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Contents
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The life and times of
George Petersen, MLA, 1921-2000
By Bob Gould
George Petersen, one-time member of the Communist Party and
several
Trotskyist organisations, Labor MLA for the Illawarra seat of Kembla
from 1968
to 1971, and for the seat of Illawarra from 1971 to 1988, died on March
28, 2000. In his period as a Labor member of
the New South Wales parliament, he had more lasting effect than any
other left-wing Labor state parliamentarian in any state parliament,
taking the lead in many major reforms to improve the plight of
oppressed people in NSW.
George Petersen was the grandchild of Scandinavian migrants to
Queensland, Danish and Swedish. It is a fascinating story of
Australia's migration history that the two most well-known Australian
public figures of Scandinavian extraction should be two Queenslanders,
George Petersen, a courageous, disinterested and effective left-winger
and reformer, and Joh Bjelke-Petersen, at the opposite end of the
spectrum, a dogged, self-interested reactionary.
George was converted to socialism as an idea and aspiration in
his
youth in the late 1930s. He served as a soldier during the Second World
War. During the war he joined the Communist Party, to which his
brother, a building workers union official, also belonged. He later
became an active communist in Brisbane, although even at that stage he
had some misgivings about Stalinism, and he was expelled from the
Returned Services League
as a suspected communist during the postwar witchhunt. He married in
1947 and he and Elaine, his first wife, had two children. He became a
commonwealth public servant. In 1956 he got a job transfer to the
industrial city of Wollongong in NSW, and this coincided with his
increasing disillusionment with the Communist Party, which was
sharpened by Khrushchev's exposure of the crimes of Stalin in his
speech
in 1956.
In 1957 he joined the Labor Party and he also took the
initiative in
forming a small semi-Trotskyist group of militant workers who published
a small newsletter called The Socialist. In 1960 this group
merged with another semi-Trotskyist group led by Nick Origlass, of
which I also was a member. I first met George at conferences of the
dissident communist magazine Outlook, where he and I tended to
represent the "left opposition", so to speak. The redoubtable Nick
Origlass, also, like George, a major and significant figure on the far
left of the labour movement, used to often refer to George with a
twinkle in his eye, as the "dole clerk", and later on when George was
elected to the state parliament, Nick's first question to George at any
casual meeting would be, "What's happening in the Gas House?", meaning
the state parliament. This reflected, really, the fact that Nick rather
envied George his position as a major tribune of the working class in
the parliament, having himself just missed out playing that role by a
whisker.
In terms of getting a toehold as a serious left-winger in
state
Labor parliamentary politics, George's move to Wollongong in 1956 put
him in the right place at the right time. In 1968 Howard Fowles, the
longstanding Labor MLA for Kembla, who had started his own
political career as a member of that political curiosity, the
Protestant Labor Party, retired from the seat. George had entrenched
himself for a number of years, in the time honoured ALP way, as
Fowles's major party activist in the electorate, and George won
preselection in a hotly contested ballot.
In the last four years of his life, George wrote his
autobiography, George Petersen Remembers
a very long book, which is of enormous and intrinsic value to anyone
with a serious interest in most aspects of labour movement politics.
The length and detail may possibly overwhelm some people in this more
instant age. Amongst the discussion of an enormous range of political
and historical questions, is a very detailed account of George's own
political activity over the whole period he was in the state
parliament. A significant part of the book is necessarily taken up with
the detail of ALP preselection ballots, ALP leadership ballots and
other aspects of the electoral process. Anyone with an interest in
running for public office through the ALP, motivated either simply by
career considerations, or by the complex mixture of ambition and desire
to serve the interests of the working class, which motivates a
significant minority, would do well to soak up the following paragraph
and more, out of George's useful book (page 217):
As I had found out in three previous pre-selection ballot
campaigns, it was very time-consuming sitting in people's kitchens and
answering their queries. In assessing my progress in obtaining support
I applied the three basic rules of ALP pre-selection ballots. First,
the only possible voters for you are those people who give a definite
"yes" answer to the direct question whether they will vote for you.
Second, treat all statements which do not give a direct "yes" answer as
"no" votes. Third, discount the number of "yes" responses by 10 per
cent. I also learned that most ALP members welcomed my radicalism, and
that included a substantial number of the people who were going to vote
against me. They all appreciated two things. First, they liked the fact
that I turned up to most of their branch meetings and gave a report
which never exceeded 10 minutes. Second, word had got around that I
always answered the telephone myself both in my office and my home.
Very seldom was I asked any questions about my stand on controversial
issues. The popularity of the Wran government had rubbed off on me. It
was very tempting to identify myself completely with him and to not
present my own point of view. I tried to resist that temptation. I hope
I succeeded without being sectarian.
George's book also describes the enormous number of
bread-and-butter
issues that he took up on behalf of constituents or other people, many
of which he successfully resolved on their behalf, and this aspect
underlines the importance of apparently "mundane" local issues to
ordinary people. George Petersen was an extremely conscientious local
Labor politician in this regard, which was repaid by the great respect
and support he built up amongst his constituents.
From this base of support gained by a serious attitude, taking
up
all the concerns of local people, George earned, in a completely
practical way, the right to act as a "tribune of the oppressed" in
relation to many questions that did not just directly affect his
constituents. Over the years he strongly campaigned for Aboriginal
rights, against the Vietnam War, against the apartheid regime in South
Africa, in favour of Palestinian rights, against the frame-up of the
Ananda Marga members Anderson, Alister and Dunn, and many other public
issues. By and large, he did not suffer for this electorally, because
his constituents knew him as a conscientious and ingenious
representative of their local interests.
Chaos theory says that such a tiny thing as a butterfly's
wings may
produce enormous hurricanes on the other side of the world. Well, a
kind of chaos theory is applicable to politics, particularly Labor
politics. It is quite reasonable to say that George's actions in the
ALP leadership ballot in 1973 were one of the factors that led to the
long-running Wran Labor government. In 1973 Wran stood for ALP
leadership against Pat Hills, with the support of the ALP right-wing
head office machine and the ALP left, but with the entrenched
opposition of the two "caves" of the ALP right in state parliament.
After all the arm-twisting and log-rolling, it became clear that
George's was the critical vote, the numbers in Caucus being evenly
matched between Wran and Hills. George's initial inclination was to
abstain, because Wran would not publicly support Jack Ferguson for
deputy at that stage. I remember arguing strongly to George that he
should, in fact, vote for Wran, because Wran was marginally better than
Hills, and that from a Marxist point of view, abstention in politics is
rarely justified, but George remained unconvinced. However, Wran
changed his stand, put Ferguson for whom George had considerable
personal respect, on the ticket, and Wran was elected by the narrowest
of margins, with George's vote, on a tied vote in the second ballot,
because he had had most number-one votes in the first ballot. In that
sense, George's butterfly wings were the factor that produced the
politically very significant long-running Wran government, with both
its good features and its bad features.
Possibly the Wran government's best feature in relation to the
machinery of politics, at its high tide, was the reform of the Upper
House, in which Wran achieved what appeared to be the impossible in
NSW, that is, transforming the reactionary old appointed upper chamber
into a full-time elected house, with proportional representation,
ensuring the input of minorities such as the Greens into state politics
at a very powerful level. Every representative of a progressive
minority elected under proportional representation to the Upper House
ought to ponder the significance of George Petersen's butterfly's wings.
Every one in the parliament, both friends and enemies, and
many in
the wider community, acknowledged that George was an energetic,
painstaking and ingenious parliamentarian, and took up every
significant progressive cause and humane interest, major or minor,
taking advantage of whatever parliamentary opportunities opened up.
He made a very major, material difference in three important
areas
of NSW life. First of all, his exposure of the Bathurst jail bashings,
and his constant and long-lasting campaign for prison reform, was the
direct cause of the Nagel Royal Commission into Prisons, which led to
very major prison reforms in NSW.
Secondly, his long-standing campaign for abortion law reform
resulted, effectively, in the legalisation of abortion in NSW. He
personally moved a private members bill for abortion law reform, which
failed. He supported several other private member's bills, which also
failed. He kept raising the question of abortion law reform in the
parliament, deliberately embarrassing the civilised amongst his
Labor colleagues and amongst the Liberals and Nationals, with a
view to getting a result. As this parliamentary pressure built up, a
legal case against an abortion clinic was decided in the courts and
Judge Levine gave a decision in this case, which effectively legalised
abortion, if conducted after proper counselling by a qualified medical
practitioner. The Levine decision took place while one of George's
private members bills on the question was before the parliament.
Jim Staples revealed at the 1988 launch of George's book
the
inside story of what happened. The most senior administrators of the
NSW police approached George and others involved and offered a deal. If
George's private members bill was dropped, there would be no more
prosecutions, the Abortion Squad would be abolished, and the Levine
decision would stand as the status quo, in practice legalising
abortion. George and the others concerned made the necessary deal with
the coppers, and abortion has been legal, for practical purposes in
NSW, ever since. Subsequently a private members bill, on this occasion
moved by Neville Wran himself, made the broad outlines of the Levine
decision the law of NSW. There is no question that George Petersen was
the parliamentarian primarily responsible for the de facto legalisation
of abortion in NSW.
The third issue in which George's parliamentary activity was a
major
factor in a civilised outcome was homosexual law reform. George, for a
number of years, conducted a parliamentary agitation for homosexual law
reform, and he heated up the parliamentary atmosphere by initiating or
supporting several private members bills on the subject, which failed.
Under this constant pressure from George and others, finally, in 1984
the Premier, Neville Wran, moved a bill for homosexual law reform,
which, while not perfect, as it left the age of consent at 18, still
effectively legalised homosexual activity amongst consenting adults.
Any woman who requires an abortion and can have it in proper
medical
surroundings, and any gay man who can engage in sexual activity without
fear of arrest, and any unfortunate prisoner in a jail whose time
inside is not as cruel and barbaric as it once was, might never have
even heard of George Petersen, but they owe him a lot.
The only leftist in any state parliament who gets anywhere
near
George Petersen in importance, is the redoubtable Percy Brookfield, who
was the Labor member and later the Independent Socialist Labor member
for Broken Hill, from 1917 to 1921, when he was assassinated.
Brookfield also played an energetic and courageous role in the NSW
state parliament. When the Storey Labor government was elected,
Brookfield had the balance of power, and he nominated as the price of
his support that the Storey government should find the means, somehow,
to release the 10 Industrial Workers of the World members who had been
framed up in the notorious trial in NSW in 1917. As recounted in Ian
Turner's book Sydney's Burning, and J.T. Lang's memoir I
Remember,
Storey as Premier needed to find a pro-Labor judge who could preside
over a royal commission necessary to find a formula for the release of
the framed men. The only such judge was in Tasmania, and the Tasmanian
Tory government would not make him available. However, Tasmania was
short of cement, and the ingenious deal was made that Tasmania got a
shipload of NSW cement in exchange for Mr Justice Pring, who presided
over the royal commission in the proper way and released the men.
Unfortunately Percy Brookfield was shot dead by a madman while
protecting other passengers on a railway station near Broken Hill, and
his parliamentary career thereby ended in his prime. He did not have
the time to further use his balance of power to bring about other major
legislative changes in the interests of the oppressed.
George became increasingly disenchanted during the latter
years of
the Wran and Unsworth governments, particularly at the demolition of
the workers compensation rights of ordinary people, which had been so
painstakingly built up over many years by the activity of the trade
unions. He chose quite deliberately to cross the floor and vote against
the Labor government on this issue, thereby incurring automatic
expulsion from the ALP. He then set about, in his usual energetic way,
starting a breakaway labour party, the Illawarra Workers Party, on the
South Coast, and running for parliament as a labour independent under
its banner. He had the very clear idea that, if elected as a Labor
independent, he might have considerable possibilities for continuing
his radical parliamentary activities as a tribune of the people of NSW.
He was very unlucky in the political conjuncture, when the decisive
election was held. Unsworth's legislation against guns, combined with
weariness at the right-wing nature of Labor governments, combined to
produce a massive backlash against state Labor, and a very big
electoral swing to the Liberals. In a totally principled way, George
very publicly supported the Unsworth government's gun control
legislation, which did not help him electorally at all in a
working-class South Coast electorate like Illawarra. In the
unprecedented swing to the Liberals in that election, the Liberal
candidate got ahead of George and the Labor candidate was therefore
elected. George was very unlucky. In normal circumstances, he might
well have won as a labour independent. One can imagine the relief in
the mind of Bob Carr, later down the track, when his new Labor
government had a majority of one vote. I'm sure that Carr, who is quite
a discursive student of history, must have contemplated with some
relief the fact that George was not present in the parliament with the
balance of power, which he might have had. Had these been the
circumstances, there is no doubt that George would have used the
balance of power ruthlessly to force all kinds of reform measures on a
reluctant Labor government.
As Premier Carr has said on radio the day after he passed
away,
George was a complex, interesting, intelligent and passionate man. In
the cut-and-thrust of politics, he could be extremely sharp, if that
was necessary. He was very loyal to friends and not a bad hater if
circumstances led him to (usually quite justified) hostility to any
political figure. His feud with a one-time associate, Bob Harrison, who
had shifted over to the populist right in Labor politics, was the stuff
of legend, as were his parliamentary wars with such reactionary figures
as Fred Nile and the Liberal MLA, Peter Cameron. He won a widely
publicised defamation suit against Fred Nile, and happily banked the
money, which he used for righteous radical political causes.
In private life, he was an affectionate husband and father,
and his
enduring and powerful relationship with his second wife, Mairi, was of
enormous importance to both of them. George was a stubbornly
heterosexual man and he really enjoyed the company and friendship of
women. After he and Mairi got together, her political and trade union
interests, which were pretty similar to his anyway, became an important
part of his political activity as well. He lived long enough to write
his autobiography, which in my view is of genuinely enduring interest
as an account of labour movement politics and his life and times. As he
became more ill and infirm, he tended to hang on rather stubbornly to
life, and to rage a bit, in Dylan Thomas's words, "against the dying of
the light". His wife Mairi was his great and enduring support in his
final illnesses.
George's Memorial Celebration at Dapto was attended by a very
large
and diverse crowd of 500 people. The Trade Union Choir sang the Internationale
and Solidarity Forever.
Speakers included Tim Anderson, who in part owes his freedom to George;
Stewart West, former federal Minister for Immigration; Graeme Roberts,
the federal president of the very important Australian Workers Union;
Mahommed Matir, representing Palestinian Australians; John Marsden, and
George's son, barrister, Eric Peterson. Those present included Jack
Ferguson, the former Deputy Premier of NSW, and Michael Knight,
Olympics Minister, representing the state government. The chairman,
Russell Hannah, pointed out that as a descendant of the Vikings, George
would probably go to a socialist warriors' Valhalla. This extraordinary
memorial went on for over two hours without the slightest hint of
boredom from the packed hall at Dapto.
April 2000
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