First published in Good Weekend on October 1, 1994
One of the mysteries of recent times has been trying to work out exactly what Bronwyn Bishop stands for. Obviously her politics are conservative but beyond her mantras to the flag, the crown and the rights of the individual, there's little to put your finger on. No long-held policy positions to provide clues and, with the exception of Margaret Thatcher, no obvious political or philosophical role models.
Rick Kabriel has liked it that way too. He is a man who stands in the shadows and yet he has been described by an intermediary as one of the most important influences in Bronwyn Bishop's life, in some ways her political mentor. Born Bedric Kabriel in Czechoslovakia in 1939, he came to Australia in the 1950s and at a young age set up Fontana Films, a film studio and production company in Turrella, an inner south-western suburb of Sydney.
It was there in the grounds of Fontana Films in the mid- 1980s that Kabriel's friend, Lyenko Urbanchich, had his Liberty Research office located, inside two rust-brown railway carriages parked under a clump of willow trees. Liberty Research was an extreme right-wing organisation which published a magazine called Esprit de Corps. The magazine is now defunct and the organisation renamed Conservative Research.
While his film company has been his source of livelihood, the whole focus and passion of Rick Kabriel's life has been the liberation of his homeland Czechoslovakia from communist rule. He is such a devoted Czech he even taught his Australian-born wife and children to speak the language. For years he worked with pro-democracy forces in Australia and abroad, raising money and sending messages behind the lines to try to overthrow the regime and to see his family's factory and estate in Bohemia returned to him. When the so-called"Velvet" Revolution swept the communist regime aside in 1989, Kabriel was there, in Prague's Wenceslas Square, standing cheek by jowl with a million other overjoyed Czechs, saluting the man he calls his friend, the new president Vaclav Havel. It was a day Kabriel had lived for.
Kabriel has been active around the fringes of the Liberal Party for years. He is, by his own admission, fanatically pro-free-enterprise and in the early 1980s became one of the first people ever to challenge a union's right to strike under the controversial section 45D of the Trade Practices Act. In this case it was Actors' Equity.
According to a number of his former employees he used to be less than comfortable with non-Caucasians. Phillipa Byers, a former assistant film editor, remembers a commercial that Fontana once produced for an Indonesian company and the derogatory way Kabriel spoke about the Indonesians when they were not in the room.
One former employee, who asked not to be identified, said that staff were always overworked. "It was just expected that we would work all night or all weekend without any penalties or bonuses," he said.
Bishop's detractors have long claimed that she is bereft of policies, that her cupboard of ideas is bare, that what she does express is breathtaking for its shallowness and simplicity. How long, they've asked, can she keep beating the drum on this theme of individualism versus collectivism? Why does it flavour nearly all of her speeches? And where does it come from anyway?
Rick Kabriel provides a significant clue. In 1975 he wrote a book called Egoessentialism, published by ACT Publishings, located at the same address as Fontana Films in Sydney. The book is pocket-sized and enclosed in a red, black and white jacket. According to former employees, Kabriel often gave his new employees a copy of his book when they began working for him.
Egoessentialism must be one of the most bizarre political tomes ever written in Australia. It divides the world up between "egoessential" societies and "egoregressive" ones. Those who believe in the primacy of the individual are basically egoessentials. Those who believe in collectives are egoregressives. Kabriel sings hymns to the virtues of Slav culture, in particular Bohemia. He defended white South Africa, decries tolerance as we know it, murmurs against racial coexistence and political compromise, and divides the world between egoregressive enemies who would seek to impose collectives on us and egoessentials who dance in the sunlight of individualism.
Nearly 20 years after it was written, Egoessentialism seems to be a great source of inspiration to Bronwyn Bishop. Otherwise, why are there these uncanny similarities to his economic and philosophical views? During her speech to the Journalists' Club she said: "Individualism must be understood. There is a difference between knowing what I say and understanding what I say. The difference between the two is that understanding requires an extra dimension, a personal involvement, and an insight into knowledge."
On page 20 of Egoessentialism Rick Kabriel writes: "The difference between knowing and understanding is that understanding requires personal involvement. It requires an insight, a view of knowledge, a mental development of the mind."
Similarly Bishop told the Journalists' Club about the principles of free enterprise, principles which say:
"Everything produced is produced by the people and everything that the government gives to the people it must first take from the people. The only valuable money that government has to spend is that which is taxed or borrowed from the earnings and savings of the people."
On page 84 of Egoessentialism, Rick Kabriel put it like this:
"Now the only real money a government can spend without causing inflation and unemployment or both is money taxed or borrowed out of people's earnings. Everything produced is produced by the people. In order to give to the people the government must firstly take from the people."
A third example, towards the end of Bishop's speech, was:
"Let us identify what's currently wrong and what will never work for the benefit of individuals. What is wrong is the assumption that the Australian people will continue to accept ever- increasing restrictions on their liberties by the continuous growth of centralised power of the government and bureaucracy.
"Look at the continuous rise in taxes, the implementation of plans and controls which restrict an individual's ability to make decisions ... The result is fewer enterprises being established."
And now Rick Kabriel's version:
"Let us consider economy as an example. Virtually every attempt at a solution has required more power and organisation by some central body such as the government, at the expense of the individual. The continuous rise in tax of every sort imaginable, the various plans and controls which restrict individual decision ... all result in the inability of small, new enterprises establishing themselves."
There are numerous other examples. Where Kabriel writes about the individual creating "tools" to achieve further development, Bishop speaks about "tools" being created in a free society. Where Kabriel writes about"mental and physical" abilities to create tools, Bishop speaks about "human energy both physical and mental".
Kabriel writes: "Egoessentialism seeks to reduce bureaucracy, to lower all forms of taxation and to make this possible it seeks to increase individual responsibility." Sound familiar? It is virtually a summation of Bishop's belief system. When Bishop addressed preselectors for the Federal seat of Mackellar earlier this year she had underlined in her speech the following words. "Individualism must be understood".
On page 11 of Egoessentialism are the words: "Basically, the structure of an Egoessential culture is a structure for the individual. Therefore, it must be simple, logical and understood."
The influence of Rick Kabriel was apparent also in an address Bishop gave to the Queensland Liberal Party President's dinner in May 1993, shortly after the party's disastrous Federal election loss. Emphasising how pernicious government was, Bishop again used words similar to Kabriel's:
"Government is never the source of goods - everything produced is produced by the people and everything that the government gives to the people, it must first take from the people. The only real money government spends is money it takes out of people's earnings or borrows out of people's savings."
(Bishop was to use the same words three months later in an article that she wrote for The Bulletin and again in her maiden speech in the House of Representatives.)
As a result of the way the Senate ticket had been reorganised in 1987, Chris Puplick and Bronwyn Bishop found themselves on the same half-Senate ticket for the 1990 elections. At that election the Liberal Party was going to have the number one and number three positions, with the National Party taking the number two spot.
The election was going to be close and whoever was number three on the ticket was always going to be in a tenuous position. Bishop was determined to make sure it wasn't her, even though she was a backbencher and Puplick was by then shadow minister for the Environment, Arts and Bicentenary. Only if she was number one, she argued, would the Coalition stand a chance of getting all three candidates into the Senate. "The question is not whether someone's ego is better than someone else's ego," she said.
"The question is, 'Do we want to win three positions or two?' "
Her campaign to woo preselectors was unprecedented. She hired former journalist Suzanne Blake as her publicity agent and during a one-week blitz held at least five major functions in the city. One of them was a sumptuous affair at Mary Fairfax's salon at Fairwater where the big surprise of the night was John Elliott who spoke on Bishop's behalf. Elliott was then full-steam ahead with his campaign for the prime ministership and Bishop was regarded as one of his core backers.
Not all the preselectors were given the royal treatment that night. Don Harwin, a well-known supporter of Chris Puplick, had already accepted the invitation from Fairwater when he received a call from Bishop's office the day before the party to say that there'd been a mistake, he was not supposed to be on the invitation list. There were two types of preselectors, the caller explained, members of the State executive and delegates from the Federal electorate conference (FEC), and he was the wrong type - the party at Fairwater was just for conference preselectors. When Harwin insisted he was also a conference preselector, Bishop's staffer said she would check again with Bishop. "No, you weren't supposed to be invited," she told Harwin after checking with Bishop. "But I already RSVP'd," Harwin replied, "and it was Lady Fairfax who invited me, not Bronwyn Bishop." It was all to no avail. Don Harwin had been uninvited.
Another occasion was a glittering night amidst the art deco and rococo revivalism of the State Theatre where about 80 people, including key preselectors, were invited to a cocktail party arranged by Charles Curran, a close friend of Bishop's who was then chairman of commission of audit for the Greiner government as well as chairman of Amalgamated Holdings Ltd, owners of the State Theatre. Guests were treated to music by a string quartet and free-flowing French champagne. Afterwards they were ushered downstairs into the theatre where they sat down in front of a series of television monitors which had been arranged in a semi-circle on the stage.
Up on stage Bronwyn Bishop was wearing a brilliant yellow silk dress and, when she stood to speak, the monitors suddenly came to life with scenes of Bishop and Thatcher, Bishop and Reagan, Bishop and Kissinger, Bishop debating in the Senate, all set to the stirring strains of the movie Top Gun. She had the audience eating out of her hands.
The video, which was produced by Rick Kabriel's Fontana Films at a cost of about $20,000, attempted unashamedly to cast Bishop as Australia's version of Margaret Thatcher, and Greg Daniel, head of the advertising agency Clemenger Sydney, does not apologise for making it like that. "You have to remember," he says, "you're going back to 1988 when Thatcher was still reigning supreme in Great Britain. The basic thrust of the video was that Bronwyn was a conviction politician and the Liberal Party should be represented at the highest level by people who held strong convictions."
As a member of the shadow Cabinet, Chris Puplick spent all but two weeks of 1988 travelling around the country. As shadow Environment minister he had gone to Kakadu, Wesley Vale, Shark Bay and the Kimberley region. As shadow minister for the Arts he was in places like Townsville, Araluen (outside Alice Springs), Fremantle, Devonport, Rockhampton, Ballarat and Orange. He was everywhere but in Sydney.
Puplick believes that Bishop took advantage of his absence with a multi-pronged strategy. The first involved her convincing preselectors that if Puplick were number one on the ticket and she were number three, the Liberal Party would not get the preferences of the Festival of Light, a Christian fundamentalist organisation headed by the Reverend Fred Nile. (Bishop had been a guest speaker at Festival of Light conferences over the years.) "She spelled it out in great detail over a luncheon with Wilson Tuckey who came back and told me the full details of the whole thing," Puplick says now.
The second line of attack, according to Puplick, was to criticise him for ignoring party branch meetings and functions and the third was to plant the seeds of doubts about his loyalty to the leader, John Howard. She did this, he claims, by pointing to his strong friendship with Andrew Peacock and the likelihood that he would support Peacock in a future leadership challenge. Bishop, by contrast, would support Howard, her fellow New South Welshman. Another line of attack was built on Bishop's high profile, especially in western Sydney. If she were number one, she would drag Puplick over the line with her. If Puplick were number one there was a very good chance the party wouldn't win three seats in NSW.
Then there was the neat "tic-tac" arrangement with Senator Michael Baume. Baume was a good friend of John Howard and if someone expressed concerns that demoting Puplick, a shadow Cabinet minister, was going to upset Howard, Bishop told that person to contact Baume. Baume then, according to Puplick, reassured the caller that Howard didn't have any difficulty at all with his demotion. (Baume declined to return my calls.)
Another strand, Puplick says, was that Bishop's friend Michael Yabsley let it be known that he was supporting Bishop, as was Nick Greiner, one of the pre-selectors. Puplick is still disappointed that, after all the support he believes he had shown Greiner over the years, the former premier chose to tell people on the day of preselection that he was backing Bishop. Finally there was what Puplick calls "the underground strategy", which was to cast aspersions on his sexuality. Puplick was outraged by what he claims were these false rumours:
"Bishop's people (supporters) specifically told preselectors that the reason that my marriage had failed was that my ex-wife had discovered that I was gay. I did an interview for Outrage magazine ... in which that matter was raised with me absolutely up front and I made it perfectly clear ... that if I were gay it would not inhibit me from saying so. I've never hidden the fact that I think that most benefits should be extended to gay people ... that I have no difficulty with the concept of recognising gay partners for purposes other than marriage ... and that at least 50 per cent of my friends and close associates are gay people and I mix very extensively in the gay community and am very comfortable with gay people."
The preselection showdown was held on November 5, 1988 at the Gazebo Hotel in Sydney. By the time the ballot was held Bishop had considerable support in the room. Ron James, her successor as president of the party, was chairman of the pre-selection committee that day. It was up to him to decide, for example, who would ask the candidates questions. Towards the end of proceedings, the nod went to Dr Michael Fitzpatrick, a prominent right-winger on State executive and a preselector that day. He was a key Bishop supporter. "What impression do you think your support for gay rights gives to the broader community in NSW?" he asked Puplick.
Puplick replied that everyone knew his position on homosexual law reform and that he would never make a "shipwreck" of his conscience on these sorts of moral issues. He then quoted from the gospel according to Matthew: "For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?"
The New Testament was not enough to save Chris Puplick that day. Bishop defeated Puplick by 50 votes to 40. She would take the number one spot and he would take number three. On hearing the result Chris Puplick went back to his parliamentary office in Chifley Square and wept.
Bishop was exultant. "It is an historic first to have a woman lead the ticket and shows the Liberal Party is sincere in its statements of equal opportunity and acknowledging a win on merit," she said.
The 1990 election was Chris Puplick's last. In a ballot of 3.6 million voters, Puplick failed from third position to get his quota by a mere 490 votes. Bishop's theory that she would carry the three Coalition candidates backfired disastrously when a number of conservative groups targeted Puplick by directing their preferences elsewhere.
It is more than possible that if Puplick had been number one on the ticket and Bishop number three, they both would have made it back into the Senate, because even if conservative groups had bypassed Puplick, he would have automatically been elected by virtue of his number one position.
The Liberal Party not only lost one of its most polished speakers and certainly its most effective point of contact with environmentalists, the arts community and ethnic groups - all of whom were to prove crucial at the next Federal election in 1993 - but it had also lost the opportunity to control the Senate. As things turned out, the Liberals needed the vote of Independent Brian Harradine plus one of the two Greens or a Democrat vote to be able to block government legislation.
If you are a politician, creating enemies is a fact of life. Former NSW Labor premier Jack Lang once told a youthful Paul Keating that if he didn't have a haul of them by the time he was in his mid-40s he could consider himself a failure. By that criterion, Bronwyn Bishop is blitzing the field. Christine Wallace, a journalist for The Australian Financial Review and author of a biography of John Hewson, believes much of that dislike stems from jealousy. There is no other politician so adept at playing the media and her colleagues would love nothing more than to be able to emulate her.
John Brown, the former minister for Sport and Tourism in the Hawke government and member for Parramatta, explains his deep antipathy for Bishop, not on the basis of jealousy, but rather on a distressing personal experience with her when she was a senator working out of Parramatta. In August 1988 his 24-year-old son, Jonathon, became an "incomplete" paraplegic when he fell out of a tree on Dunk Island and broke his spine. During the ensuing months Brown spent considerable time with him at the Royal North Shore Hospital, sitting vigil during his partial rehabilitation. He sought - and was granted - leave from Parliament to do so and his absence was duly noted at the end of the year when the Parliament published its regular list of attendances.
Following the publication of the list, Bishop, in conjunction with Senator Michael Baume, put out a press release for papers in the Parramatta district claiming Brown hadn't been fulfilling his duties as the local member. Says Brown:
"She put out this press release which caused my family and me a great deal of distress. Michael Baume, upon hearing the reasons - he hadn't known about my son - had the decency to call and apologise. I never heard from her. I would have thought that an apology was in order ... I think my standing in Parramatta was high enough to weather it, but it was the sort of thing that shouldn't have happened."
The antipathy goes further. If there was a popularity poll for politicians amongst Commonwealth car (Comcar) drivers, she would probably come last. "There is not one Comcar driver who would defend her," says Labor Senator Nick Bolkus who, as minister for Administrative Services between 1990 and 1993, was responsible for the Comcar service:
"They all feel they are treated like shit by her. She expects people to be servants rather than individuals and that's the thing that Comcar drivers hate about her. One said to me once: 'You know, she's the only person who expected me to find a short cut across Sydney Harbour.' She was running late for a plane or something and she insisted on getting to the airport on time and he couldn't make it. But that's the way Bronwyn treats people."
There was an occasion a few years ago when Bishop got off a plane at Sydney airport and went to the Comcar desk to find that there was no car for her. As Senator Stephen Loosley puts it:
"She hit the roof and demanded to know where her car was. 'Sorry Senator, there's no booking,' came the reply, so she commandeers the car of some hapless public servant who happens to be within firing range and drives off. Her need is greater than anyone else's, you see. The entire Comcar fleet in Sydney knows this story ... Anyway, they get up to O'Riordan Street ... and suddenly she says, 'Driver, driver, I've just remembered, my office didn't have to make a booking because I brought my own car to the airport. Take me to the car park.' So he takes her back to the car park, she gets out and doesn't even say 'I'm sorry' or* 'thank you'."
Bishop entered the House of Representatives on a mild autumn morning on May 3, 1994, a fading star with few political friends whose chances of leading the Liberal Party were all but buried in the wake of the Mackellar by-election.
She was sworn in at 12.30 pm, on the same day that South Africa was ridding itself of three centuries of white rule. Her two daughters, Angela and Sally, and her 90-year-old aunt, Flo Congreve, were in the Speaker's Gallery to see her admitted by the sergeant-at-arms and escorted towards the Speaker by John Hewson and Andrew Peacock.
Peacock guided her down the aisle with a protective arm around her back, and then kissed her after she took the oath of allegiance on the Bible. John Howard was right behind her and, judging from his body language, it was the last place in the world he wanted to be. Barely making eye contact, he shook her hand and then showed her his back. Peter Costello was also close by. Like Peacock, he kissed her too, but then, when he returned to his seat, muttered to a colleague: "I had to kiss her."
Bishop made little impression in her first week, except to confirm to most political observers that her time had come and gone as a serious leadership contender. The only one who remained to be convinced of that was Bishop herself, who said to one incredulous Canberra insider when he walked into her office: "Well, how are we going to get rid of Hewson?"
Within two weeks Alexander Downer and Peter Costello (with more than a little help from Jeff Kennett, Michael Kroger, Tony Staley, Malcolm Fraser and Andrew Peacock) were to provide the answer. On May 23 Alexander Downer won the Liberal leadership ballot by 43 votes to 36, ending 14 months of damnation for John Hewson. Peter Costello was elected unopposed as Downer's deputy.
Bronwyn Bishop had run one of the most extraordinary campaigns ever witnessed in Australian politics. In the space of just over two years she had gone from virtual obscurity in the polls to the country's preferred leader. If, on a two-party preferred basis, she had received a five per cent swing towards her rather than a one per cent swing against her in the Mackellar by-election, she might well have gone all the way, notwithstanding the deep animosity towards her from her colleagues. Because given a choice between further penance on the Opposition benches and the chance of government under a woman they loathed, they could well have chosen the latter.
It is foolhardy to write her off now, despite the temptation to do so after her inauspicious entry into the Lower House. She is too tough, too determined and has waited far too long to allow one setback to destroy a life's ambition. But the proposition that she could be the answer to the Liberal Party's problems was always preposterous because she was too much a symptom of the malaise. Bishop was so driven by personal ambition that she was incapable of ever truly becoming a team player or truly assessing her own capabilities. She also forgot the old maxim that it pays to be nice to people on the way up because you are going to meet them again on the way down. There were legions now waiting for her to fall.
First published in Good Weekend on October 1, 1994
