The great Mungo MacCallum is gone, and half a century goes with him

Not being half the writer the great man was, I have to repeat myself: the death of veteran political commentator and former Crikey contributor Mungo MacCallum robs Australian political writing of vast reserves of clarity, incredulity and style — resources that were hardly in abundance even with his contributions.

In fact, Mungo is one the few writers capable of summing up what he and his five decades of writing meant, and the different understandings of life and politics that he bridged and illuminated for us all.

Here then are some selections of his words:

On John Gorton:

For many conservatives, Gorton’s retirement was the most admirable period of his career: nothing so became him in political life as the manner of his leaving it.

The conservatives were, however, judging Gorton by the standards of the Menzies era. To them Gorton was a maverick; his prime ministership was not merely an accident (which, of course, it was) but a mistake. Looked at from another viewpoint, Gorton was a man ahead of his time, caught in a complex of pressures beyond his control …

As in so many fields, there was a public and a private Gorton. Both were good blokes, but somehow they never quite got it together for what the times demanded.

On politics and the press gallery:

The age of the gifted amateurs, men and woman who would take temporary leave from their careers for a period of public service while preserving a real job to return to, is gone forever. The current lot are in it for life; if they lost their seats they would be totally bereft. Hence they are deadly serious, terrified of making the sort of error that would cause them to fall from favour with their party heavyweights … It is one of the more worrying features of Howard’s style of government that while the public standard demanded of his ministers has never been lower, the intra-party discipline has never been more savage.

On the 2010 election:

If they tell us they care about the future but show neither vision nor emotion about it, why should we care any more than they do? We vote without enthusiasm or conviction, and often in the belief that whatever we do will make no real difference; that the ritual is no longer worthwhile. And when we, the people, reject the democratic process, the very spirit of the nation withers and dies.

On News Corp and the 2010 election:

It seemed an entirely fitting note on which to wrap up election coverage — self-seeking, trivial, misleading and above all very, very dumb. There have been many losers in the 2010 election, but none more to be pitied than those who relied on News Limited for their political information.

On John Howard and mandatory detention:

There was much to loathe about the Howard years, but two things were utterly unforgivable. One was the abandonment of Australian citizens to illegal imprisonment and torture — David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib. The other was the incarceration of children behind razor wire until they went mad.

Of course mandatory detention began under Labor, and there were already disturbing stories coming out of the detention camp at Port Hedland by the time John Howard came to power in 1996. But it was he who developed the idea as a conscious policy of government, to be pursued for political gain whatever the cost to the victims.

On his own retirement:

I am sorry to cut and run — it has sometimes been a hairy career, but I hope a productive one and always fun. My gratitude for all your participation.

So a seasonal Hallmark message:

Christmas is coming and Australia is flat

Kindly tell us ScoMo where the bloody hell we’re at.

And when we’re certain that you know that you don’t haven’t got a clue

Then join in our Yuletide chorus as we sing: FUCK YOU!

Thank you and good night.
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Mungo’s last words in Crikey came via a quote in a very silly piece about how badly being PM fucks up your looks:

Perhaps the best solution is Andrew Peacock’s — reach for the hair dye, keep the left profile sharp and pretend it isn’t happening. And of course in his case it didn’t: he never became either an adult or prime minister.

A little personal note. When I called to speak to him, his partner Jenny gently informed me that Mungo was more or less incapable of speech and as such would have a hard time with a phone interview. I thanked her and hung up, assuming my silly piece was destined to be even sillier than I had feared.

Twenty minutes later an email arrived from Mungo with a few amusing and insightful thoughts. I’ve always been struck by how easily, how reasonably, he could just have ignored me, and what it said about him that he didn’t.

https://www.crikey.com.au/2020/12/10/vale-mungo-maccallum/

A man of wit and conscience, who only ceased writing a short while ago. Sad to see this.

dv said:

A man of wit and conscience, who only ceased writing a short while ago. Sad to see this.

GeoffD used to lunch with him, there was a group that used to meet regularly, I’m sure they were long lunches that required the use of a taxi home.
I think they met at the Regatta.

I first came across that interesting name as the name of a building at Sydney Uni. Later I came across his journalism in the Nation Review, The Australian and The SMH. Then that wonderful gravelly voice popped up on Double J dishing out biting commentary on Canberra goings on.

It dawned on me after a while that the SU building was not named for the Mungo MacCallum who died yesterday nor for Mungo MacCallum his father but for Mungo MacCallum his grandfather, Chancellor of the University of Sydney.

Ian said:

I first came across that interesting name as the name of a building at Sydney Uni. Later I came across his journalism in the Nation Review, The Australian and The SMH. Then that wonderful gravelly voice popped up on Double J dishing out biting commentary on Canberra goings on.

It dawned on me after a while that the SU building was not named for the Mungo MacCallum who died yesterday nor for Mungo MacCallum his father but for Mungo MacCallum his grandfather, Chancellor of the University of Sydney. 

He was a rellie of Wentworth apparently.

sarahs mum said:

Ian said:

I first came across that interesting name as the name of a building at Sydney Uni. Later I came across his journalism in the Nation Review, The Australian and The SMH. Then that wonderful gravelly voice popped up on Double J dishing out biting commentary on Canberra goings on.

It dawned on me after a while that the SU building was not named for the Mungo MacCallum who died yesterday nor for Mungo MacCallum his father but for Mungo MacCallum his grandfather, Chancellor of the University of Sydney. 

He was a rellie of Wentworth apparently.

Yeah.

His mother was Diana Wentworth, a great-granddaughter of the Australian explorer and politician William Charles Wentworth.

MacCallum and his uncle, while agreeing on certain questions, were fundamentally of different political inclinations. He was once described by Gough Whitlam as a “tall, bearded descendant of lunatic aristocrats”.

WP

I inherited a book last year by Mungo MacCallum about the suite of Australian prime ministers from Barton to Guillemot.

It’s not a particularly good book. Too biased and too shallow.

I always liked reading what Mungo had to say from the early days of the Nation Review on.

Vale Mungo MacCallum

Mungo Wentworth MacCallum: December 21, 1941 – December 9, 2020

This is a personal tribute by David Lovejoy. For detailed accounts of Mungo’s life, see the obituaries in the mainstream press.

With immaculate timing and a great work ethic until the end, Mungo has passed away a few days after announcing he would write no more. Here at The Echo we still cannot quite believe that he has gone.

From shortly after the newspaper’s founding until just a week ago, Mungo produced for us a political column that was well-informed, often surprisingly clairvoyant and always written with elegance and wit.

Above all, his columns were unambiguously on the side of the angels; he spent the first half of his life learning everything there is to know about the Australian political system and the men and women who operate within it, and he loathed politicians of whatever party who pervert and corrupt it.

Mungo was a friend to The Echo when as a fledgling publication it needed friends. In the beginning he let us republish columns he wrote for national papers, because we could never pay what a political journalist of his standing deserved and normally received. Later he worked out how to write an original column for The Echo’s tiny stipend by syndicating it later in the week to other outlets.

He also taught many of the older Echo drudges how to write. This was not just by example: he literally taught us the rules for producing clear and simple prose by devising a set of axioms condensed from George Orwell’s writings. The last axiom was to abandon all rules rather than write anything that lacked grace.

Mungo and Jenny. Photo Eve Jeffery.

The loss to the newspaper is great, but our personal loss is greater. Mungo and his wife Jenny Garrett made legions of friends when they retired from Canberra and settled in Ocean Shores over thirty years ago. In a café or pub you could usually track where Mungo was enjoying himself by the sound of animated and amusing talk, punctuated by his own distinctive laugh-laugh-laughter.

At the newspaper I would see Mungo once a week, when he still filed his copy on paper and in person. After Jenny converted him to Mac and email I used to see him at social events, Gecko cricket matches and staff booze-ups, which were still plentiful in the good old days until our frailties caught up with us. Thereafter a weekly coffee with friends sufficed to keep us up to date.

Discussions with Mungo were often serious affairs and you could learn a lot en passant if you encouraged him to talk. If a factual point needed settling it was very rarely necessary in Mungo’s company to search the internet for it. His knowledge of history, literature and science was phenomenal, and so was the memory that provided access to it.

Perhaps this was natural to a member of one of the last pre-digital generations (he still used a manual typewriter until late in the twentieth century). Although he spent more of his university time on carousing and politics than formal study, Mungo’s wide-ranging education was undertaken and encouraged in the company of similarly brilliant minds, friends like Clive James, Les Murray, Germaine Greer, Bruce Beresford and Robert Hughes.

Growing up as the nephew of the stridently reactionary Liberal MP William Charles Wentworth IV gave him ample opportunity to examine right-wing ideas at first hand, and at a young age he made the choice to reject them and support the Australian Labor Party, as the only conscionable alternative to conservative selfishness.

He could sometimes appear aloof, and he could be fiercely dismissive of fools and scoundrels. A blue-blood Wentworth background is hard to overcome, even when you choose left-wing politics with all your heart. Mungo’s comrade and cherished leader Gough Whitlam described him as a ‘tall, bearded descendant of lunatic aristocrats’, but beneath the beard and patrician manner there was a man of warm and compassionate disposition.

Rather than seek a political career, for which his stubborn intellectual honesty disqualified him, Mungo elected to become a journalist, and when he retired from covering federal parliament his was one of the most recognisable names and faces in the Canberra press gallery.

His fame scarcely diminished over the years, for in September 2014 a false report of his passing spread across Twitter, causing a wave of grief for a much-loved figure. Like Mark Twain, Mungo was amused at the exaggerated reports of his death and, I think, touched by how genuinely relieved people were when the news was corrected.

The real health problems behind this false rumour presented a cruel test of character. After surgery to remove his larynx, Mungo the mellifluous, who delighted in the play of words, was marooned in silence. Now his friends had to converse on politics without his input, no doubt their talk full of error and misconception, unless he made the mighty effort to croak a word or two from his oesophageal tube. Those words were never of complaint or impatience; throughout his long final illness he maintained a stoic calm, and while he had lost his voice he never lost his probing analytical mind: the columns he continued to write were first-rate until the end.

One side effect of losing his radio and television work after the laryngectomy was the increased time he had to devote to books and the creation of crosswords. In the last period of his life he completed a revised edition of his book on Australian prime ministers, The Good, the Bad and the Unlikely, bringing it up to the sorry present, and also composed a stockpile of cryptic crosswords so that his puzzle fans can still be teased for months to come.

Much as I treasure memories of Mungo I know they are only a fraction of his long and adventurous life. The Echo and the Byron Shire community were lucky to have him spend the last part of it with them.

Mungo MacCallum is survived by his partner Jenny Garrett, daughters Diana and Gail, and step-daughters Adrienne and Gillian.

https://www.echo.net.au/2020/12/vale-mungo-maccallum/

Mungo’s last contribution to the Echo, November 30, 2020:

Thus Spake Mungo: China, China, CHINA!

It may be a statement of the bleeding obvious, but a face off with the People’s Republic of China would not be a good idea.

From any perspective – military, economic, political, simple weight of numbers – Australia cannot hope to compete on a level playing field with our dominant neighbour.

And to pretend that somehow we should be seen as equal partners, as Scott Morrison is apparently urging, is a dangerous delusion. At best, we can never be more than a client trader – keen to deal with whatever China is willing to buy from us, and what we are desperate to buy from it.

So when our Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack trots out the old line about ‘China needs us as much as we need them’, it is not only silly but provocative. Apart from being demonstrably untrue, (Chinese investment in Australia has fallen from $16 billion to $2.5 billion since 2016) it is a feeble attempt to give our most important customer the finger in particularly fraught times.

So it behoves us to tread with caution, and when Beijing warns us to back off, kiddies, it cannot be dismissed as just a bit of diplomatic chit chat, however much the backbench crazies might wish it to be.

Nor is it simply what Morrison calls a list of 14 grievances, more of the same old demands over things such as Huawei and a COVID inquiry. The complaints go deeper, to what is obviously seen as a conscious anti-China agenda on the part of the Australian government.

Ominously, China’s foreign ministry is now using the word “enemy” in communiqués to and about Australia. But Morrison seems to think this is more of a challenge than a threat. His response remains that we are a sovereign country, our standards cannot be compromised, and we can bluff it out.

But Beijing is not just unrepentant, but positively proud of its relentless imposition of totalitarian rule on its hapless citizens.

Detention without trial or charge, forced labour, strict censorship, repression of minorities and the politically incorrect, physical and mental torture are the norm. This cannot be condoned.

But, around most of the world, it can be and generally is ignored. And there are times when it is better to be tactfully silent than to shout futile defiance.

No one is suggesting we lower our standards, which may not be impeccable but are obviously far less abusive than those of the Chinese, the most tyrannous regime on the planet.

But our own record is hardly beyond reproach and the Chinese are not averse to pointing this out. They have already targeted Australia’s failure to redress the inequalities across the Indigenous community, and now of course, they have extra ammunition with the highly convincing evidence of Australian war crimes in Afghanistan. This is not the best time to assume the high moral ground.

That does not mean that we have to negotiate on our knees. But as we have been repeatedly told, the relationship has to be managed with care. Respect is essential, and an acknowledgement of the manifest power imbalance.

Last week, in Tokyo, Morrison tried to secure an alliance of resistance with the Japanese Prime Minister Yoshishide Suga, and has been offered support for his stand by United States heavy hitters like Marco Rubio. Our departing emissary, Arthur B Culvahouse Jnr, has provided a farewell cheerio. But all this only underlines Australia’s own impotence.

So when Morrison scrabbles for purchase, declaring that Australia’s actions should not be interpreted through the lens of the strategic competition between China and the United States, Beijing hears another message: ‘China noticed  Prime Minister Morrison’s positive comments on the global influence of China’s economic growth and China’s poverty alleviation efforts,’ a Foreign Ministry spokesman noted approvingly. Tribute received and accepted.

And this is precisely the dilemma; Beijing obviously thinks we do have a choice and we have got to make it. We are either with them or against them – sitting on the barbed wire fence is not an option.

There is a lot of history in this. The Jade Empire has had a couple of centuries of having sand kicked its face by the colonial bully-boys of Europe, but now, if it is not quite yet the toughest kid on the block, it is bloody close to it. Time to kick back.

And giving Australia a gob full is entirely appropriate – even karmic. China’s own resources – economic, innovative, even spiritual – have been ruthlessly exploited by invaders. With Australia depending on China to do the exploiting and pay the bills, there is no better time to turn the screws.

So the news comes through that some 80 Australian coal ships have been held up indefinitely at Chinese ports. Owing to ‘environmental concerns’, explains Beijing, in what is no explanation at all. And there may be an element of that, but no one in Canberra doubts that this is really all about ramping up the political pressure. And the same applies to the wine tariffs, imposed in retaliation for improbable allegations of dumping.

Morrison is looking for the old comforters: rules based trade, nuance and accommodation, latitude and room to move. But his pleas are becoming more frantic – methinks he doth protest too much.

‘It’s as if Australia does not have its own unique interests or its own views as an independent sovereign state,’ he implored. ‘This is just false. And worse, it needlessly deteriorates relationships.’ Well, not to the Chinese it doesn’t. That’s just the kind of relationship they like – the one where they win.

And let’s be honest, the relationship has seldom been entirely amiable. China has been seen as more of a threatening than a friendly neighbour. Long before it was rechristened during the cold war as The Red Menace, China loomed large over our future. There was always the fear that the teeming masses to the north would engulf us by the sheer force of gravity.

And the Chinese themselves? Mysterious, inscrutable – and therefore sinister – overtones of an undercover regime under the iron rule of the evil genius, Dr Fu Manchu. Or perhaps his successors; the current suspicion of hordes of cyber-hackers hidden behind secret vaults, tirelessly sabotaging and subverting Australia and its diplomatic allies has gained considerable purchase.

Inherent racism? Almost certainly. And this will be just another problem for Morrison as he tries to reframe a confrontation that he may wish to end, but his antagonist is happy to pursue to its inevitable conclusion.

Nothing biased or shallow in the above.

roughbarked said:

I always liked reading what Mungo had to say from the early days of the Nation Review on.

I miss the Nation Review.

sarahs mum said:

roughbarked said:

I always liked reading what Mungo had to say from the early days of the Nation Review on.

I miss the Nation Review.

John Hepworth, Sam Orr…

sarahs mum said:

roughbarked said:

I always liked reading what Mungo had to say from the early days of the Nation Review on.

I miss the Nation Review.

I was an avid reader in the early days.

Tamb said:

sarahs mum said:

roughbarked said:

I always liked reading what Mungo had to say from the early days of the Nation Review on.

I miss the Nation Review.

I was an avid reader in the early days.

As I also was a prolific reader of a newsprint publication known of as Cosmos.
A prolific contributor to Cosmos was Dr Karl but he wasn’t actually a doctor back then.