The Stories That Changed Australia: 50 Years of Four Corners

by Sally Neighbour

  I was conscious that Chris, my close friend, was deeply tired even before he headed north on this story. His work rate had been stunning. On a couple of occasions, I travelled to Brisbane to help out Shaun and Chris on what I thought was a dangerous story for both of them. Once, when Chris seemed to be losing heart, I pushed him to keep following the leads to the top of the tree, past the expected sleaze at street level. When the story went to air on 11 May 1987 — heavily legalled by our latest ABC Legal Department leaders, Bruce Donald and Judith Walker — it had the same effect on Queensland law and politics that ‘The Big League’ had done in New South Wales.

  But it was far from over. For Chris and the legal team, it was the beginning of a decade of court appearances defending the program, including court appearances for Chris and me in Cairns. Donald and Walker were part of the ‘new’ ABC now run by David Hill, Managing Director since October 1986. Donald and Walker came with a novel legal philosophy: the job of defamation lawyers is to ensure good programs get to air, not to stop them, and all practical steps would be taken to support them. From here on, program-makers worked closely with the lawyers before broadcast to stiffen up their research, scripts, witnesses and documents to ensure we would win the inevitable defamation case in the years ahead. This, in turn, involved support ‘upstairs’ from my new head of TV News and Current Affairs, Bob Kearsley (and later, Derek White), and all the way up to David Hill. Hill was fully committed, including with the budget to run the cases until we won.

  In the same month as ‘Moonlight State’, we also hit our straps in the reactive mode I wanted. I had recently hired Marian Wilkinson from the National Times, and among her contacts was a source in Suva. Fijian politics had been volatile since the departure of Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, and when Marian was warned that a ‘move’ to bring down the democratically elected Fijian government was imminent, I despatched her with a crew. We wanted to be there on the spot when it happened. Within days military strongman Major-General Sitiveni Rabuka struck, invading Parliament and locking out the politicians and media. Producer Andrew Clark barely had time to fly in to join the team. Within a week we had pictures of Marian, sleeves rolled up, knocking on the gates of military HQ, as well as exclusive local interviews and analysis. Marian had turned the story of the coup d’état around in a sixth of the normal time.

  Marian’s appointment was itself a coup for Four Corners. She came with a sky-high reputation for investigative reporting from the National Times and, before that, with pieces from Queensland in Nation Review. Later the same year she would produce the story on Sir Peter Abeles so hated by the Prime Minister. And, along with researcher Monica Attard, Marian would expose the inner workings of a plot to destroy Liberal Opposition leader John Howard and install Andrew Peacock. Marian’s and Monica’s persuasiveness in getting reluctant politicians to publicly parade their egos and Machiavellian skills was truly extraordinary in ‘True Believers’.

  The year 1987 started extremely badly for me. Late 1986 had seen rumblings in the world of media giants. Channel 10 had been bought by a company belonging to one of Australia’s richest men, Frank Lowy, owner of the Westfield chain of shopping centres. He, too, wanted to dabble in media and, in particular, in current affairs television. He started Page One and began a search for top reporters. A group of Four Corners staff, including Chris Masters, would walk out the door for the big bucks offered in commercial land.

  Through 1987 and ’88 I moved fast to fill these holes, keeping sacred ‘the format’, with Andrew Olle as presenter, and continuing the run of hard-hitting stories. I raided Fairfax again. In the footsteps of David Marr and Marian now came investigative crime reporter Neil Mercer, news reporters Kate McClymont and Deborah Snow and librarian Kate Owen, the latter to start our own News Clippings Library when Fairfax closed theirs in 1987. I had kept the wonderful Nadine Connor as secretary when Jonathan left, but when she departed two years later, I was able to secure Rosemary Meares (now Newell) from Fairfax, too. It was a quality journalism transplant. But all, like me, faced learning filmmaking from scratch. Once again, our great producers, crews and editors would step up to the mark in an informal training program.

  One hole I felt Four Corners had was coverage of business stories. No one on the program knew how to read a corporate balance sheet. Enter Paul Barry to the rescue. Paul was a reporter and presenter for the BBC who was seriously itching to bring his wife and family to Australia. He rang about a job. With his Oxford background, good looks, presentation skills and fire in his belly, he was perfect.

  Paul made an immediate impact, taking Four Corners to new heights (while Page One failed to hit the mark). He did a program on Margaret Thatcher and how her neo-liberalism was transforming Britain and its economy, wrapping new ideas in a current affairs format. His first expedition into corporate behaviour was a highly emotional report about blue asbestos mining in Western Australia. With the help of producer Sue Spencer and researcher Kate McClymont, he found one of Australia’s top-tier companies, CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining Co Ltd), was involving its Wittenoom mine workers and their families, who lived nearby, in practices the company executives knew were likely to give them the deadly cancer mesothelioma. The program, ‘Blue Death’, used all Four Corners’ latest documentary skills to expose the corporate crimes being committed. Cameraman Wayne Harley and Paul found themselves in tears several times during and after the report.

  And in 1989 Paul targeted another of Bob Hawke’s business mates, Alan Bond. This time the tone was forensic rather than emotional. Barry’s back-room dissection of Bond Corporation’s tax avoidance was relentless. I threw money at his project. He flew to the Cook Islands to chase down some of Bond’s tax-haven accounts and catch contacts unawares. From there, he visited Hong Kong to gather documents proving Bond’s tax dealings. And finally he turned up in front of Bond’s Chief Financial Officer, Roger Oates, for what I regard as the best interview of my period. We added an extra camera to record the CFO sweat as Paul went head to head with him about the balance sheet detail of how the company was illegally avoiding tax. Between camera rolls, Paul spoke not a word to Oates, although they sat metres apart. When the verbal battle was over, Oates was demolished. Bruce Donald advised doing interviews from a Sydney accountant to back up Paul’s reading of the figures. When ‘Bondy’s Bounty’ went to air, it kick-started legal proceedings that brought down one of Australia’s high-flyers (and hero of the America’s Cup win) and put him in jail.

  The week after this program came another game-changer: ‘Frozen Asset’, about proposals to introduce mining in the large Australian chunk of pristine Antarctica. Martin Butler had been following the debate in the federal parliament and convinced me Four Corners needed to be part of it. Could he take Tony Jones and cameraman David Maguire and soundo Eric Briggs to film what was at stake? Yes was the answer, though the story would take many more weeks than normal to bring to air. The result was not just stunning cinematography (including an iceberg that spectacularly rolled over in front of the crew in its dinghy far from the Russian mother ship) but a powerful moral case for saving this wilderness. Following the program, both Environment Minister Graham Richardson (an unlikely greenie) and Opposition leader John Howard declared their total opposition to any mining in Antarctica.

  In the space of two weeks Four Corners had put to air two programs that would change Australia. For the last seven years it had made that kind of impact, with major programs several times a year. We had won a score of individual Walkley Awards, the most prized by the journalist community. And in 1988 and again in 1989 we won the Logie for Outstanding Achievement in Current Affairs. My pride in my team was overwhelming when I walked to the stage in 1989 to pick up the Logie from 60 Minutes and A Current Affair star Jana Wendt. We had achieved mixed results with ratings but made an enormous impact.

  Four Corners had developed its own format, too; a way of telling stories that marked us out from our commercial rivals. We didn’t just air allegations or market ‘exclusi
ves’, we insisted on chasing down allegations and proving or disproving them. This took more time, more manpower and more money, but the rewards — for us personally and for Australia — were greater too. We earned our credibility.

  My memory is we also had a good time. The esprit de corps in the office was very high. The passion and adrenalin always seemed to be running. Three of my favourite editors came to me at a recent Four Corners celebration and said, ‘Thanks for making us feel like we were all equals on your program.’ I could not have received a greater compliment. I think ‘leading from behind’ marks out an Australian management style, from the military to corporations to the public service. We made the ABC proud, too. I remember Board member Sister Veronica Brady dropping in one day and saying, ‘How about lunch?’ We usually went to the Great Northern Hotel in Chatswood. I asked if she cared for a barbecued steak. ‘Sure,’ she said, then jumped in a camera car and off we went. We enjoyed her company immensely. Likewise that of big Tim Bristow. And Paul Keating on the blower shooting the breeze about Pay TV. And John Howard in the studio Green Room with Andrew and me, complaining about Asian immigration.

  Ah, what a privilege. I think the key for us journalists was that we all enjoyed each other’s successes. And the key for our viewers was that we were accountable to them as taxpayers, not to shareholders and advertisers. Long may it last.

  9

  HANDLE WITH CARE

  by Jenny Brockie

  I arrived at Four Corners in 1983, hot on the heels of ‘The Big League’. It was a great break for a 28-year-old, and didn’t I know it.

  I’d been recruited from the ABC’s daily national TV current affairs show Nationwide, where I’d been a reporter for more than four years in a talented and headstrong team which included Mark Colvin, Andrew Olle and Paul Murphy. We were a tight bunch, and took our journalism, and sometimes ourselves, pretty seriously. Nationwide had been a wild ride, a hothouse of journalistic intensity and long lunches typical of the late ’70s and early ’80s. I forged lasting bonds of friendship with many of the people there, but after more than four years, I was growing frustrated with daily current affairs and ready to move on, having exhausted the patience of successive executive producers with my agonising over scripts and desire to do longer and longer stories.

  I’d wanted to join Four Corners for at least a year, naively believing there couldn’t be that much difference between doing a 20-minute story (which I occasionally got away with on Nationwide, though the program preferred shorter pieces) and a 30–50 minute one. When I tentatively inquired about a move I was told I was too young, that if I went to Four Corners too soon I’d have ‘nothing to look forward to’.

  At the start of the ’80s the program was unkindly dubbed ‘the elephants’ graveyard’, a place where older journalists saw out their final reporting days. Despite a much respected 20-year history, its languid, ponderous style had become clunky and dated. 60 Minutes had burst onto Australian television screens in 1979 with a faster pace and more engaging storytelling. Channel 9’s brash new offering was much maligned by ABC diehards, but its Executive Producer, Gerald Stone, had lured some of television’s best journalists to his stable, and they were delivering some strong stories. Four Corners needed to lift its game.

  As I sat tight at Nationwide, trying to work out how to age faster, I was also warned that Four Corners was ‘difficult’ for women. No one could really explain why. Caroline Jones shone as a woman of talent and grace who’d deftly managed to navigate the flagship, but she looked like an exception. Mary Delahunty had done well, but it seemed to me the few other female reporters in the program’s long history either hadn’t stayed or, if they had, were often described by colleagues in terms of personality and temperament rather than the quality of their work. Four Corners had reported on the rights of women, but it didn’t have a stellar history of hiring or keeping them.

  By 1982 though, there was an appetite for change. An Englishman had been imported to give the show a shake. His imminent arrival was anticipated with a predictable journalistic cocktail of blind hope and knee-jerk suspicion. Jonathan Holmes had a fine reputation as a producer with the BBC’s Panorama program, but what on earth would he know about Australia? It might be just what Four Corners needed. Oh, God, why do they always think the Poms will do a better job? Panorama was terrific, lots of investigations. But wasn’t the ABC trying to get away from being so British?

  My then boyfriend, Peter Manning, a Bondi-loving, cricket-playing enthusiast for all things Australian, had been moved to Four Corners as a producer, and was unofficially tasked with making Jonathan feel welcome. Peter’s approach was to plot a quick program of cultural re-education for the very English Mr Holmes. He would win Jonathan over with Australia’s irresistible charms. Jonathan would quickly shed his Englishness and embrace all things Australian — the sun, the sand, the gum leaves.

  Days after the new EP’s arrival, friends had invited us to a picnic at Mount Wilson in the Blue Mountains. It wasn’t exactly Bondi, but Peter figured it would be the perfect transition, with a friendly game of cricket and plenty of nice deciduous trees. Familiar. Unthreatening. We invited Jonathan to join us and he accepted.

  As we headed up the Great Western Highway, Jonathan asked from the back seat when we would be seeing some trees. ‘Those are trees,’ I said, vaguely waving at the intermittent eucalypts en route. ‘But trees are green,’ he replied firmly.

  Once we’d arrived and found a perfect spot for our picnic, we laid out the blankets. The new Four Corners EP remained resolutely on his feet. What was likely to be making those small rustling sounds under the fallen gum leaves? He’d read that a lot of things in Australia could kill you.

  Then a crow squawked nearby.

  ‘What’s that!’

  ‘A bird Jonathan, it’s a bird.’

  ‘That’s not a bird. Birds go tweet tweet.’

  It didn’t help that he was quickly bowled, twice, when we played cricket.

  I suggested Peter should just take him to dinner.

  Fortunately Jonathan enthusiastically embraced Australia and set about overhauling Four Corners. When he offered me a reporting job, he made it painfully clear he wasn’t at all sure I was up to it. Privately, neither was I.

  At 28, I was keen and ambitious but quick to doubt myself professionally, believing I’d somehow fluked my way into journalism and would one day be unmasked as a complete fraud. My journey through the ABC to that point felt like a combination of lucky breaks and bizarre obstacles. During my cadetship at ABC News I’d been told by an executive to forget my dreams of political journalism because women’s voices weren’t authoritative enough. I was crushed, but somehow made it to the Canberra press gallery within a year. Another executive confided to me at a party — he was very drunk — that I would never be appointed overseas because the ABC didn’t want homosexuals in foreign postings. I was completely dumbstruck. So was my boyfriend. So wrong, in so many ways. And hardly reassuring to know the executive was paid handsomely to safeguard standards of fairness and accuracy. There were some truly strange people in the ABC in the late ’70s and early ’80s.

  Mark Colvin, Jim Middleton, Paul Lockyer and others had been beacons of support as I stumbled through those early years, and John Penlington’s offer to join the Nationwide team in 1979 had been a godsend. But some of my experiences had made me overly defensive about my work and wary of people in charge, often when I didn’t need to be. More importantly, despite some solid work at Nationwide, I still had a huge amount to learn.

  Ironically, I probably got the job at Four Corners in large part because I was female and young. Jonathan wanted to change the show’s profile, but he didn’t have many young women journalists to choose from. I knew I was riding a very lucky break. So I sailed into Four Corners, ambitious and scared, hoping the winds of change would be kind to me.

  Instinctively I knew what I was good at — interviewing and getting to the nub of a story. My big weakness in those days was s
tructure. I regularly struggled to assemble the masses of raw material gathered for a lengthy television story into a compelling narrative. I would pore over scripts for hours, getting stuck on detail or looking for the perfect segue, rather than pulling back and embracing the story as a whole. That was a quality I’d seen in Andrew Olle, who was notorious for continually changing scripts until the very last minute. I’ve often wondered whether some journalists reduce stories to black and white, not necessarily because it’s their preference, but because it’s so much easier than capturing nuance.

  Four Corners was hard. Structure was all-important to the new EP and he was clearly appalled by what he saw as a dearth of it on air. We were urged to be storytellers, to film sequences, to use words cleverly and sparingly. Jonathan had a remarkable skill. He could sit through a one-hour ‘rough cut’ (first edit) of a story, take no notes, then clinically take it all apart almost frame by frame. His love of the craft of making television resulted in tortuous scripting sessions and fierce arguments in the cutting room and beyond. There was resistance from reporters, editors and crews. The urgency with which he viewed the task of improving Four Corners’ standards sometimes led to him so thoroughly taking over stories, they no longer felt like our own. Rewritten scripts occasionally bore the hallmarks of an Englishman abroad. He would rip apart our ‘films’, as we liked to call them, until they were barely recognisable, then reconstitute them and occasionally, in an exasperating moment of his own self-doubt, wonder aloud whether they might have been better before. They invariably weren’t.