 |
Junie Morosi (born 26 July 1933) is an Australian businesswoman, who became a public figure in the 1970s through her relationship with Jim Cairns, Deputy Prime Minister in the Whitlam Labor government. Morosi's appointment as Cairns's principal private secretary, and the nature of her relationship with him, aroused intense media interest, and the affair contributed to Cairns's eventual dismissal from office and the fall of the government.
Morosi was born in Shanghai, China, and educated in the Philippines. Her father was Italian and part-Chinese, her mother Portuguese and part-Chinese also. The family moved to Manila when she was a child and from age 8 she experienced life under Japanese occupation. She worked as a journalist, becoming political correspondent at the Manila daily newspaper Voz de Manila. She also worked in advertising and travel consultancy.
While Morosi was still a teenager she married a Filipino. Together they had three sons. In 1958 she was employed by Qantas, the Australian national airline. In 1962 she moved to Australia, where she married a British businessman living in Australia, David Ditchburn. [1] She continued to work in the airline and travel industry until 1974, when she was employed as an assistant to Al Grassby, the Commissioner for Community Relations. Grassby had been a minister in the Whitlam government before losing his seat in the May 1974 election. Her new job brought her into contact with other Whitlam government ministers. In Canberra she read and was impressed by one of Jim Cairns' books, The Quiet Revolution, and arranged to meet him. [1]
Cairns was then Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer in the Whitlam government. Tom Uren, another Whitlam minister and one of Cairns's closest friends, later recorded that "Jim and Junie were attracted to each other from the first time they met."[ citation needed ] She was attracted to his intellect and personal charisma, and he responded to her emotional warmth and unorthodox attitudes. Morosi greatly admired Cairns from having read his academic writings and she introduced Cairns to the work of Wilhelm Reich, opening his mind to the relevance of human psychology as it related to social change. [2] The attraction soon became sexual, although whether and, if so, when their relationship became a sexual one remained a matter of speculation until 2002, when it was confirmed as such by Cairns. [3] [4]
In December 1974 Cairns offered Morosi a position as his Principal Private Secretary, a job traditionally held by a senior public servant. Her business background made the offer at least defensible, but she had no knowledge of Australian politics or economics, and not much experience of managing a large and complex office. The offer of employment aroused an immediate storm of sensationalist media coverage which began on 2 December 1974. The fact that Morosi was "exotic" (the media's code-word for "Asian"), youngish (she was 41) and attractive was given much prominence. To this were soon added allegations that both she and Ditchburn had questionable business associates.[ citation needed ] It was also soon alleged that Ditchburn was using Morosi's position to further his business interests.[ citation needed ]
Cairns's friends urged him to withdraw the offer to Morosi, but out of both personal loyalty and a refusal to be bullied by the anti-Labor tabloid press, he refused. [2] He said that there would have been no media outcry "if I had appointed a man, or even a woman who was not good-looking."[ citation needed ] Cairns and others pointed out that Elizabeth Reid, who had been appointed Whitlam's advisor on women's issues in 1973, had received the same sort of media attention.[ citation needed ] In any case, Cairns and Morosi soon jointly decided it would be best not to flame the media fire any further and both publicly stated that Morosi would not take Cairns' offer of employment. The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian reported on Cairns' and Morosi's statements with "press accused of spying", claiming press vilification brought about the outcome, but in such a way that accepted no blame or responsibility. By this stage the media had raised the scandal to "Morosi storm rocking government" status, and bestowed upon it a moniker: "The Morosi Affair". The Liberal Opposition called for a senate inquiry into the business affairs of Morosi and Ditchburn.[ citation needed ]
After investigation, it was revealed that there were no irregularities and on 13 December 1974 it was reported that Morosi would accept Cairns' offer of employment. [1] The media circus resumed. It was aggravated by Morosi's decision to give interviews to the Sydney tabloid The Sun and the mass-circulation Woman's Day. Morosi said: "If I had been a white Anglo-Saxon male there would have been no story at all. One day, I was the most sinister, deadly enemy of Australia – a member of the KGB, the Chinese mafia, you name it."[ citation needed ] During the Australian Labor Party's National Conference in February 1975, Cairns gave an interview to a hostile reporter in which he spoke of "a kind of love" for Morosi. The press continued to encourage speculation; at the National Conference, a photographer hid in a tree and waited while Morosi, her husband, Cairns and his wife were having breakfast on a balcony. The photographer took a photo just when Cairns' wife left the balcony and with Morosi's husband out of shot. The Daily Telegraph ran the picture of Cairns and Morosi the next day with the headline "Breakfast with Junie". [1]
Allegations were levelled at Morosi that she used her position as Cairns' private secretary to cut Cairns off from his political associates and from alternative sources of advice.[ citation needed ] Morosi was working for Cairns during the incident that eventually led to Cairns' political demise. Cairns was introduced by Robert Menzies to George Harris, a Melbourne businessman and president of the Carlton Football Club. [5] Harris had offered to secure loan funds for the Australian government and in March 1975, Cairns signed a letter agreeing to a 2.5% commission. Many blamed the disorganised state of Cairns’ office for what ultimately turned out to be a misleading statement to parliament in June that he had not authorised any such commission. [6] Cairns claimed that he had signed the letter in question unknowingly while signing a batch of fifty or so letters, and that it was not uncommon practice for politicians to sign letters and subsequently to have little or no memory of their content. Ironically, politicians from across the aisle – Malcolm Fraser and a number of his ministers – spoke out in defence of Cairns on this subject, agreeing that they too signed letters of which they had little or no memory. But the fact remained that Cairns did sign the letter and, as a result, Whitlam dismissed Cairns from the ministry on 2 July 1975. The supposed relevance of this incident to Morosi is the implication that, as Cairns' private secretary, Morosi was to blame for any disorganisation present in Cairns' office that may have contributed to him signing the infamous letter but not remembering having done so. However, in a 1998 interview, when asked whether Morosi was a good office organiser, Jim Cairns was quoted as saying "No. She wasn't supposed to be an office organiser. The criticism that has been levelled at her is made by very jealous and envious people, who were supposed to be organising the bloody office themselves." [2]
After Cairns was dismissed from the Ministry in July 1975, he kept Morosi on his backbencher's staff as a research assistant. She published her version of events in a book, Sex, Prejudice and Politics, later in the year. Together they worked on a new project for an alternative lifestyles festival to be held near Canberra. The Down to Earth Festival in December 1975 attracted 10,000–15,000 people. Cairns and Morosi continued to work on developing the movement until 1977, when Cairns retired from Parliament.
By 1977, however, the same allegations that had been made against Morosi in the political world were being made in the alternative lifestyle movement: specifically, that she was manipulating Cairns, and that her husband was manipulating both of them for financial gain.[ citation needed ] Cairns and Morosi subsequently severed any formal links with the Down to Earth movement in 1979, leaving a legacy of ill-feeling and disputes over money which eventually led to litigation in the New South Wales courts.[ citation needed ] The Down To Earth (Victoria)Cooperative Society LTD continues to host an annual ConFest (Conference Festival) that Jim Cairns initiated in 1976. In recent years the cooperative has extended invitations to Junie to attend festivals with appreciation of her role as a key founder and members have interviewed her in her home.
By 1981 Morosi had moved on to a new project, the Wyuna Co-operative, a "community housing project" in Canberra involving Morosi and Ditchburn as well as Morosi's brother and sister-in-law, with some financial support from Cairns.[ citation needed ] In 1985 the co-operative received a $133,000 grant from the Community Housing Expansion Program of the federal Territories Department. When the National Times newspaper revealed this, Prime Minister Bob Hawke intervened and the program was wound up. Morosi complained that the controversy was entirely because of her involvement, and indeed an inquiry later found that there was nothing improper about the grant, although it was critical of Wyuna's management.[ citation needed ]
Despite the inquiry's findings, the government froze the grant and attempted various circuitous measures to ensure that the Wyuna Co-operative could not make use of it. The resulting proceedings dragged on, and in 1986 Morosi was hospitalised suffering from stress and exhaustion. In 1988, the matter was finally settled and the grant was provided.[ citation needed ] By this time however, the strain and legal costs had ruined both Morosi and Ditchburn's business interests and contributed to Morosi's divorce from Ditchburn. These events also effectively marked the end of Morosi's relationship with Cairns, who was reconciled with his wife, although Morosi and Cairns remained friends until Cairns' death in October 2003.
Morosi gradually faded from public attention, but her tumultuous years in the spotlight continued to haunt her. Media outlets continued to make allegations about her relationship with Cairns, and she successfully sued 2GB and The Daily Mirror for defamation. [1] She won $17,000 in damages from The Daily Mirror and $10,000 from 2GB. On 2GB Ormsby Wilkins had said that "Junie Morosi is an immoral adventuress who has slept with a variety of notable politicians." [7]
In The Daily Mirror case, Morosi told the court: "I felt insulted, angry, upset and hurt. It was very demeaning to me as a woman [to be called Cairns's 'girlfriend']. I saw myself as a professional, as a competent person doing her job. It was cheap. It was as though it had nothing to do with business but everything to do with sex." The jury decided the article in question did imply a sexual relationship, but was "not defamatory." In 2002 Cairns admitted his relationship with Morosi had been sexual. [3] [4]
Edward Gough Whitlam was the 21st prime minister of Australia, serving from 1972 to 1975. He held office as the leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), of which he was the longest-serving. He was notable for being the head of a reformist and socially progressive administration that ended with his controversial dismissal by the governor-general of Australia, Sir John Kerr, at the climax of the 1975 constitutional crisis. Whitlam is the only Australian prime minister to have been removed from office by the governor-general.
The 1975 Australian constitutional crisis, also known simply as the Dismissal, culminated on 11 November 1975 with the dismissal from office of the prime minister, Gough Whitlam of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), by Sir John Kerr, the Governor-General who then commissioned the leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Fraser of the Liberal Party, as caretaker prime minister. It has been described as the greatest political and constitutional crisis in Australian history.
Sir John Robert Kerr, was an Australian barrister and judge who served as the 18th governor-general of Australia, in office from 1974 to 1977. He is primarily known for his involvement in the 1975 constitutional crisis, which culminated in his decision to dismiss the incumbent prime minister Gough Whitlam and appoint Malcolm Fraser as his replacement, which led to unprecedented actions in Australian federal politics.
James Ford Cairns was an Australian politician who was prominent in the Labor movement through the 1960s and 1970s, and was briefly Treasurer and the fourth deputy prime minister of Australia, both in the Whitlam government. He is best remembered as a leader of the movement against Australian involvement in the Vietnam War, for his affair with Junie Morosi and for his later renunciation of conventional politics. He was also an economist, and a prolific writer on economic and social issues, many of them self-published and self-marketed at stalls he ran across Australia after his retirement.
William George Hayden was an Australian politician who served as the 21st governor-general of Australia from 1989 to 1996. He was Leader of the Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1977 to 1983, and served as Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade from 1983 to 1988 under Bob Hawke and as Treasurer of Australia in 1975 under Gough Whitlam.
Francis Daniel Crean was an Australian politician who served as a member of the House of Representatives from 1951 to 1977, representing the Labor Party. He was a minister in the Whitlam government, including as Treasurer from 1972 to 1974 and the fifth deputy prime minister for a few months in 1975.
John Douglas Anthony PC was an Australian politician. He served as leader of the National Party of Australia from 1971 to 1984 and was the second and longest-serving deputy prime minister, holding the position under John Gorton (1971), William McMahon (1971–1972) and Malcolm Fraser (1975–1983).
Lance Herbert BarnardAO was an Australian politician and diplomat. He was the deputy leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) from 1967 to 1974 and held senior ministerial office in the Whitlam government, most notably as the third deputy prime minister of Australia from 1972 to 1974.
Rosemary Follett is an Australian former politician who was the first Chief Minister of Australian Capital Territory, serving in 1989 and again between 1991 and 1995. She was the first woman to become head of government in an Australian state or territory.
Albert Jaime Grassby, AM was an Australian politician who served as Minister for Immigration in the Labor Whitlam government. He completed reforms in immigration and human rights, and is often known as the father of Australian "multiculturalism". He gained notoriety by acting as an agent of influence for the Calabrian criminal network that murdered anti-drugs campaigner Donald Mackay.
ConFest is an alternative bush campout festival held in the south-eastern states of Australia annually during and around Easter. The name 'ConFest' is a concatenation of the words Conference and Festival. ConFest was initiated in 1976, and organised by the former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, Dr. Jim Cairns, his private secretary Junie Morosi and David Ditchburn. It was and is intended to bring together the various subcultures of the alternative movement, and was billed as "An Exploration of Alternatives".
Thomas Uren was an Australian politician and Deputy Leader of the Australian Labor Party from 1975 to 1977. Uren served as the Member for Reid in the Australian House of Representatives from 1958 to 1990, being appointed Minister for Urban and Regional Development (1972–75), Minister for Territories and Local Government (1983–84) and Minister for Local Government and Administrative Services (1984–87). He helped establish the heritage and conservation movement in Australia and, in particular, worked to preserve the heritage of inner Sydney.
The Loans affair, also called the Khemlani affair, was a political scandal involving the Whitlam government of Australia in 1975 in which it was accused of attempting to borrow money from the Middle East by the agency of the Pakistani banker Tirath Khemlani and thus bypass the standard procedures of the Australian Treasury and violate the Australian Constitution.
The Whitlam government was the federal executive government of Australia led by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam of the Australian Labor Party. The government commenced when Labor defeated the McMahon government at the 1972 federal election, ending a record 23 years of continuous Coalition government. It was terminated by Governor-General Sir John Kerr following the 1975 constitutional crisis and was succeeded by the Fraser government—the sole occasion in Australian history when an elected federal government was dismissed by the governor-general.
Wendy Frances Fatin is a retired Australian politician. She was a member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and was the first woman from Western Australia elected to the House of Representatives, representing the division of Canning (1983–1984) and Brand (1984–96). She held ministerial office in the Hawke and Keating governments, serving as Minister for Local Government (1990–1991), Minister assisting the Prime Minister for the Status of Women (1990–1993), and Minister for the Arts and Territories (1991–1993).
John Murray Wheeldon was an Australian politician and journalist. He was a member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and a senator for Western Australia from 1965 to 1981. He held ministerial office in the Whitlam government as Minister for Repatriation and Compensation (1974–1975) and Minister for Social Security (1975). He was known for his views on Australian foreign policy and after leaving politics became an editorial writer for The Australian.
The official secretary to the governor-general of Australia and staff provide support to the governor-general of Australia to enable the governor-general to carry out their constitutional, statutory, ceremonial and public duties. Until 1903, the governor-general’s private secretary provided the support to the governor-general, when the official secretary position was established. The position was abolished in 1928 after the Parliament moved from Melbourne to Canberra, but was recreated in 1931. The position was established by statute in its current form in 1984. Since 1 July 2024 the official secretary has been Gerard Martin.
The Fraser government was the federal executive government of Australia led by Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. It was made up of members of a Liberal–Country party coalition in the Australian Parliament from November 1975 to March 1983. Initially appointed as a caretaker government following the dismissal of the Whitlam government, Fraser won in a landslide at the resulting 1975 Australian federal election, and won substantial majorities at the subsequent 1977 and 1980 elections, before losing to the Bob Hawke–led Australian Labor Party in the 1983 election.
Ormsby Cecil Wilkins was an Australian radio presenter.
CIA involvement in the Whitlam dismissal is an allegation that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was involved in the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis, which culminated in the dismissal of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam.
| International | |
|---|---|
| People | |
