officers. Police Association secretary Ron Iddles told radio station 3AW that officers had to deal with confronting work issues. “One in five of the general community will suffer depression, and if you overlay police work, which has got relatively harder and more stressing over the last couple of years … the statistics are in excess of 200 members in the past 12 months are going off sick with mental illness,” he said.
The two of us Graham for nine all-too-short years led The Age from the front, from the middle and from the sides. It is one hell of a job being editor. The pressures are enormous, particularly when you are charged – as Graham, at the age of 36, wanted to be charged – with making the paper the best, the most relevant and the most influential and trusted journal that you can. Graham first identified the best talent from within the company and brought in talent from without. Then he nurtured, encouraged and cajoled to get what he wanted from a terrific group of journalists, photographers and cartoonists. It was a very large team with a captain who, to use a football expression, was the undisputed Brownlow medallist. He was, after
GRAHAM Perkin all, a Walkley Award winner and a terrific writer. [Macdonald returned from Cambridge University in the late 1950s, “flaunting a brand-new degree in law and history”, to learn the family business from the editorial floor to the board room.] Anyone new to the reporters’ room in 1959 could see immediately that the driving force was Graham. He just dominated with his ideas, his encouragement and his leadership. He had the respect of all. When I became managing director my good fortune was that he was still
there. He was appointed editor in 1966 – it was a no-brainer. He became a close friend and partner. Our approach to what needed to be done melded, matured and expanded. For nine stimulating years things happened. The paper grew in impact and in reputation – and not just as the “Spencer Street Soviet”. Then, in 1975 the Graham Perkin era tragically ended. [Perkin died at home of a heart attack early on 16 October.] This evening is about Graham Perkin and his influence on Australian journalism – and the reputation he gave The Age nationally and internationally.
Graham believed that newspapers were, as he put it, “a public trust, as well as a private business”. He introduced the concept of telling readers about what we were doing and who were doing it. He believed in the need for public trust and The Age’s role in representing it in challenging the decision makers, in holding their collective feet to the fire – and in allowing readers to know what was happening and why. Both of us believed that democracy only works if you have a free and questioning media, which provides an early warning system so the community can have its say before decisions are made behind closed doors. Graham’s one-eyed allegiance to the Melbourne Football Club should also be mentioned – he said that having a managing director being equally one-eyed about Collingwood [Macdonald was Magpies’ president for four years in the 1980s] provided him with a steady second income. Melbourne won most encounters in those days, though on the golf course Graham was less successful, as his approach was purely physical – the further the better was his motto. He was great company, had a terrific sense of humour – the Savage Club was his environment rather than the Melbourne Club. Graham filled a significant place in my life with nothing off-limits for debate and discussion – including the perennial theme of how to make The Age a better paper. His name will live on as a symbol for all that was best in Australian journalism – and still can be.
Ferry trip not restful for all bay riders
Lehane family fundraiser THE Carrum Downs branch of Bendigo Bank is holding a charity auction for the Lehane family on Sunday 25 October, 2.30-6pm at the Seaford Hotel, 362 FrankstonDandenong Rd, Seaford. The bank has set up a fundraising account for the family of Andrea Lehane, who died in an accident at Carrum Downs Regional Shopping Centre last month. Ms Lehane is survived by her husband James and children aged 3 and 4. See bendigobank.com.au or call Bendigo Bank on 1300 236 344 for information about the charity auction.
Talk about Christ
AN estimated 10,000 cyclists took to the roads on Sunday (11 October) in the 23rd annual Around the Bay – Ride for a Child in Need. Most of those opting for the longer 250 kilometre ride around Port Phillip had some relief from pedalling while aboard the Queenscliff-Sorrento ferry. However, the 28 members of the Pirates Sporting Club swapped handle bar for oars, rowing surf boats across the 12 kilometre stretch of water. Other riders followed courses ranging from 20 to 10 kilometres, including ones starting at Geelong and Sorrento. From the beach at Sorrento the Pirates were back on their bikes and heading to the finish along with every-
body else in Melbourne’s Alexandra Gardens. Cyclists of all ages and abilities took part in the event which is billed as the largest of its type in Australia. Money from the ride goes to the Smith Family charity for disadvantaged children. This year’s target was $1.2 million which can help provide one year’s schooling for 1200 children. “Around the Bay has inspired tens of thousands of people to take up bike riding to improve their health and fitness – as well as building a strong community of riders across Australia,” Bicycle Network’s general manager of events Darren Allen said. Keith Platt
THE “Hebrew roots of the Christian faith” will be discussed next week at a meeting at Frankston’s Full Blessing Church. David Ward says results of his studies into the origins of Christianity were “amazing and have challenged much of what I thought I knew about Jesus Christ”. “For starters, I asked myself about this name Jesus, how many babies born in Israel are called Jesus? Never happened. In Mexico perhaps, but not Israel or any other Jewish community,” Mr Ward said. “Turns out he had a name that was very common among Jews, it was Yeshua. This name means salvation and was a common contraction for Yahushua, or Joshua, which means Yah, and is short for Yahovah. “Many would remember a famous Italian by the name of Giuseppe Verde. If we translated his name it would be Joe or John Green in English. But no one ever did that because that wasn’t his name and you don’t translate someone’s name.” Mr Ward’s breakfast discussion about Christianity starts at 8am, Saturday 24 October at the Full Blessing Church, 56 Yuille St, Frankston. Bookings: 0404 881 888. Cost: $7.50, including breakfast. Frankston Times 19 October 2015
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