Jenny Hocking - Lionel Murphy: A Political Biography

Jenny Hocking,

Lionel Murphy: A Political Biography

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

 Pp. xii + 359. Hardback         0 521 58108 7.

As a politician. Lionel Murphy never had any recognition problem. Nature gifted him a bulbous nose which was interestingly rearranged in a car crash. When Canberra astronomers discovered an unusually sinuous nebula, they jokingly named it in his honour. Detractors (he had many) alleged that his real name was Isaacs, and that he had changed it to win the support of a powerful electoral lobby. In fact for Murphy, a passionate man, being Irish-Australian was more than a mere ethnic classification. He will always be associated with the 1973 ASIO 'raid': in reality, an abruptly announced by the new Attorney-General to the headquarters of the security service in Melbourne. Intended to dramatise the new Labor government's grip on power, and its determination to end a perceived cosy attitude to right-wing terrorists, the ASIO raid ended the Whitlam government's honeymoon by making it look both high-handed and, worse, still oppositionist in mentality. The next year, Murphy's legal opinion that Rex Connor's massive borrowing was purely 'temporary' was at the heart of the 'Loans Affair'. In this episode, Murphy acted on his belief that Australia's notoriously conservative constitution could be interpreted for Labor's ends. Soon after, Whitlam shunted him to the High Court. Arguably, Murphy made two more fundamental contributions to his country. From 1967, as Labor leader in the Senate, he asserted, even exalted, the role of the upper house, through a theory of bicameralism which the Coalition parties manipulated with devastating effect in 1975. As a judge, although locked in conflict with the Chief Justice, Barwick, and plagued by vexatious legal actions, he helped steer the High Court towards a recognition of Aboriginal rights that culminated in the 1992 Mabo case. By then, Murphy was dead. Jenny Hocking's biography grew out of her role as co-author of a movie script about him. There are occasional cameo scenes and flashbacks but, as Hocking points out, the subject was a private man and it is a challenge to get inside his world. Her tone is sympathetic. She evidently to give, as far as possible, equal coverage to all phases of Murphy's life and some may feel that this balanced approach has produced an abbreviated and apparently unquestioning approach to the controversial events of 1972-74.