Bredbo
Where are the guns?
I never could forget
the locking of our eyes
the vice grip on my arm
a strength beyond his years
a returned soldier
who fought the Nazi’s
I was manning the polling booths
After the Whitlam coup
The truth of this statement is only now emerging
In 2018
The conspiracy went all the way up to British Royalty
A betrayal of our democratic sovereignty
When I heard the monumental events unfolding
I left work
Sitting in the carpark
Listening to the radio
I could not believe it
The conservatives were desperate
They broke every rule and convention
In total disbelieve of being thrown out of office after 23 years
I immediately got engaged in forming
A Constitutional Reform Society
I became the secretary and my house became the head quarters
The outrage in the community was palpable
But ebbing up to the election with the media on slort
Particularly Murdock
I suspected that my phone was bugged
As clicking sounds in the back ground of the call raised my suspicions
I became very cautious about what I said on the phone
Most of my friends were journalists
I hang around the bars of the Canberra Press Club and Parliament house
I used to play squash at the Parliament House Courts with Ken Begg
Just walking into Parliament House and up to the Press Gallery
anytime I liked
No security
The debate about the dismissal raged
Particularly when fuelled by the incendiary nature of alcohol
Usually over drinks with various journalists at the Press Club Bar
Including Mungo McCallum
After the expected defeat of the Whitlam team
The dedicated few soldered on
A festival sprang up as a result in 1976
Run by Confest
With the first Back to Earth Festival at the Cotter
So when the next festival came around at Mount Oak in Bredbo in 1977
Tony Walker
who was a journalist friend of mine
working for the Age Newspaper
Tony later went on to be their Middle East correspondent
writing a book that was pivotal at the time
Tony
asked me to be his photographer for his interview with Jim Cairns
Who was heading up the festival called
Focus on the Future, Shaping Alternatives
I had worked for Visnews
A London based newsagency
As a photographer on my overland trip on the Hippy Trail to Kathmandu
Jim Cairns was the controversial Treasurer for the Whitlam Government
while it lasted
Who had a very public affair with Junie Morosi his personal assistant
They were together at Bredbo
Jim Cairns wrote the promo for the Festival
Which still resonates today
The purpose of the festival is to show the urgent need to SHAPE ALTERNATIVES NOW. Ways must be found because of the violent, acquisitive, alienated, industrial society which now poses a threat to survival. People have for centuries searched for equality and the right and ability to determine their own development. Individuals must accept responsibility for themselves. Personal happiness and equality, as much as a good society, depend upon self realisation. The most vital factor today is a sense of true identity. This is lost because our identities are created by others - not by ourselves. The all-powerful externally created hegemony in this assumed-to-be-free society, and its internalised personal alienation, must be understood if self realisation can be achieved.
The starting point must be the "will to be the self which one truly is".
There must be equality and effective individual participation in government and in every other group activity if self realisation is to be achieved.
The festival will be concerned with the search for the true nature of man and woman.
For many centuries the belief that man is inherently bad has exercised tremendous influence. Because of this belief, individual needs are suppressed and the result is that personal helplessness, lack of independence and the desire to be led are created. From infancy on people are trained to be self-denying, falsely modest, self-effacing and mechanically obedient. They are taught to suppress or hide their natural feelings and energy.
Social ideology is governed by contradictory altruism, by guilt and by the inability to experience work and action as a pleasure. This results in tendencies towards violence. But it is not the basic natural need of people that has a destructive and hedonistic outcome - it is the result of the repression of basic natural need that is violent and destructive.
The internal social crisis of today that results from these contradictions means that we must SHAPE THE ALTERNATIVES NOW. There is not just one alternative. The new society will be made up of the choices of multitudes of people - individuals and groups - who are determined to find a way out. No one can be excluded.
Sincerely,
JIM CAIRNS.
Tony and I drove down to Bredbo
About an hour’s drive
Then west to Mount Oak
The festival was being held on a private property
By a river in the hills
About 15,000 people attended
It was packed
We tracked down Jim Cairns
Who was staying in a pretty crappy caravan with Junie Morosi
She was a very charismatically intelligent, beautiful women
Who was at his side always
The interview was held in the caravan
Which was not great for photographs
Tony suggested we go for a walk to the top of a hill
which overlooked the festival site
To take some photos
Jim and Junie
hand in hand
climbed the hill all smiles
Jim with his shirt off
It was thankfully a hot, sunny day
Me
Stumbling
Backwards
ahead of them
up hill
Taking photographs all the way
Taking the photograph that defined the Festival
the view was also worth the climb
People were swimming in the river
Usually naked
After all, there still was a 60’s hangover
With a ferment push for change
The river rambled through a confusion of tents and lean too’s
Amid the She Oaks
Smoking fires
The smoke clinging to the hills
Earth toilets
Holes in the ground
People queuing
People just squatting right next to one another
Both men and women
No privacy
Crapping away while talking to the person next to you
Which in my case was a younger woman
No problems!
Driving back to Parliament House
Tony filed the story
Which lead on the front page of the Age the next day
The main photograph
Of Jim and Junie
Walking up the hill
Their interlocked hands concealed
Is still trotted out today
The photograph is also on the internet photographs for Junie Morosi
As I was not a unionised photographer
I could not claim ownership of the photos
it went under Tony Walker’s by line