Judy Cannon traces the glory days of one of our liveliest public forums The National Library is always on the outlook for new acquisitions, the distinctly contemporary as well as the traditionally historic. The stories of people and organisations do not need to be old to be important and those gathered as they evolve are especially pertinent if they reflect the national scene. One organisation whose story has been recorded since inception as very much part of contemporary Australian public life, is that of the National Press Club, based in Canberra. The Library’s Oral History Collection contains many tapes and transcripts of addresses given by the club’s prestigious lunchtime speakers, together with an impressive photographic archive created by National Library photographers. The club had a modest start in a Canberra pub but in the 1970s and 1980s achieved eminence in the nation’s calendar of events. The idea for a press club came when a few journalists, as they do and hopefully always will, gathered for a beer and a yarn in 1962, in this case at the Hotel Kingston, and came up with the idea of a national press luncheon club. According to papers lodged with the National Library by Lee Catmull, a journalist with the Melbourne Sun who was a National Press Luncheon Club founding committee member and secretary from 1963 to 1970, the idea took off with the backing of federal parliamentary press gallery and public service journalists. The formal go-ahead came from a meeting of the Australian Journalists Association that September, assisted by a report produced by Christopher Forsyth (The Age), John Lleonart (The Canberra Times) and Joe Colgan.
The National Press Luncheon Club’s new committee was chaired by Tony Eggleton, Navy public relations man and later Federal Director of the Liberal Party, with members including Forsyth, Lleonart, Harry Keen and Norman Hoffman (Dept of Immigration), Neil O’Reilly (Sydney Sun), John Rich (The Sydney Morning Herald), N. Browning (The Canberra Times), Eric Sparke (Australian News & Information Bureau), Noel Tanswell (RAAF), ex-officio Australian Journalists Association president Harold Eather and George Randall. Lee Catmull and Don Lawler (Dept of Immigration) were also invited invited to join the committee. External
Affairs Minister Sir Garfield Barwick was speaker for the first club luncheon
at the Hotel Canberra on Renamed
the National Press Club at its incorporation in October 1968, the organisation’s
new $3.5m building was at 16 National Circuit, Barton and incorporated
leased accommodation for lobbyists and the US Information Service. It
was officially opened by Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser on It is interesting to speculate whether the founding journalists ever envisaged a club possessing the influence it so soon achieved, or that future speakers would include the eminent, the international, the royal, the presidential, and sometimes, in retrospect, the notorious. The speakers list is, for the club, a kind of drum roll of honour. Politicians and the political have always had the rostrum made available to them in times of election and drama, but speakers have also come from a broad spectrum of professions. They have included diplomats, scientists, writers, entrepreneurs, academics and sports personalities, both national and international. Many have come armed with a message, relishing the opportunity to speak to so many journalists in one hit; others, especially actors and comedians, have come to entertain, or delightfully, just to be themselves. The National Library has consistently tape-recorded both speeches and question-and-answer sessions and has built up an impressive collection of speakers’ portraits, together with some hilarious caricatures.
National Press Club membership has remained diverse attracting, in addition to journalists, diplomats, representatives of commerce, academics, military and public service personnel and those active in community organisations. It has a great attraction for local business people. According
to the Lee Catmull material, on the bar’s opening night, an imbiber—it
had to be a journalist—was found comfortably asleep on the carpet about
Marjorie Turbayne, manager in the early days and wise to the ways of men, noticed one day that the car of a committee member—who had seen everyone off the premises at 2.30am—had been left in the front driveway. Suspecting he had fallen asleep and spent the night in the car, she checked. No one was inside the car, so being savvy, she also checked under the car. The reality was the vehicle had refused to start and he had been given a lift home. No members’ names attach to these stories. The club’s program soon expanded to evening dining and entertainers were hired, as in large social and sports clubs. Artists have included singer Marcia Hines and The Fortified Few, as well as jazzmen Don Burrows and James Morrison. Jazz, blues and individual performances continue today with the Saturday night cabaret, currently under the stewardship of Bill Stephens, coincidentally one of the National Library’s valued oral history interviewers for the performing arts. As the club grew more successful the strain began to tell on committee members and staff alike. After five years as president from 1971 to 1977, T. Max Hawkins decided he could no longer occupy the position in combination with his professional and family responsibilities. He was also concerned that key staff members were working long hours and needed time for families and relaxation. Success had its down side. The NPC has had the good fortune to attract long-term presidents but, so far, Gay Davidson has been the only woman to serve a term. Current president Ken Randall was appointed to the board in 1975 and has been re-elected each year since. An ABC TV presenter on political issues and current affairs, he has been an executive member since 1977 and in 1997 was awarded an AM primary for his service to the club. The luncheon
remains the club’s primary focus. The pattern has invariably been a formal
address, usually televised, followed by questions from media members.
Question time, especially when a hot issue is running, can often be lively
and speakers can be given something of a battering. An inveterate questioner
for years was the late Bruce Juddery, often regarded by fellow journalists
as something of an enfant terrible. Although he enjoyed a drink,
for years he invariably asked penetrating questions—once he got through
his wordy preamble. His presence
During the 1970s and 1980s, the club virtually created a Who’s Who of speakers. Fewer VIP international speakers are now able to accept an invitation because of security reasons and because constraints demand fly-in fly-out visits. In response, the club has initiated National Press Club events in Sydney and Melbourne. Past speakers, at random and in no order of precedence, most of whom have autographed the club’s visitors’ book, include Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies, E.G.Whitlam, both as Opposition leader and Prime Minister, Prime Minister of Malaysia Tun Abdul Razak, United Nations Secretary-General Dr Kurt Waldheim, King Hussein of Jordan, Israeli Defence Minister General Moshe Dayan, Dr H.C. (Nugget) Coombs as Chairman of the Royal Commission into Public Administration, Prime Minister of Japan Yusuhiro Nakasone, the actor and writer Peter Ustinov, United States Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Richard Nixon, Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew, the Duke of Edinburgh, Barry ‘Edna Everage’ Humphries, Lord Thomson of Fleet, the United Kingdom and Canada newspaper proprietor, Prime Minister of India Mrs Indira Gandhi, round-the-world yachtsman Sir Francis Chichester, South Vietnam Prime Minister Air Vice-Marshall Nguyen Cao Ky, tennis champion John Newcombe, comedian Joyce Grenfell, UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, comedians Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, writer Germaine Greer, Galarrwuy Yunupingu, Chairman of the Northern Lands Council, scientist Sir Mark Oliphant, Green Ban activist Jack Mundey, US leader of the Moral Majority Jerry Falwell, High Court Justice Lionel Murphy, His Holiness the Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, Prime Minister of Fiji Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, the Shah of Iran, Sir Richard Attenborough, former governor of Hong Kong Chris Patten, Australian actor Jack Thompson, former UK politician and author Jeffrey Archer and Francis James, the Australian journalist who was held in a Chinese prison for three years and who wrote under his signature, ‘(i.e. Pavlov, K.G.B.)’. One reference in the Lee Catmull records is a reminder, however, that a press club is not always about the great, the notorious or the powerful. He noted that, in 1976, the committee approved the purchase of a cookbook at $47.50—for the chef. JUDY CANNON is a freelance writer based in Brisbane and a former National Press Club member |
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