Graeme Campbell’s rough Voice from the West, resonant, aggressive and bearing no trace of its gentle Oxford origins, is set to boom loudly over the Australian election hustings.
It is sure to embarrass the Government, igniting old racist feelings and disrupting any thought John Howard might have for a smooth operation of gun control.
Independent Campbell, self-styled ‘ten pound Pom’, ex-rouseabout and camel-trapper was elected as an independent after being dis-endorsed as Australian Labor Party member for the sprawling Federal seat of Kalgoorlie, which he held for the past 15 years. Campbell was dumped for his outspoken views on multiculturalism and his call for a migration cut, particularly for non-Europeans. Now as an Independent for the seat the size of Western Europe he is ready to launch his ‘Australia First’ party that hopes to grab the balance of power in the Senate.
His former leader, ex-Prime Minister Keating, was deeply insulted by Campbell when he said the "greatest contribution the Prime Minister could make to Australia would be to have a State funeral." The last straw for the take-no-prisoners Campbell came when he addressed a meeting of Australians Against Further Immigration pouring scorn on the "Asianisation of Australia". The party machine’s tolerance of the stirrer and wrecker from the West finally snapped. It removed its endorsement for the 57-year-old maverick, who had said the Labor Government could not win the coming election anyway.
Graeme Campbell talks with nostalgia about his life in Australia after landing in Adelaide aged 11....
‘When I left agricultural college I was offered two alternatives: go to the Australian Broadcasting Commission as a cadet journalist or to go on to a dairy farm. Having some integrity, I took the dairy farm.
‘My ambition had always been to run a cattle station, and in 1960, my brother, Roderick, came out from England and we were allocated and opened up a 1,000 square miles on the Nullarbor; we didn’t have to buy the land.’ Then, just after Graeme 21, and Roderick, 18, took up the lease, nickel was discovered and farm laborers were offered twice the wages they were getting to go and work in the mines. ‘So we opened up the Nullarbor using criminals, alcoholics and Pommies,’ remembers Campbell, who stayed on the station for 13 years. ‘A lot of young Pommies had come out looking for adventure, not necessarily big money, and they did a hell of a good job.’
Graeme Campbell got on with Aussies. ‘In those days Poms were a bit of a rarity and I copped a lot of stuff like not washing and keeping coal in the bath. They called me a Pommy bastard, but there was no malice in it. It was a term of endearment.’
Not afraid to work, he got an early job with an eccentric bachelor Briton who had a dairy farm and had built himself a magnificent new house, preferring to live in a shed next to it. Campbell occupied the house by himself for 11 months - "a record, I found out. Nobody else had worked for the irascible old b----- for that long."
That career ended, he found employment with an Adelaide pet shop specialising in exporting wild animals to zoos. ‘The animal-catcher had killed himself and I took over. I caught kangaroos, birds, ostriches and camels - some of them were used in the movie ‘Lawrence of Arabia’. Sometimes we used 4WD trucks, but mainly spotlights and dogs. If you didn’t get to the animal within 30 seconds the dogs made it too late.’
Campbell says he was 12 years old when he decided on politics for a career, but "a few things got in the way". ‘I chose the Labor Party because it had more ideas than the Liberal Party; it was more often right.’ He used to fly himself about the huge emptiness of Western Australia in the early days, but found a slow light aircraft inefficient. As Member for Kalgoorlie, he takes commercial flights the length of Western Europe reaching the furthermost outpost of his huge rural and mining electorate by lunch-time and home for dinner. Driving such distances is not an option.
When his 15 years’ support by Labor came to an end, he said he would always be worried about the "tribalisation" of Australia evolving under present immigration policies. ‘Canberra has migrants from every part of the world and most of them have national clubs; not the British for some reason. They tend to integrate.’ He urges an across-the-board cut in immigration. His dislikes? "Greens, ethnics and Aboriginal lobbyists."
