Remembering George Negus

Hi there and welcome back to Fourth Estate, Tina Quinn coming to you from these studios off to Asia, in Sydney and Gadigal Country. Thanks so much for your company for this very special edition of the program. Today we're going to be paying tribute to someone that was a veteran of Australia's own Fourth Estate, who sadly passed away earlier this month aged 82 after what was a year's long battle with Alzheimer's disease. I'm George Negus.

The outfit may look a little melodramatic, a bit Lawrence of a radio even, but the polisario insisted on the fancy dress for one very convincing reason, survival in the desert. You realise that the whole idea of human rights in El Salvador today is a joke. There's another reason Regai is rebel music. Bob Marley himself.

Bob how important is the gunger to the rest of it? It doesn't matter to you that it's still against the law here in Jamaica. Every law is illegal. Every law is illegal.

Every law is illegal. Every law is illegal. Bob Marley was born in Frenchtown. He told us not to go there alone, said we needed security.

What we would call protection money. A bunch of Marley's friends wanted a thousand dollars to take us into the ghetto. Local police told us it was dangerous and wouldn't guarantee our safety. We took a chance and were lucky.

One of the arguments in the war was the Klan. And as white history tells it, the Klan had its beginnings here in Pulaski, deep in Tennessee, anti-black country. The Klan broke up in these parts in the 1920s, but only a few weeks ago, a new clavin was formed here in Pulaski, a clear indication that the Klan is on the move again. Vintage Bob Dylan, the folks on that became his musical signature.

The song and the phrase that people have attached to you most regularly probably is the times I return to. Do you think that they have? I don't know. When you do actually get to sit down and interview the man, it's a rare event indeed in more ways than one.

If for instance you think he's about to pour out his heart, you've got another thing coming. It's more like extracting a tooth than a normal conversation. Thanks very much for joining us in Adelaide with TDT. I actually thought that the honeymoon period with your government was in fact over, but the confetti on you, face and tear last night confused me a little bit.

Do you feel a bit ridiculous last night? No, I didn't think so. It was a very warm day. Being days before the working class hero includes the minuses of being prime minister and just a few pluses.

How do you handle power you think? Or is it possible that the Bob book ego, which is not exactly small? No, it's not small. Is it possible that your ego could get carried away with the whole exercise of power?

If you could, seeing if you're a palletist, I soberly don't become direct with power? No, absolutely impossible. I've been acquainted with power for a long time. You're never intoxicated me.

This is to extend, raking over old coals, but I describe you as an ex-boozer, womanizer. Alright, the ex is definitely correct. I heard your question. I'm not sure.

The fact one was convincing, dad. Why do people stop us in the street almost and tell us that Bob's not just inflexible, he's not just a single-minded on a case and she's playing big and won't be told by you. You're telling me who has stopped you and his feet and said that? Tell me who has said it to you.

You name it and Jane Fonda always seems to be there on the radical left of American politics. In fact, you can say she's a notorious for some of her off-screen activities as she's famous for what she does on-screen. I think we'd say what would Jane Fonda know about office work because it's hardly the sort of thing that you've done with your life. I was fired as a secretary because I live in sleep with my boss.

No, but it's quite true. I'm not an office worker, obviously. But you don't have to be a murderer to play Lady Macbeth or an office worker to understand office workers. Serapolana is pretty much a law unto itself.

With booze, gambling, firearms, homosexuals and particularly women are all men. The only lust allowed here is lust for gold. The only pleasure finding the stuff in this amazing man-made hole in the middle of nowhere. Welcome to the first edition of Foreign Correspondent.

The world is changing by the day. New nations appearing in parts of the world we hardly know. Peace or at least talk of it, breaking out in places that were conflict-ridden for generations. And despite the so-called New World Order, bitter unfamiliar struggles in the wake of the old.

Thrilled to be part of what is a genuinely different way of looking at things that matter, both here in Australia and the rest of the world. A program that will actually take the time to go deeper. It's not just what's happening, but why? Not that.

But at times they are retaining. George Nega's cash and iconic figure in Australian media, his career is spanning many decades and certainly changing times. Charismatic, unrelenting fearless, irreverent and possessing a fierce intellect, the former school teacher began his career in newspapers with the Australian financial review and the odds before becoming a press secretary in the Whitlam government. His not in television came as a political correspondent on the ABCs this day tonight before becoming one of the founding reporters on 60 Minutes Australia for the Nine Network, the job that would make him a household name and catapult him to all four corners of the globe.

After what were seven very memorable years, he departed the program and became one of the faces that Australians woke up to all the morning when they switched on at the Today Show. He later rejoined the ABC and became the inaugural host of Foreign Correspondent and then went on to anchor Dateline on SBS and 6PM with George Nega's on Network 10. Throughout what became incredibly dynamic and extraordinary career, he interviewed the likes of former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the Libyan leader Mo Marcadafi and Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev. Many of our own leaders like John Howard, Paul Keating and Bob Hawke and memorable encounters, one such with the former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, led to Nega's getting the sack.

Today we'll be discussing the great contribution he made with two friends and colleagues who knew him well. We'll also be hearing from the man himself through interviews that he gave over the years. But first to our very special panel, Ray Martin, who began his career with the ABC, first worked with George at 60 Minutes when it launched in 1979. He'd go on to host a current affair and the midday show.

Ray Martin, welcome to Fourth Estate. Thank you. Jennifer Bern is also with us. She first met George in 1982 when she was working for Channel Nine's The Sunday Program and he was already a megastar on 60 Minutes.

She was later chosen to replace George when he departed 60 in 1986 and again at the ABC in 1999 when he left foreign correspondent. Jennifer, a great pleasure to have you in. Thanks so much for joining us on Fourth Estate. Lovely to be here.

Great to have both of you in to talk about George. He certainly was an original and it's difficult to really put into words and really emphasize what an original he was. Jennifer, do you remember when, do you remember watching George on television before you, years before you met him when he was working on filing stories for this day tonight? Look, the truth is I don't think I really got a grip on George until he went into the lot.

I was aware of this person in Canberra because I was down in Melbourne and he wasn't a big character in the firm and there he was this guy on television and I'll be really honest, it wasn't quite my taste because I came up through newspapers and they're very much more restrained than television. George was less restrained than many on television. So I didn't really get to know him until I came to Nine and what I do remember is I came up to work at this strange place called Sunday which was full of newspaper journalists so it really was rather up itself. It was the truth.

And the first person. The first person. Yeah. But it's Sunday we called it conceit.

But also amateurs. So that awful, awful combination of opinionated and amateurs who knew very little about television. But George blowhard comes to mind. Is that right?

Oh, no, because we didn't promote ourselves. We just slagged everybody out. These were the old days when the whole television thing was, I mean, Ray will remember it was sort of a rival who was going to win this. Well, we all know who won.

It was television. But what I remember was this man who even then was this kind of like a legendary figure because of his work on 60 minutes, such a, you know, an amazing dynamic to come through the industry. No one had seen it before. And he came over because he had come from print or he'd spent time in print.

And I think he had a, he was actually, it's not as well known as, you know, he was sensational and great interview and stuff. He was a very kind look. He was a kind man. And he had a sense of what it must be like, I think, to walk into this room where you had your max a million while she was the peeler, you know, editor in chief of the Financial Review.

But he knew nothing about television. It was actually ironically, George's producer on 60 minutes who left 60 minutes to come and start the Sunday program. So they were kind of entwined from the beginning. And the point is that I knew no one.

I just went up from Melbourne. What the hell am I doing? I think it was the second time in my life I'd been to Sydney. And George came over.

You know, he was a big star then. And he came over to the cottage to say hello. And I mean, he wasn't his hand to say, I guess you're feeling a little bit displaced. But it was clearly his motivation.

So I met him first before I got to know him really well as a friend as a kind man who came for a new person who'd just come to a new medium and you absolutely bloody nothing. And he he'd jeep me on. So he kind of saw you likewise as a bit of an outsider to the television game and thought, I'm going to I'm going to help her. Yeah, I'm going to help her.

I hear good things about it. I'm going to go and help her. And he did. Right.

Tell me about your first meeting with George. It's funny you refer to George as an outsider. I think that John Loki bead invented television for niggas anywhere in the world. And he was a standard character of television.

He was loud, opinionated, confident, charismatic, all those things that television required and really gets. So I think as I think he was made for television even more than the Australian and the fin review he wrote for beforehand. But I think when I first met him, I came to New York for the ABC's ABC correspondent for about 10 years and I came back at home leave in 1977. And I went to a party in Belmont, which is where George lived.

And I think Simon Townsend, the TV person I was with was his house. And he'd been involved in any Vietnam stuff and so on and so on and respected some of a lot. And I went to a party and there was this loud, opinionated voice in the corner in cowboys. And I thought, geez, is this?

And I discovered he was niggas and you couldn't miss him. And then when a couple of years later I was rung by George and he was starting 16 minutes and said, would I like to be one of the reporters? And niggas was the only one that he mentioned backstage. I never met him listening.

And I thought, well, that'd be fun. I'd like to work with niggas. I liked him from day one. And I liked his style.

And he was outrageous. And it worked and it probably was the most important thing in 16 minutes the first couple of years because he was so out there. And he was so easier satirised as hoax did. He was the biggest.

That's right. Big was just a jacket over his shoulder with a war zone behind him saying something outrageous. So that was George. What do you think it was that made him so compelling to watch?

I think he wasn't pompous. I think at that stage for many, I mean, 16 minutes was the big barrier breaker in that way because it brought in people and said to them, talk normally. And before that, there had been this sort of general sense that commercial television sort of was not the poor man's but the popular person's version of ABC. And as you fell away from that old model, you know, it's no coincidence.

I think that so many of the early reporters that went to nine came from the ABC or came from print, you know, that it was all about proving that television can be serious. I mean, it's probably hard for an audience listening now to understand that. Biggest television is so clearly the dominant medium, but it wasn't then. It was always dominant in terms of people's tastes, but it wasn't in terms of, you know, we're all journalists and you know, you know, you know, you know, and I think he was wonderfully determined to skip with that crap.

You know, he just didn't believe it. He didn't talk down to the audience, but he hadn't talked up to the audience either. He was, he had a voice and the voice didn't, I mean, you can correct me because you're closer to him at the time, but the voice didn't much change whether he was talking to the ABC audience or the channel nine audience or the Today Show audience. It was his voice and he didn't do what so many people thought they had to do at the time, which was adapt to the medium.

He took the medium and said, this is how I shall rule here. It was more, I was thinking the other day, maybe Bert Newton, maybe Paul Hogan, but I don't know anyone who's made a female appear on television in my lifetime, who was more a dominant character than George. And it was suddenly, up to then, I agree to hold you with what Jennifer says, but the television is a really honest, medium, like newspapers already, a great voice and radio will get you anywhere. If you're a beautiful writer in use, maybe you could also cover who you are.

But television, I mean, Jennifer is what you see on television. Yarn event is what you see at the end of the day, especially through Honors, Masters, George, and we have been. And so what you see is what you get. And so he wasn't about to change, but there'd been people on the ABC on four corners, another programme beforehand, and even on commercial car affairs.

I mean, Michael Welles, he was what you saw was what you got, but he was nowhere near as outrageous as George. Richard Carton was pretty outrageous, but he wasn't George. He was a larrick and street, a street to George, but neither of them had, at least not on here. But I think the honesty of that is what George showed in coming forward was that a whole range of people who followed him could be themselves until they're actually having to, you know, someone over at the show to say, you don't say schedule to say schedule and things like that.

I'll say what I don't. Well, what? That's right. I think it's with just the looks.

And number of times we'd have published these photos taking these early days. And I think it would be there in a really dodgy jacket with a soup stand on the side and on the front and say, you're all standing stage, George, I think could you put something decent on? Can I ask? Do you think, because you knew he can better join those early years, how much of that was, do you think a con, not a construct, because that's not funny, it's not that he decided that this was what he wanted to do, because this is what television should be?

Or, I don't think it was a single person. No, I think he was a young man who'd grown up raised by his mum and his grandmother in Brisbane, working class Brisbane. He went to great heights in his career, but he was still basically, you know, kid from Brisbane. And I think there, so he, again, Paul Lockier later was somewhat the same without that harsh voice of Niggas, but he could talk to anybody in parliament or anybody in the pub.

And he just quit, so it was an affectation. George would simply, I've been with George in pubs over the years, and people would argue with George, now more than they argue with me, because George would simply be out there and this one Niggas thought and like it all up. And so there was that sort of character. But I think when he changed the landscape was just being himself visibly and publicly and nonstop.

So Niggas, for the other 25 hours or 23 hours a day, was Niggas. I mean, that was even though different on camera, he wasn't camera. No, that's exactly right. Well, as I said, we'll be hearing from George in his own words on a lot of these very topics that we'll be talking about through interviews that he gave throughout his life.

Here he is talking in 1997 to Margaret Throsby about his upbringing and those formative years in Queensland. George, tell us something of your own story. Your dad died when you were a little kid, didn't he? Yes, I was four.

You remember him? Yeah, I do. I mean, but you never know, do you remember what you remember was really what someone like that was like or what you'd like them to be like? Was there a mythology about him when you were growing up?

He's a bit of a lad. I remember hearing that. But no, it was sort of because of the fact of the family so deeply at the time, I guess, both my mum and my grandparents that it was a no goary. He didn't talk much about it.

It was only later on when I was in my late teens that I started inquiring about my father. Were you conscious of being a fatherless boy? Oh, I was surrounded by so much grand parental love and my mum and friends that I didn't really. What sort of little kid were you think?

You've got boys of your own now. When you were say seven like your youngest isn't younger one is now. I think it probably explains my behavior subsequently. I was a self-righteous little prick.

I think so. I was a good kid at school. Never got to strive and always had little remarks on the report card saying George is an exceptional child and tries hard. So you've been making up ever since I make up?

First chance I got mid teens I went back. Did you rebel? Yeah, I've always, well I didn't rebel so much as I just didn't like that image on me because there was something else going on inside me that was rather unnice. I just found it very stultifying.

I guess by the time I got to be a teenager to be people saying all the time, George is such a nice boy. You went to university, then you began to be a teacher, high school teacher. University in teaching simultaneously. Most of me universities at night.

Oh, is that so? So you were very dedicated to learning then? I loved it enormously. Were you dedicated to teaching?

At the time until I was bashing a head against a brick wall called the system and I said to think about the future and did I really want to be principal of Charlevo High at the age of 40 and I didn't think that was all that exciting. But at my departure from teaching outside with my arrival in the world I suspect that I became increasingly interested in politics and social issues and what made the world tick. How come? What fed that interest?

Just a generally questioning mind I suppose. I had a religious period and thinking away out of that I think set off the thought process never stopped. So I started asking myself the so-called quote unquote big questions. All sorts of things come into your thought process and never stopped.

Journalism is the way getting paid for doing that anyway. George and Eager speaking there with Margaret Thrasby in 1997. We were just talking about his upbringing and his early career as a teacher. How much do you think the, I guess the way he approached his craft as a journalist was really inspired by those years he spent teaching?

Because it feels like he never really sort of lost his roots in that sense. But I think that both things can be true. He did never lose his roots and he always loved that teaching role in lots of ways. And I think that he never was so pompous about it just to say about telling people what they need to know.

But I think he did think that. And he had that confidence and certainty of a teacher. I know the teachings and I'm going to tell you what comes out of that which made him such an emphatic and powerful communicator. But also I just think he loved to talk.

He loved to share. And he found a way to take this rather starchy medium which I mean it was less so by the 90s. But it had been, you know, who can ever remember those old historic things. Good evening.

You know, welcome to whatever it was. And he, I sort of be saying yes that well which was our inheritance. You know we'd follow the Rethian model. And he had been there.

So he was one of the, he knew the rules. He knew how it worked. And he knew that that's not very interesting for people. And he, I think, I don't know whether he was intellectual about this or instinctual probably but both.

That he was going to bridge that gap between what was news and what people would enjoy hearing, how to get people engaged. And he broke down that notion of what's appropriate news. I mean really the whole of 60 minutes deep. That was I think one of the great contributions it made.

It didn't own the news. It just found another way of telling you about the same news. But in a much more interesting way. As well as that he would, I loved his company.

But a little bit of Nege has went a long way. And so if you're having a beer or two with him, you're finally going to say, George, shut up. So he gave you his opinion on everything on the colour of this wall. And teaching, he would often refer to teaching in the state of primary education.

He would, but beyond that, I mean his opinions were usually good and spot on as far as I was concerned. He opinions were, but beyond that he would laugh if you said George, shut up and drink. And he laughed and then found this lady giving another 15 opinions. He wouldn't take it too personally from the sound side.

He's a thick skin. Here he is talking to Richard Viler in 2006 about, I guess, the way he saw himself and his role. I don't call myself a journal. It bothers me when people call me a journalist.

I seem to say I was a communicator and a stirrer. And for the way of ideas and a, you know, I don't seem to say myself, I don't wake up in the morning saying, wow, it's not great. I'm a journalist. I can go to a pub with the boys and talk about my last story.

That's never given me about it all. The audience, the only thing that matters to me, a peer group approval has never been anywhere near othermost in my thinking. I'm more interested in what the audience thinks of what I do than what my peers do. And a lot of journalism can end up being really, really self-important peer group approval journalism.

And that's what I get it wrong. Is they doing it for themselves? Almost forgetting that there is somebody out there listening in the case about what we're doing now, watching in the case of television and reading something when you're right. George Niggas speaking there to Richard Viler in 2006, helping me to pay tribute to George today on Fourth Estate to friends and colleagues who knew him well, Ray Martin and Jennifer Byrne.

Jennifer, what do you think about what we just heard there? Do you think a lot of, because it seems that he always really had the audience in mind. He was always very audience driven when it came to his work. Again, to go back to the teaching and that early influence of teaching, do you think that's where that came from?

He felt what he was doing was a service, the sort of knowledge that he was imparting the way he sort of stared people's thoughts. And do you think it came from his early life as a teacher? The difference I would say actually is there's a truth there, but it's not the full truth. Because the thing about teaching is that you're taking accepted principles and facts and you're inculcating a new generation and your style will vary, of course, between individuals.

But the facts remain the same. And I'm not suggesting for one second that George changed the facts. He was very respectful of the fact. He knew the facts.

But his style that he honed and developed was he didn't leave you with the fact he left you with a sense the next step on from the fact. So that's one of the reasons he was so engaging. And everybody tended to focus on the mr. Ash and the style and the jacket over the shoulders and all that, which was great fun and was perfect for satire.

But in fact, he was a smarter man than that, as a stereotype, fun as it was. And I think he really wanted to find a better way, a non-ABC way, remembering that I think he was partly reacting against the restrictions of the ABC. Because it's a television job. Yes, absolutely.

We all know it was a legend really fine program. But it was glued to the facts. And the fact is that ABC has never raised it as well as the commercial. So if you're going to come to the most, I don't know.

I mean, I talked a few times about it. But I could never quite get to the bottom of it. But my hunch now is that while he was really respectful and he took the teachers thing of being a nice boy and a clever person and responsible to the facts, he wanted to do something else. He wanted to do something with current affairs, which was sort of what Gerald Stone wanted.

But George took it further, which was that he personalised it. And so whether it was the Gaddafi interview famously or the Thatcher interview or Fraser interview, Michael Fraser, I'm talking about, or whoever it was, he was true to the facts. But he had this spin, which was to make it more interesting. He wasn't to make it false, but it was just to shine a different light, which was his mind, his question.

I mean, he vilified it. He breathed a real life into current affairs because he was not overburdened with the facts. As a teacher, he knew the power of the fact. But he also knew that there's a limited audience for that.

So you go the next step, which is you take the fact and you turn it and you find something within that truth, which will make people think again and listen to you. I think until George came along, that personalities on television were all about entertainment, was Graham Kennedy or Bert or someone like that. To a degree, Michael Woolsey was a standout again in current affairs, but not like George. And Richard Carlton was a different kind of standout when he came along after George.

But that first period when this day tonight was the naughty boy of ABC television. And they were doing things that, I remember a famous one that Alan Hogan once did, and one of the Melbourne club didn't allow Jews. And I remember Richard Allen Hogan had a piece of that had a stand up outside of the Melbourne club, and they dropped into a barrel all the famous Jews of the world, finishing with Jesus Christ. And that suddenly sent the establishment through the roof, an ABC program doing this.

It was a very truthful, honest, clever way to do it. Exactly, but it was a really clever way to make the same point. So that was this day tonight. And so suddenly they broke the parameters of what was called ABC character figures.

And along comes the Eagles, and the Eagles were doing the need of the Prime Minister or some other character at the time. And it wasn't playing according to the rules that I'd learnt as an ABC cadet and others had learnt there. And so George, that was a standard. He suddenly was...

When you say he wasn't playing by the rules? Well, the rules were quite strict. I mean, despite the image you see being a leftist retreat, most people who are in the ABC, when I was there, joined the Liberal Party, the National Party. In fact, it's easy for the Murdoch press to talk about how left ABC is.

But I mean, if you did interviews with the Prime Minister and the opposition later, as in those debates, then there would be two people with clocks making sure that each got the perfectly similar amount of time, et cetera. So, and similarly, I remember being told early on as a cadet that, you know, if you want to push this, if you want to push a course and get a soapbox and get in the domain, don't do that. You're not on the ABC. So, you know, really, the thing that provided me that I was part of in my period of the ABC is that no one knew my politics, because it wasn't important.

I mean, it was absolutely important. The Eagles came along and the Eagles had worked, you know, for the Labor Party. The Eagles had been press secretly for... ...in the Willing Government, which was this, probably the left, as covenant we've ever had in this country.

So, he couldn't hide the fact where he'd come from, but two, he's credit. I don't think anyone could honestly talk about his bias in terms of his defense. He'd been to have a backwards to try and make sure that he was balanced on what he did. And I think you know, great credit to him.

Well, in this 2006 interview that he did with Richard Feideler, he talks about how his political ideology did indeed form. I talked at a very, very tough working-class school, and that's an oil-sider discovered that all Australians are not the same. I've never left me. It's been the hard core of my ideology ever since.

So, anybody try to tell me even now that this is an egalitarian country with equal opportunity. I know there are the liars or fools. I think the things I get angry about as an angry young man I'm still angry about as a rapidly aging angry old work. I think the fundamentals have not changed.

I mean, it's absurd that when in this country, for instance, you can have people struggling with the family for a five to exist on 40 grand a year. Other people sailing smoothly through the turbulence of life on 400,000 a year, and other ridiculously overpaid executives etcetera in this country on X millions a year, then don't try and tell me this is an egalitarian country. I mean, some might say that that points to a particular political or ideological bias, but there's a lot of a great sense of injustice and empathy for others in what he's saying here. I don't think it does at all.

I think it came more in George's case because he worked for Lionel Murphy, who worked for the Labour Party, but that's really guilt by association. He worked for someone, and he worked for a right-wing tycoon and not the conservative. I think he said himself that he didn't vote for that government anyway, so it was hard to tell the party line when he was working. At least one of the reasons why I think it's annoying for all journalists, but I'm sure it was particularly annoying for George that people would come along.

Because the era was that after 23 years of Liberal government, and then you've got this Labour government, and so it was particularly activist, as we all know, Labour government, the Wiltham period, therefore, if you didn't toe what had been the line for 23 years, then you were sort of challenging. No, you were just actually responding to the people who were in power, the principles they had, the policies they were putting forward. I never really could see the factual base of the suggestion that George was left wing. He wasn't.

He just challenged the status quo, and I, whoever was running it. Those take the right wing, so outdated anyway, people cross over to both of us, George. There was no question when he made a comment about inequality in Australia. That was simply just the pub test of, you know, he would argue that because it was the decent thing to do.

I mean, there's no question that you can't talk about egalitarianism when women would give an equal opportunity. And when poor people were still cut surfing around the country as they are today, especially women, when someone else is paying $100 million for a house. So that is nonsense talking about equality here. And I think it was just the basic sort of decency of the biggest, but also the common sense saying, let's not be this, let's just tell the truth.

The truth is that it's we're not equal. And so he left the Whitland government and went into television journalism and had he previously worked in newspapers having, but had not had experience in television and became the political correspondent, the camera correspondent for this day tonight. Well, when I told this to him, I don't know, it was only to bottom line to that was that they had to disappear the tape. The large tape, because suddenly management thought this was a dreadful thing to take on the Melbourne club at that time.

And therefore the tapes disappeared. There was one tape in Melbourne, one sitting in the sun had disappeared. So it couldn't be used in evidence against him. But there was that sort of very tight control, the ABC, very tight control.

And so so, and he just came in and broke the glass ceiling. And the great thing was he didn't care. That was his great, he did. But no, actually, no, he didn't.

He didn't care because that was his job. Would you describe him as quite a reverend? I'm more interesting than a reverend. I think he was a, what Ray said, he was a challenger to the status quo.

And because we'd had 23 years of status quo and it happened that he came from the Wiglam side. But I have no political background at all. I was bloody sick of the Liberal government too. And I joined journalism the year, got into power in 72.

I mean, way, way, way, way back at the age in Melbourne. So I was 16. I was a baby. But I remember the excitement of that time.

And I think people who apply the old test of how many syllables were pro-liberal and how many were pro-labor. It's just obviously ridiculous. Everyone was talking about this new wave. And it didn't necessarily reflect your political leanings.

What it reflected was a great relief that Australia had to sign its own self-capable of actually not electing a Liberal government with the presiding grandi of Robert Menzies behind it. It was exciting. And if George or Ray or anyone at that time had been on television, which I wasn't, I was in newspapers, and hadn't reflected the sense of agitation, perturbation, change, excitement in the country, have been doing the old, you know, sort of, I must be balanced, I must be fair. Another rule has come into date to affect single mothers.

Well, that would not have reflected what the world was doing and what Australia specifically was doing. And that is a bad job in journalism. Here, George is again in 2006, talking to Richard Vidler about this period when he was first hired at this day tonight after working for Lionel Murphy. I think they hired me for my contact book from Canberra, more than anything else.

And I arrived right in the middle of the constitutional crisis. The 75 crisis? The six months leading up to the second in the little government. So if I had a crystal ball, that's the time I would have picked to go into television.

But it was a fantastic time. Did you ever say this is what I want to do? This is fun. It's been, generalism for me is always a bit like being paid for doing something.

I do for nothing, which is human mouth of an express opinion. And I ask the question why, as you said, correctly put it. I mean, I think we don't ask the question why often. I think the definition of character is trying to answer the question why.

People have been paying me debt for 30 years now. He seems pretty chuffed that he was paid to do that for so many years. And he's going back to your point, right? He loved talking about this stuff.

He loved questioning. He loved asking questions and trying to explain. He would have been prompted, that was George. But as Jennifer said, it's very hard to put yourself back in that early 70s, 70s period when Lesson 3 has got changed Australia.

And George has never been on the slipstream of that if you like working for Lionel Murphy. But this appeared when the divorce rules changed and we got out of Vietnam and we recognised China and a whole range of social revolution things. And George was part of it. And I talked to you at the time when Lionel Murphy, they do the arrayed in Azzie O'Mellman.

Now, that was extraordinary. You imagine the American government doing that against the CIA for a government to take on Azzie O, the Australian Security Service. And George was the press secretary for the Attorney General who took them on and suffered as a result of the Attorney General. But these were really heady times.

And yet, so that's obviously what put a fire underneath us politically. But as Jennifer was saying earlier, George, in that interview, backed away from being a journalist, but in fact, he was a very honest journalist. When I talked, he loved the profession. He was very proud of being part of the profession.

And if journalism is meant to be about accuracy, he was a stickler for that. I mean, he'd give you his opinion very strongly, but he wouldn't call something 15 if it was 10. So he was a stickler for that. I would have thought he was proud of the journalist.

I mean, I was surprised to hear it as well. But I wonder if his ideology around it all changed over the years. You know, in that interview, you hear him talking about that he was a purveyor of ideas. That's how he saw himself as a communicator.

I think that never changed. I don't know what you think, right? But I don't think that ever changed. He saw essentially his job was to be, to take, because he's kind of background, because of his experience, to take facts that he knew to be so and to find a way to present them.

I mean, that, I know it sounds so do. But at the time, we were so dominated by the ABC model. And to be honest, commercial television was pretty sappy. It's not where some people went to report at the time much.

And I'm sorry if I offended anyone, but it wasn't. And I think he was responding to the mood at the time. His creation, his specialness, I don't think, and that's not like he had, you know, conjuring and pondering on this for months. But I think his special thing was to recognize the mood of the times and to respond and to give the audience, the people who were whether it was television or newspapers, but mainly television, a chance to understand the way it worked.

So he became really good. You know, if you've got like 10 issues or 10 points on any issue, he became really good at isolating the one or two issues, three issues, and worrying away at them, which sounds, which is why I think he got this sort of reputation for being from the left or whatever. It wasn't that. I think he was at a time of rapid change.

I can't like articulate to you the excitement and change the sense of my God, what's going to happen next at the time? And then you had Malcolm Fraser and the government general, the, I mean, these were exciting, amazing times. The book was being rewritten all the time. And I think that somehow George worked out of way in this very personal style he had that he would focus on maybe 20, a 20% arc of the subject, which is not that he didn't understand the full A.T.

But he wanted you in the audience to understand this much and then you'd get on to the other 20. And then he would broaden the knowledge base of an audience. And I think some people saw that as bias, but I just think it was, he was a great teacher. And he was telling us how to see within the program again.

This was a constant focus of attention where we talked about if you, commercial radio, commercial television, if you go on commercial radio, let's say, and you make a mistake in your effects, someone will ring up and tell you. So we're not talking about a dumb, dull audience, this is, but it's a different audience about the ABC was. And so you do something about the Middle East on the ABC in the days that you were doing with early on, and you're preaching to the converted people have made their mind upon what the issue is. You know, on commercial television, as we did, and George and I talked about this once, we both went to Israel to do something about the war there.

And suddenly you're talking to people who for the first time wanted to explain to them. I really did. And that's not for a moment talking about commercial audiences, as I say, he was brought as buggery. But I remember just saying, I've got a chance to tell an audience what this is about.

And being the teacher in the communicator, he was, he did it better than most, if not anybody. And so he's able to crystallize the Palestinian problem with the Israeli problem we have today. And he was doing it back in 1980. But he wasn't doing it like, and on the one hand on the other hand, he would do two programs and have two different views.

And then might do a sort of all in, but you can't bring it down to something as basic as that. But he, he, I guess he exactly agree with you. He created a framework for people to do it. And he and the provocations, the cheeky questions were all part, it was not about his bias, it was about getting the viewers to think, to see it, that like there are about, there are 360 degrees in this particular circle.

I'm going to put this one down. And then someone else will, I'll come back to that. But you know, it was, it was an educated process. You want to tell me the, you know, he would say, I'll tell you what the Jewish situation is in his role on this.

And then the next time I'm going to tell you what the power is to be in this situation is and run through this. So it wasn't a bias and I'll be arguing from those points, which again, I said is crystallizing a really complex problem. And he was being the communicator. He was, he was able to, he didn't have to agree with these politics.

He was simply telling you the facts. He didn't see himself as a newsman as such. He was, he was a current affairs, you know, and there's that difference. And what both of you were talking about there?

He seemed to have a real love for analysis and storytelling and helping people understand an issue, which you can't get in a, in a news bulletin. And it seems his great love was towards current affairs and the longer arc. Look, you know, we were both at Channel 9 in that particular, that decade was an extraordinary decade, wasn't it? Basically, in the sort of 80s and 90s.

And I think it was, there was so much change. And what Channel 9 would do was to try and explicate that change. And you would try and do it neutrally if you were say, Max Walsh, who had been the former editor of the financial review and took that sort of you. But for someone who was, by the time it all started happening was really geared to television, who understood and had theories, boy, didn't you have theories, right?

He had theories about the way television worked. He would take a position in the way a great arguable would. And so you would get the great answer. I mean, I don't think when he famously said to Thatcher, you know, your bossy or whatever it was, that he particularly believed that it was a provocation.

And didn't we learn a lot about Maggie Thatcher from her reply, that arctic slap that she gave him? Why do people stop us in the street almost and tell us that Margaret Thatcher isn't just inflexible, she's not just single minded on occasion, she's playing pig head. And why be Ta-vei? Will you tell me who has stopped you in the street and said that?

Or will be Britain's. In conversation. I thought you would have come from Belize. Oh, this is not the first time we've been here.

Will you tell me who and where and where? All the britains in restaurants. How many? How many?

I was at least wanting to. I'm sorry, it's an expression I've never heard. Tell me who has said it to you. When?

These are people that we meet in passing. But obviously, the state of their country with them. And they tell us, yes, we have a tough part, Prime Minister. But she's a little bit pig head.

She won't be Ta-vei anybody. Isn't this interesting? Even the turn of voice you're using is changing from what you used earlier. I am determined.

Of course I am. I'm proud of my country. It can do a great deal better than it is doing. I believe it will do better.

And my policies will be shown to be right. But why are these britains say this to us? Is it possible that you just won't you, Mange? That my reception needs to be right all the time?

Why don't you ask them? And why won't you tell me their names and who they are? Arctic is the right word I would say. And it wasn't just for the point of being a contrarian, was it?

No. She was deeply offended. And he wanted people to see another facet of who she was. I was thinking that George was much better in that 60 minutes, 730 style of tell the story in 10 to 15 minutes.

He really did documentaries. He really did it longer. So Niggas was a quick hit and move on to the next one. Not just a minute and a half and a news button.

But if you couldn't tell the story in 15 minutes, don't tell the story. That's quite rare because most character people have gone the longer route and done the feature on the newspaper or the hour document. They're always being told to cut something down. So Niggas was a master at that 60-minute story and tell it in 12 to 13 minutes and then move on to the next one.

And don't think it's easy. No, it's great. It's a great school. But I can't remember him ever really doing a one-hour documentary or stuff.

Very rare. If you're just joining us, you're listening to Fourth Estate with Tina Quinn. I'm joined in studio by Ray Martin and Jennifer Byrne. We're talking about the life legacy and work of their friend and colleague, George Niggas.

This next clip we're going to hear is again from Margaret Throwsby's 1997 interview with George. And this one I find particularly interesting and I guess enlightening in terms of what it reveals about how George saw his role and what his responsibility was, not as a newsman, but someone working within the current affairs arena. I think the media and journalism should surely be the most provocative area of our society's activities. I mean, thought-provoking, I mean, but I don't think it's a great deal of thought provocation goes on at the moment.

What do you try to do in your work? You're known for calling a spade a spade. A friend in the letter. Friend in the letter.

For being a polemicist of kind. Catalyst. It sounds pretentious, but I've always thought of myself as a catalyst for thought. And if you don't say something that's vaguely controversial occasionally or put a point of view or a form of analysis that people are going to get upset by, then you don't do much mind prodding.

But you have a very firmly set that you have very firmly held views. Do you, and if people form views that are opposing yours. That's fine. I know.

I know. You try to persuade me or point of view. I think the difference between a journalist with a point of view and a propagandaist. If a journalist has a point of view, a social view, a cultural view, a political view, a religious view, a racial view, and it becomes apparent in their work.

So what? The journalist saying that, I mean, if you're not a news journalist, news is a very tricky area and you wouldn't do that in a news area, but my area, which has never been news, I think the role is to actually provoke people to think about whether they agree or disagree with yourself. They detect a point of view, it doesn't bother me. But I respect the right of anybody watching or listening to what I'm saying to say, that's absolute nonsense.

I don't agree. But if you don't give them a point of view or another point of view, a position or attitude, if you like, doesn't even have to be an opinion or a point of view, just an attitude towards something. How can people decide what their own response to it is? I mean, most of us are too busy to make up your mind about things.

If somebody can help us by saying something that you either agree or disagree with, that's a contribution. There you are. He said exactly what I was trying to fumble towards before. He knew exactly what he was doing and it was to provoke your reaction.

And that is a very legitimate thing today. And he clearly saw what he did. He was helping people in his provocation. He was helping people either go, I agree with that or that's garbage I completely disagree with you.

But it provoked something within them. I'm not sure that obviously sitting with Margaret thinking about the things that Jennifer says we are today. He didn't have that horrible ambition if he's in a pub argument with somebody. That was just George.

I think he justified his style in that particular interview. But by nature, he loved to debate and discuss things with Anthony Great for Ossity and with Anthony Great Malice. That was just the style of character he was. And it's interesting listening to that that I think he's justifying the style.

But by nature, I don't think it was provocation as much as it's enjoyment. It's like a sport. And when you think about it, his uniqueness becomes clear because who's been the next one? There hasn't been a next one.

And it's not that you want another of that version. But the person who was willing to take the flag to ask the provocation and take a bit of pain for it. Because people didn't take him seriously as he took himself again and again. He had a theory and a principle which was to get someone to show their true self.

Now that was not a very common approach in journalism back in the 70s. And I still don't think it is. But journalists still have this battle, this internal battle between am I going to be fair or am I going to actually cause a reaction? And I don't think it's a very egocentric job to be untellable.

But it's not because you're actually always wearing a round bat issue. When have I gone too far? And what was so great about George is he had the answer and he would sit up when he had night and talk to you about why he did that. Well, he had a reason and whether people like the consequences or not.

I think when he got to pay respect to the fact he had a theory of what he was doing and it was nothing about bias. I think the, you know, the Talkback Radio, the best of the Talkback Radio hosts, have a touch of that as well. They range across the landscape far more than George is able to want to be television. But the best of the Talkback Radio people look after the underdog, the best of the Talkback Radio, look after women's inequality, look after Aboriginal courses, etc.

I'm saying the best. I mean, we know what the shock jocks can do on the other side. But I think there was an element of that. But Neag has tried Talkback Radio with Peter Fitzamens, but in fact he was too small and liberal in his attitudes.

And that doesn't seem to work on Talkback Radio. But it was much of what George had to say, which is that opinion in a pub that is like, you know, a name that talks about people, like Talkback Radio people. That, you know, it borders on tabloid, but tabloid is not a bad thing. Tableau is something that really alerts, gets people's attention and gets people talking, which is what Talkback Radio does and what Neag has did in very few people do on television.

But I mean, I don't want to put George in that in that particular slot because he was far more balanced, I think, in what he did than a lot of Talkback Radio is. But I think there's an essence here of how he gets someone's attention. How do you look after the underdog? How do you look after people who have been beaten up by the system?

That was part of what George was. But his approach got him into trouble from time to time though, like in this 1977 interview with the then-primitist Malcolm Fraser where he was questioning him over the resignation of his treasure at Philip Lynch after a perceived financial conflict of interest. You know, quite well that he's in hospital again. I would have thought out of sheer plain, basic decency.

It should have been possible to respect his wish in this particular matter and allow the country to decide the matter on questions of brave policy, policy differences between ourselves and the Australian Labour Party and not at every turn seek to involve Philip Lynch who has served this country very greatly and who has won by his act, I believe, overwhelming support and respect. Mr Fraser, I have a lot of concern for Mr Lynch's personal position but whether you like it or not and whether I like it or not, it is a fact that a lot of people are concerned. Now, it's a whole issue. Well, how many people have spoken to you about it?

I'd say dozens in my round alone. I'm sure you raise it every time. No, I don't. I don't think people can ignore newsplay by headline.

I think that one sort of surrounded Mr Lynch's effect. I think they might have raised it before he took the act that he did. How many have raised it since? When did you think that he did the right thing before?

How many have raised it since with you? Many, Mr Fraser. It is a conversation point around the country. I really don't think that we can avoid talking about it.

Well, I think if there was a sense of decency for somebody who has behaved out of the highest sense of integrity, that you would. Well, could I say that you don't accept that? I do accept that people ought to act decently towards Mr Lynch. But I don't think the question is one of Mr Lynch's integrity or his honesty.

It's a question of the political prudence of a treasurer being involved in that sort of situation. No, you're trying to revive the whole issue. You're trying to put into the public debate the very matter that Mr Lynch knew was not going to be capable of proper resolution in the middle of an election climate. You're almost doing what Mac Bullsey tried to do the other night.

Just nor at the bone. I don't think it would be much better if it were put aside. I think the people of Australia would respect it much more if you did. Could I ask you this thing?

Do you think that the whole matter would be cleared up if Mr Lynch hadn't said that he was not going to reveal to you or to the public the full details of his affairs until after the election? That's what's keeping it in the election issue. I don't think so. I think it's your determination to try and make it an election issue.

But he didn't say that. That was an interview that George did with then Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser in 1977 on the ABCs this day tonight. His and his and his talking about what happened after that interview with Richard Feidler in 2006. So you're having a lot of fun on TVT but then you got the call from 60 minutes from the ABCs.

You got the flick. I got the flick around. You got the flick. I had a couple of hectic on camera starches with Malcolm Fraser in the 1977 election campaign.

Ironically, he paradoxically, Malcolm's become quite a good friend. He claims to be the most single greatest influence on my life and career, which is a deadly accurate. You did your favour? He did.

So what happened? We had a very special stouche on camera. And not he, but his minions put pressure on the ABC. I found out later and I was told I was no longer required as a legal correspondent.

So I threw it in the picture contract and before that came, I got a call from Channel 9. So then came 60 minutes. Yeah, I think the Fraser thing was the straw that broke the camel's back. It wasn't just stated if you built up for that.

It was a good deal for them. It was 10 different reasons why they should give them the flick. That was the final one to do it. But 60 minutes again, as I say, was just one of those where the programme was made for George Negas.

And the rest of us, until the out of the out of also brought beauty and intelligence to the programme. But I think George was simply just a satirical figure and also, you know, so out there, such an alpha male that it was always going to work. And he was. He was such an alpha male.

I mean, I, when I came to Sydney, he would just bound up to you. And in fact, that's how he got to meet his wife, his beloved wife, Kirsty. Well, I heard that could have been you. Well, I wouldn't say it could have been me, but certainly he and I were going, we were buddies and we were going to the logies together.

And I had, I think, by this night, I don't know if I'd replaced him by that time. It was a weird thing that I would end up replacing George because he could not have to more dissimilar people, friends, as we were. But I was going to go with him as a buddy and I got sent somewhere, maybe it was for the Sunday programme. And I felt bad.

I was, you know, living in Curabilly and I rang up George and I said, Oh, look, I really can't come. I'm so sorry. And but I have someone who would love to come. And I think, you know, you know her dad and I was Kirsty Coben and, um, Who dad was a famous journalist?

Yes. And he's all right. All right. Because he understood if you have to go away, you have to go away.

It's nothing personal. So he took my friend, Kirsty Coben, who I admit decades before travelling across Canada. And I, it's not that long after that when I returned from my trip because they buried in length sort of two to four weeks. Or sometimes they go on and on, but you just keep on meeting producers and other continents and just turn up in Saudi Arabia.

There you go. You know, from Indonesia. I think 12 weeks was the longest. One camera career.

It was alive. Anyway, and they slid up to my, I was leaving and an apartment. Very small one bedroom apartment which faced the Opera House. So it was a beautiful position, but it was tiny.

And I got a knock on the door and there's two of them sort of slid through the door and they said, guess what? And they were together ever after. It's interesting too that, you know, in terms of we talked to the Alpha Male. And yes, when we first worked together in 1979, there was no sexism that I could detect from Georgia that day.

She'd grown up with two women, his mother and his grandmother and so on. But even then it was channel line, channel line and there's a lot of sex about $1,6. No, that's right. And Val Donno.

But Georgie, then I noticed they had this very much understanding and the egalitarianism about him that they included women. And while he was a bit of a playboy at the time, until he met Kirsty, nevertheless, he was very much, I thought I've got three older sisters, so I was beaten to death by women. And so, but I was very impressed with Georgia. It was there.

It was no, despite the Alpha Male image, I think he understood the name for equality. Well, keen on women as opposed to a predator. Which is a very different beast. Here he is talking to Caroline Jones in 1988 about this very topic.

Basically, heavy influence upon me and my thinking and my values were women's influences. And I'm very, very pleased about that because I just prefer women's values, demands. Despite public reputation as a match-up image, it's a much prefer women's attitudes and values towards life and demands. And does having been influenced by women having an effect on the way you relate to other people, both at work and...?

I relate better to women. I really couldn't kill myself with what I get on with men. I only bother to get on with men who think the same way I do. That's the selfish thing I couldn't kill.

It's about that. I'm only interested in having close association with men who are not terribly interested in being men, or it's being human beings. Most of my close friends have been women. So interesting because as he even sort of references their very odd odds, I guess, with that public image, you know, the RM Williams boots and the moustache and the Open X shirts.