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A couple of anecdotes about Doug Anthony’s basic decency and lack of tribal animosity.
When Whitlam Government fell, I was working in Rex Connor’s Department of Minerals & Energy, pretty much the epicentre of right wing fury about the Whitlam Govt. Rex was architect of controls on foreign investment in mining and export controls on minerals to get better prices.
The word we were getting about our future under Fraser was that the Department was going to be abolished, and all our jobs with it. We would be placed on the “unattached” list.
Doug intervened, saying “you don’t punish public servants for serving the elected govt of the day”.
Doug intervened, saying “you don’t punish public servants for serving the elected govt of the day”.
He said he would take on the Department, lock stock and barrel, so at the start of the Fraser era he had two Departments - Overseas Trade and “National Resources”, later merged to become Trade & Resources.
He called the senior staff together, told us that background, and said he knew we would serve him as faithfully as we had served Rex.
And so it was.
And so it was.
One of the big controversies about Rex’s time was the nationalisation of the Moomba-Sydney gas pipeline, started by AGL but compulsorily acquired by the Commonwealth during construction (later sold back to AGL).
By the time construction was complete Doug Anthony was Minister and was invited to cut the ribbon at the opening ceremony, with Rex in the audience. When the time came he beckoned to Rex, saying “Rex, I think you’d better help me with this”. So the two of them cut the ribbon.
We don’t see much of that kind of political courtesy any more.
When Doug retired from politics after a year or so in opposition, the senior staff of the Department, with wives, invited Margot and Doug to dinner in a private room at Hill Station Restaurant. Such was the esteem in which they were both held.
