Elections I recollect

CRIKEY, what an election contest we have just witnessed which saw Daniel Andrews re-elected as Premier of Victoria despite the campaign waged against him. As one of yesterday’s men I decided to keep my thoughts to myself and let the experts – and there are plenty of them – give us their opinions. And they certainly did!

I remember the first election I covered, way back in 1961, as a second-year cadet journalist here at the Addy.

Robert Menzies was the Liberal Country Party coalition Prime Minister and Arthur Calwell the Labor Opposition leader. Hubert Opperman was the Liberal Party member for Geelong.

I reported both party leaders in Geelong during that campaign, which saw a big swing against the Liberals, but they just held on by two seats.

Henry Bolte was the Liberal and Country Party of Victoria state premier and he also won an election in 1961, although I did not have much to do with that campaign.

Two years later, I was one of a team of reporters for The Scotsman newspaper, in Edinburgh, covering Robert Menzies being invested in to the Knighthood of the Thistle, by the late Queen Elizabeth II.

Unfortunately, I was not the reporter chosen to attend the luncheon following the ceremony, but I doubt whether the newly created “Sir” Robert would have recognised the young reporter who covered his election campaign speech in Geelong two years earlier!

A year later, I reported the Edinburgh campaigns of Labour Opposition leader Harold Wilson and Conservative Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home, who had succeeded Harold Macmillan when he retired.

Wilson’s Labour Party won the day but, with only a small majority, he decided to go to the polls again just 17 months later and won in a landslide against Edward Heath.

I remember Mr Heath shouting a group of us reporters drinks at a pub near the hall in which he gave his speech just to check we had it correct.

That was the end of my British election campaigns as later that year we returned to Australia.

Life changed as I gained a job with the Immigration Department as an information officer, first in Melbourne and later I was transferred to Canberra.

I wrote occasional speeches for the Immigration Minister, Billy (later Sir William) Snedden, among other duties.

In 1972, after 11 years away, we returned to Geelong and a year later I was back at the Addy.

It was a busy time as far as elections were concerned.

Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and John Howard at federal level and, at state level, Rupert Hamer, Lindsay Thompson, John Cain Jr, Joan Kirner and Jeff Kennett.

I must admit I came to have respect for people on both sides of politics.

There were not the various independent political groups back then, so it was probably much simpler.

But things have changed considerably in the 60-plus years since I started on the Addy and no doubt will continue to do so.