Review of John Brown’s Brownie. The Minister for Good Times, Good Times Press Pty Ltd, Sydney, 2023, 347pp, published in Recorder, official newsletter of the Melbourne Labour History Society, Issue 312, July, p. 8.
With a complacent title, published by admirers (the imprint Good Times Press is revealing), un-stocked in ‘leading’ bookstores, with word-of-mouth sales, this is the last of the memoirs of Hawke government ministers, published forty years after its election. The book is unlikely — so far — to have been widely noticed by Labor historians and labour movement activists or general readers. Yet this is a revealing, interesting, well-written and beautifully presented account of one of the most popular and effective ministers of the Hawke era.
It might seem unusual to say, given that so many ex-pollies write to settle scores, to vindictively explain how wronged and/or brilliant they were, that this is a happy book. Writing as a nonagenarian, Brown in his twilight years seems unfazed by the tall odds, near impoverished beginnings, and unlikely twists and turns of luck, business, personal, and political. Divided into 95 sections, the book includes tributes from Paul Hogan, the Sydney Harbour Bridge rigger and part-time Ironworkers’ Union official, turned comedian, film star, and advertising mascot for Australian international tourism campaigns, and John Coates – the long-time head of the Australian Olympic Committee and sports impresario.
Brown is mostly remembered for two things, one of which is of lasting consequence. This was becoming Australia’s first Sports and Tourism minister (and Environment minister) of significance. The other was for the media brouhaha of sex in the office with the apocryphal story of knickers left in the ministerial ashtray. The salacious ‘good time’ story covered in the tabloids and the 60 Minutes television show under-emphasised that the ‘affair’ was with his then wife, Jan Murray. It was a story that even his self-deprecating personality grew tired of. He begins the book with a chapter: ‘About that Desk Business’.
Brown, a gregarious, likeable, self-confessed sports nut, racehorse owner, gambler, and businessman, was the one Labor MP most like Bob Hawke. He could mix with punters, royalty, big wigs in business, all types. His larrikin streak, irreverence, and fearless get-go got him far. When he entered parliament in 1977 after a lucky redistribution (the boundaries of the seat of Parramatta changed from Liberal to winnable Labor) he was proud to be both a member of the Meat Employees Union and President of the Wholesale Meat Traders Association.
The book covers Brown’s life growing up poor in Cabarita, Sydney, a “westie”, son of a bus driver father — a union activist and supporter of the ALP Industrial Group in his union — and a housewife mum whom he was devoted to. Trained as a butcher, young Brown visited abattoirs and mixed with mates and mentors, harmless rascals, and dallied at dance halls and pubs. Like John Howard, he only left home in his early thirties to marry. But unlike his namesake, Brown had led a lively life before marrying Jan in 1963. They had five children. Brownie took out a loan to set up a butcher’s shop, and later formed Hatton and Brown, a meat distribution company. He was elected a councillor of Parramatta Council, won gardening competitions, and Jan won the Lovely Motherhood Quest. In his origin and formation, he was typical of a type of NSW Labor, Catholic working class. But he had an independent streak and thrived in business. He admired and campaigned for Gough Whitlam, winning a seat for him in Whitlam’s final campaign as Labor’s leader.
What is most interesting about the book is the energy and élan Brown displayed as a junior minister in the Hawke Government, defying bureaucrats insistent on curtailing his policy initiatives, and his pesky insistence to obtain more funding for sports and tourism. He had Hawke in his corner, backing ‘Brownie’ at the Expenditure Review sub-Committee of Cabinet as he pleaded for extra budget allocations, presenting what would now be called cost-benefit analyses and performance expectations for his proposals.
Outstanding is the story of how Brown marketed Australia to the world, with John ‘Strop’ Cornell and Hogan. Their insight was simple. There are plenty of places with great beaches and brilliant scenery. What set Australia apart was its people.
He once quipped: “I had long held the view that tourists would not come all the way to Australia to see a koala. After all, there were plenty of koalas in various American wildlife parks [and zoos].” He also said they could be “nasty, ill-tempered, offensive little beasts, likely to piddle on you.” That caused some mirth.
Hogan is quoted in the book as referring to Brown as: “The knockabout Minister for Sport and Tourism that put Australia on the map. He was the captain coach of the team and an inspiration to all of us.” With Strop, they conceived ideas about presenting Australians as the friendliest of people, with Australia as a country tourists would love because they would be guaranteed a good time by the people they met. Hogan’s cheerful “put another shrimp on the barbie” saying, and his television advertisement showing a winking eye as a camera circled him in a Statue-of-Liberty-pose atop the Sydney Harbour Bridge, was part of the appeal. The Aussie personality was joyfully presented. That was genius.
The book is ablaze with stories delivered with a raconteur’s flair, often with an eye to championing something that mattered. He had a good time doing interesting and creative work: the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs in hospitality and tourism is his legacy.
It is dispiriting that politics can enable vacuous smoothery to rise to the top. But sometimes a decent soul emerges and survives, at least for a time. Brown’s story is in that latter category. Along with Peter Walsh’s Confessions of a Failed Finance Minister, Brown’s book enables a keener appreciation of what the Hawke Government at its best was like.
*Michael Easson worked on staff for the first six months of Brown’s parliamentary career.
