Phillip Adams (9 page)

Mark was a Communist Party member from 1969 to 1978 and in 2010 published
The Family File
(Black Inc) about his family, particularly his father, who, Mark said, was the most spied upon person in Australia's history. Page by page, Mark read 20,000 pages of records that ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation) had collected about Laurie, who died in 2005. Mark obtained the pages from ASIO by fax, with only the sources obliterated. I well remember my own mother, a Sydney North Shore Liberal, cursing Laurie Aarons as an evil person when I was a schoolboy in the 1940s. An ASIO executive, who was in charge of a 30-year investigation into Laurie, wrote to Mark to say he wholeheartedly agreed with what Mark had written about injustice.

In contrast to Mark's comment that Adams clings to redundant views, former West Australian premier and Australian Labor Party president, Carmen Lawrence, told me on a visit to Sydney that Adams is in front of some sections of the party: ‘His left-wing views are ones that can be implemented and that is an important thing about his contribution — it is realistic as well as idealistic. At the same time as I was campaigning for a more humanitarian approach to asylum-seekers, Phillip was raising the issue in his columns. The Labor machine has moved right but Phillip has stayed left. He doesn't make you think he is better or smarter than he is, but on the other hand he likes to hold the floor,' said Carmen. ‘You wouldn't be able to do a job like his without having an ego, but his self-depreciation is real.'

I believe Adams' self-depreciation is his way of creating warmth between himself and his guests and listeners. He once told me, ‘I'm amazed by how little I've done,' but this is really the humble front he shows to people. He is actually surprised by how much he has achieved — more than most of the pillars of society, business or government. Some of his weeks, even in recent years, are much busier than almost any other seventy-plus person could handle.

For people who believe in the stars, even Adams' star sign is enigmatic: Cancer. The Universal Psychic Guild says most Cancers are bundles of contradictions. They are compassionate and caring with family and friends but can cut to the bone with ever-changing moods. They are eccentric on the one hand but insecure about how others see them. Phillip Adams has these ­characteristics.

Chapter Six:
The Good Guy and the Flip Side

Even Adams' critics regard him as a good guy, but some of both his supporters and critics say his personality has a flip side. For example, he is a champion name-dropper. Another Philip, Philip Ruddock, who argued with Adams on-air and in print several times when Ruddock was immigration minister and attorney-general in the Howard Liberal government, told me at his electorate office in Berowra, on the northern outskirts of Sydney, ‘Adams and I have always had a civil relationship. He's always treated me well when he's interviewed me. You couldn't fault his behaviour and his approach is professional and appropriate. He lets me say what I want to say, whereas some other radio people, such as Alan Jones, push their own views and talk over you.'

Based on the thousands of listeners' and readers' letters and emails to Adams that I read at the National Library in Canberra, almost as many people dislike his views as like them, but no-one I spoke to, or whose letters I read, said he is bad tempered, although two said he sometimes becomes nasty when crossed — and I experienced that Adams' emotion myself. He has a genuine concern for people and wants to contribute to a better world. The only problem for several of his friends is that he is impatient and abrupt. He has no time for pleasantries or chitchat — to his mind, it's a waste of time.

He is a kind person and a softie. During one of the hour-long meetings we had at his office in Paddington, Sydney, he fixed me with his sapphire blue eyes and described an incident when he was at East Kew primary school in Melbourne. A local preacher used to come to the school every week and drone on about the bible. Phillip didn't believe a word of it. He told me, ‘At the end of the year, the preacher said he wouldn't be back the following year. It was obviously a health issue — he looked dreadful. He told the class it would comfort him if any boys could stand up and say they accepted God as their personal saviour as a result of his teaching. The whole class froze. I knew my father conducted similar lessons in schools and I stood up out of sheer sympathy for the preacher.' Even as a schoolboy, Adams could not only sum up the situation but had a huge feeling for others.

But he has a dark side, and one example of it is his tendency to overplay it. He is funny, engaging and effective, but overstating things is a flaw. Hugh Mackay told me he wonders whether Adams slightly exaggerates his own importance. ‘I don't detract from his importance,' said Mackay. ‘He has been a towering figure in Australian cultural life. But sometimes he overstates his contribution. And in spite of his openness, he is very prejudiced, politically, religiously and culturally.' These are very human characteristics. Mackay once said, ‘I can't imagine anything more tedious than a perfect person, especially if it was someone who also demanded ­perfection from me.'

Hugh Mackay has had personal experience of Adams the good guy. When Mackay divorced, Adams was concerned and kept in touch with him more closely than before. Adams' concern for people, both broadly and personally, is not always recognised by people who don't know him. People think he's clever, influential and knows many people in high places but it's not widely understood that he has a great warmth for people.

The best way to make the world better and nicer, unless you are the US President, the Pope, Oprah Winfrey or Rupert Murdoch, is to do whatever you can, or use whatever pulpit you have, to persuade people — not to become good, because that would be pretty futile — that there are things they can do to make the world a bit nicer, and to do them.

Peter Best, the music composer, told me, ‘Under John Howard, Australia became a much meaner place. It is possible for politicians — and Paul Keating did it — to bring out the nicer side of the national psych. Phillip has been plugging away at that for as long as I have known him (about forty years) but a really cruel trick he's played on me a number of times — and I'm sure he's played it on others — was when he was a partner in the ad agency Monahan Dayman Adams. He'd get me to come and meet a really big client the agency depended on for survival. He would say, “Everybody, this is Peter Best. He's a genius.” And I wouldn't dare say anything for the whole meeting.'

Adams' home compound at Hawthorn in Melbourne was amazing in those years — he kept buying houses next door to accommodate artifacts he had bought around the world. He had a huge lake and one time when he was ill, Peter Best and his wife Cherry bought him a remote-controlled boat so he could sit by the lake and frighten the ducks with it. Best told me, ‘What happened to Phillip as a child was awful and the scars made him bitter in many ways. He didn't like my own father and thought he was jealous of me. Phillip told me, “Just get rid of him, Pete. Tell him to piss off. That's what I did.” I replied, “I actually like my dad,” and Phillip said, “Well, if you like him, that's okay.” He's never forgiven people who were bad to him when he was a kid. It has affected many of the ways he feels and things he does. His childhood comes back to him often. You always wish you could rewind the video of life.'

The weaknesses Adams admitted to me were: ‘A short attention span, never producing a great master work, being like a little Chinese juggler twirling bamboo sticks to keep all his plates in the air at once, a weakness for a cup of tea, and not being gregarious, which is a great problem for my family because I have no small talk and spend a lot of time alone and prefer it that way.' He also acknowledges the criticism that he sometimes tap-dances with issues instead of dropping depth charges. ‘The truth is that, because I was never properly educated, I was never taught discipline.'

Adams doesn't look after himself; he never exercises and is overweight. He eats hardly anything when he is in Sydney although Adams' partner Patrice Newell is a good cook and they grow most of the food they eat at their farm: beef, lamb, honey, olives and vegetables of all sorts.

Several of his friends and I have told him that to keep his mind active, which he certainly does, is great, but he should also keep his body active. He hasn't taken any notice and that will count against his health in the long run.

Adams is passionate about people although a self-proclaimed anti-social but enjoys the attention he gets when, for example, he chairs ideas festivals. He naturally revels in the spotlight when something he says or does makes headlines. When in August 2010 he got Kevin Rudd to give him his first major interview after the Labor Party backroom assassinated him and appointed Julia Gillard as Prime Minister, the interview received massive coverage in newspapers and on television and radio.

For a public intellectual who has made a long and well-publicised contribution to Australian media and politics, Adams acts, when he achieves a significant impact, like a cadet journalist getting his first story in print. He emailed me after the interview, ‘KR (Kevin Rudd) reckons I've saved the election — and his career. Mark Scott (ABC managing director) is thrilled. RN (Radio National) is enraptured by the public and media response.' Adams usually overstates reactions to what he says and does. Unfortunately for the Labor Party, the interview did not save Labor in the election, which resulted in a hung parliament and Labor staying in government only with help from independents.

Gerard Henderson, executive director of the Sydney Institute and one of Adams' arch rivals, told me all media commentators receive letters; other people might get hundreds a year but Adams says he gets ten thousand, ‘which seems a bit high. I don't know if anyone cares how many letters he gets but it's pretty self-indulgent to talk about the number. However, Phillip definitely has a fan club and they all love him. If I knew how to get a fan club, I'd get one myself.' It's probably a question of Gerard and Adams' personalities — Gerard's fans probably like him; Adams' fans love him, particularly the women.

Paul Keating has said there are lovers and haters. Phillip Adams is a lover. People like him because he invites them into his heart and mind. Matt Noffs told me, ‘The rudest thing about him is his abrupt phone calls and emails. If I phone him, he answers, “Yup?” and if he has finished wanting to talk to you, he just cuts in and hangs up. I've started to act the same way — people tell me I now don't say goodbye on the phone. It's amazing how much time it saves!

‘I'm sure Phillip is an arsehole at times. Another dark side of him is that he likes to drive expensive cars. And sometimes he promises to do things for people and doesn't get around to them.' Aged 31 in 2010, Matt Noffs is only half the age of most of Adams' friends, which makes his perspective of Adams particularly interesting. He told me some of his Adams experiences: ‘He showed me how to choose my battles wisely. For example, I wanted to get stuck into the Reverend Fred Nile (a bible-bashing New South Wales politician) because I thought he was an ignorant bastard. But Phillip said everyone would make up their own minds about Nile no matter what I said and I would only exhaust my energy. He was right.

‘I told Phillip I was terrible at writing but
The Village Voice
, a local newspaper in Maroubra, Sydney, wanted me to write a regular column. Phillip said reading and writing go together like a horse and carriage and told me to read a lot, so I did — even a dictionary — and I felt my mind was opening up. It made me feel better when I found out that Phillip's spelling is as bad as mine.'

Matt Noffs was named in
The Weekend Australian Magazine
in 2009 as one of the next hundred leaders in Australia and also by
The Sydney Morning Herald's
(Sydney) Magazine
as one of the top hundred most influential people in Sydney. With no political experience, he decided to take part in the 2007 federal election. The Labor Party asked him to be in its campaign and Malcolm Turnbull, the Liberal MP, took him for a walk at Bondi early in 2007 and outlined what he would like Noffs to do. Turnbull told him the Liberals would lose the election but he would take over the leadership, both accurate predictions. After the Liberals got back into power, Noffs could ‘take over youth affairs'. It sounded wonderful and some of his friends told him he could be a Trojan horse in the Liberal Party and change it. He phoned Adams and told him what had happened and Adams said, ‘Be here tomorrow at 10.30am.' He got there and Adams advised him very strongly not to join the Liberals: ‘They're not a political party; they're a state of mind. Don't join either party. Your grandfather (Ted Noffs) was influential because no-one could pigeonhole him. He was a multi-partisan, so he could put pressure on anyone and any party. Look what I do. I might be a Labor Party member (he was then) but I'm never beholden to any party or anyone.'

Another example of how Adams and Matt Noffs have worked together was early in 2009 when Noffs set up the Street University at Liverpool in Sydney as a division of the Wayside Chapel to give disadvantaged young people with nowhere to go a place where they can explore ideas outside a tertiary institution. He asked businesses in south-west Sydney, which has huge drug and alcohol problems, for help to buy a warehouse for $1.5million. He told me, ‘I thought I was kidding myself. I went to the federal government and it gave me a small sum. Phillip said he would write a column about it and in the end he wrote three and raised $100,000 from his readers.' Now at the Street University young people attend free lectures from experts on subjects such as sociology (‘Shit You Can Wrap About'), identity, maths, literacy, basic science, making speeches, writing CVs, art and graphic design, and business.