National Observer Home > No. 65 - Winter 2005 > Articles
MAFIA INFLUENCE AND
THE WHITLAM GOVERNMENT
The death of Mr. Al Grassby in April
2005 has elicited wide-spread public
comments on his Mafia ties. Mr.
Grassby, the architect of “multiculturalism” and non-assimilation
in Australia, was an influential
member of the Whitlam government,
being the Minister for Immigration.
Mr. Bruce Provost, a retired National
Crime Authority senior investigator,
has recently indicated that he
had no doubt that the Whitlam government
Minister was paid to commit
crimes and do favours for Calabrian
Mafia members operating in Australia
and that the National Crime Authority
bowed to political pressure not to
fully investigate his Mafia links. He indicated
that there had been more than
enough intelligence on Mr. Grassby to
warrant a full-scale investigation but that he had been held back by the
N.C.A.1
A Herald Sun report indicated inter
alia:
- Giafranco Tizzoni, a Mafia supergrass,
identified Mr. Grassby as being
at the beck and call of Calabrian
crime heads.
- Mr. Grassby had, for example,
sponsored to Australia a Mafia
member who had been convicted of killing police by exploding a hand grenade in a Calabrian police station.
- One of Mr. Grassby’s closest associates
was Toni Sergei, the man
identified in court and in Parliament
as the Mafia leader who ordered
the execution of a member of
parliament, Mr. Donald Mackay.
- Mr. Grassby was closely connected with marijuana growers in Griffith.
- The Mafia funded Mr. Grassby’s
election campaigns, in consideration
of the abuse by him of his Ministerial
powers.2
Mr. Provost indicated that the denial
of resources and narrow terms of
reference prevented him from carrying
out a full investigation of Mr.
Grassby, and that Mr. Grassby had
used his influence over Labor governments
in New South Wales and Canberra
to restrict any enquiry. In 1987,
for example, Mr. Provost had been
sent abroad for four weeks, not being
permitted to return until polling day
(when the Hawke government was reelected),
thus preventing him from
charging Mr. Grassby before the election
with conspiring to pervert the
course of justice. When Mr. Grassby
was subsequently charged, critical evidence
was withheld from the court.
Mr. Gary Sturgess, who became the
architect of the N.S.W. Independent
Commission against Corruption, supported
Mr. Provost’s account, and described
Mr. Grassby’s support of the Calabrian Mafia as despicable and disgusting. In retrospect the membership of the Whitlam government can, with some
few exceptions, be seen to be a rogues’ gallery. Critical ministers included Mr.
Al Grassby (a corrupt Mafia figure),
Dr. Jim Cairns (a Soviet agent of influence3),
Mr. Lionel Murphy (who
consorted with criminals and who secretly
assisted the Yugoslav secret
service) and Mr. Rex Connor (who involved that government in corrupt financial dealings).
At the centre of his government was
Mr. Gough Whitlam himself. There
has been a regrettable tendency for
Labor enthusiasts not to acknowledge
the great defects of his government or
his own even greater personal defects. An independent observer could hardly deny that Mr. Whitlam is not a psychologically
balanced person and that
his profound psychological defects
made him singularly unfitted for any
leadership role, or, indeed, for any responsible
role. His manic behaviour
upon the steps of Parliament House
when he was dismissed in 1975 and on
subsequent occasions ought to be accepted
by all as a conclusive indication
of his defects.4 The Labor Party has always engaged in the mythologising of key leaders and in a search for authentic heroes.
It has found none. The controversial
Dr. Bert Evatt was revealed to have
been increasingly insane during his
public life, and a ruthless and cynical
self-promoter. The Lionel Murphy
myth has failed on the disclosure of his
criminal activities. The promotion of
John Curtin, en faute de mieux, has
been unsuccessful, as Curtin has been
progressively disclosed to have been
weak, bibulous and vacillating and to
have consciously permitted Australian
defence forces abroad to be effectively
betrayed by left-wing unions on the waterfront who prevented the shipment of munitions, equipment and urgently needed supplies to them.
The time has come for members of
the Labor Party to recognise that Mr.
Whitlam was not a hero, but a cause
of shame: an irresponsible megalomaniac
whose manic propensities are
clearly evident in television and video
footage of him at critical times in his
political career. The parallels with Dr.
Bert Evatt are close. The difference is
that Dr. Evatt never became Prime
Minister so as to enable his manic designs
to be perpetrated on his country,
as they were on his party, which
he kept out of office for twenty years.
But Mr. Whitlam did become Prime
Minister, and the most unbalanced that Australia has ever had.
1. Keith Moor, “Grassby Crimes Cover-up”, The Herald Sun, 9 May 2005. This article
is an example of objective and high-quality journalism that is unfortunately lacking
in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, where the journalistic staff are almost
without exception partisan supporters of the Labor Party.
2. For example, Mr. Grassby circulated a document known by him to be false, in which
it was alleged that the murderer of Mr. Mackay was his wife, and not a Mafia hit-man.
3. A detailed analysis of Dr. Cairns was published in National Observer, April 2005,
Issue 64 at pages 52-63.
4. Any residual doubts about Mr. Whitlam’s lack of honesty are dispelled by Sir David
Smith’s account “Setting the Record Straight”, published in National Observer, April
2005, Issue 64, at pages 10-24.
National Observer Home No. 65 - Winter 2005