One Crowded Hour

12 thoughts on “One Crowded Hour”

1. “You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.” –– Angela Davis.

   

   This is not a review of Radicals: Remembering the Sixties by Meredith Burgmann and Nadia Wheatley, it is a critique of the interview and chapter contained in it: Brian Laver – Fighting Fascism. Nor is it a vendetta against the man portrayed so favourably by Nadia Wheatley. This is an attempt to understand what is meant by “Radical”.

   Brian Laver built a reputation in Brisbane as an opponent of the American war in Vietnam and for his opposition to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Of course Laver was not alone in this, however he attended the conservative Queensland University and was often attacked for his opposition to the American war in Vietnam. He was labelled a radical by the majority of the University staff and students which numbered about 8,000 in the mid 1960s.

   
   Laver about to speak at an End Conscription rally in KGSq on 22 October 1966. Photo: Grahame Garner, Fryer Library UQ collection.

   Later Laver himself displayed his libertarian attitude when he opposed the Howard’s gun buy-back scheme to try to prevent massacres like Port Arthur. Laver ran bookshops that carried a variety of material including left-wing books and pamphlets. A lot of the printed material came from Emma’s, a second-hand bookshop in West End that carried books originally acquired by Peg Pemberthy who had been in the Communist Party. Sadly Laver’s newly badged Zapatista’s at AHIMSA house also contained sexist material and at times pornography, itself inherently misogynist. A review of the AHIMSA house accounts show that Laver did not pay rent to the owner of the building at 26 Horan Street West End, Ross Taylor.
   
   Brisbane’s Camelot
   In Radicals, a photo of 60s radical Brian Laver and his first wife Janita depicts the couple marching from right to left outside the U.S. consulate. They could have been marching the other way – moving toward the right. The authors claim that the photo was shot by Grahame Garner. While possible, is unlikely because of the exposure setting in comparison to photos shot around that time by Garner. Nor does the photo below does not appear in the comprehensive collection of over 900 of Garner’s photos held in the Fryer Library at UQ.
   
   Laver being arrested for carrying a placard against the American war in Vietnam, Laver is accompanied by his wife Janita and daughter

   Wheately restates the 60s slogan: ‘the personal is political’. It is made as a fleeting superficial comment on the times. For mine, ‘personal’ and ‘political’ are separate parts of the human condition, the first is about the individual, in Latin persōna (“mask used by actor; role, part, character”). Political is from the Greek politikos “of citizens, pertaining to the state and its administration; pertaining to public life”. There is little doubt that Laver wore a political mask to cover a flawed attitude to friends and comrades.

   I do not accept that the New Left, a political movement that Laver was part of, had any real or lasting impact on the outcome of the American War in Vietnam. Nor did the New Left prevent stalinists from defeating the Prague Spring. Both Janita and Brian say they were in Prague at some time during this period in 1968.

   There is little doubt Laver has romanticised his involvement in that conflict and his opposition to stalinism is conflicted with his own elitist, authoritarian streak.

   So where lies the 60s revolution and the New Left as described in Wheatley’s interview with Brian Laver in Radicals?

   Laver being arrested for carrying a placard against the American war in Vietnam, Laver is accompanied by his wife Janita and daughter.

   Many of the people from that era have exaggerated the effect they had on the political situation in this country. For example, Aboriginal women rejected 70s women’s liberation advocated by Germaine Greer and others, apartheid existed in Queensland well after the Springbok protests of 1971 in which Meredith Burgmann made her mark – the racist Queensland Acts were not repealed till the early 1980’s and were replaced by policies like the taking away first nations children by the Queensland Department of Children’s services, Howard’s NT intervention and the introduction of the cashless benefits card. Rudd’s saying Sorry to the stolen generation did not stop aboriginal kids being taken away, nor did it close the gap.

   Laver is consistently referred to as a leader of the student movement in the 60s, not just in Radicals but elsewhere. Perhaps he was. But not for a big part of the University that I attended. For mine, Laver was always a sectarian. At one point or other, Brian fell out with even his closest associates and comrades, including Ross Taylor. Why? Because he took advantage of people and ripped them off. One of Laver’s many business failures was an attempt to set up an Institute of Social Ecology at 26 Horan Street West End. This was where Ross Taylor and his wife wanted AHIMSA (Peace) house to help migrant women learn English and for progressive environmental, cultural and political activity to have a home. At least that is what Ross Taylor had put in his will (the one I saw, at least). Progressive social events like Foco Nuevo that occurred there were cut short when Laver’s mismanagement caused ‘changes in the leasing arrangements at Ahimsa House’.

   Wheatley speaks glowingly of Laver yet omits the failure to respect the wishes of his comrade from the 1960s, Ross Taylor who had helped feed Brian, Janita and their kids when they were hard up back in the day.

   So, is the present relevant to a remembering of the past? I think it is especially when it is past comrades from the 60s who advised Laver of what property to purchase and how to avoid debt. In spite of this, Laver and a local architect, Will Marcus, stole $1.3M from a vulnerable old man by bullying him. This now retired meatworker, Ross Taylor, was forced by Laver and a solicitor in Noosa into a high-risk, unconscionable loan from a merchant bank called Challenger bank.

   Laver bullied Ross Taylor into signing a Westpac cheque for $168,032 and gifted it to Will Marcus. This was based on a fraudulent claim by Marcus that he owned 1/6th of the building at Horan Street. Laver knew that Marcus had no such claim on the building yet allowed the cheque to pass to Marcus despite claiming to be Ross Taylor’s enduring power of attorney. Marcus used the money to pay off his apartment in nearby Mollison Street, West End. The manager of the local Westpac bank later told Ross Taylor’s friend, Bernie Neville, that he regarded the cheque to be a fraud.

   Laver appropriated goods and services, renovated his home in Marley Street, paid for lunches at the same Vietnamese restaurant where he was interviewed by Nadia Wheatley, and stole cash, all off the back of a reputation built for him by glowing and misleading accounts like that in Radicals. All of this was already well documented at the time of the interview. The fraud had been exposed to the Public Trustee of Queensland who did nothing about it. The same Public Trustee is now subject to a Crime and Corruption Commission.

   The present is a product of the past. Yet Radicals are blind to Laver’s fraud. Why?

   Does the framing of Laver as hero suggest an uncomfortable failure for the New Left that eschewed class conflict? Don’t working class people matter?

   None of this is to say that I would not have picketed Boggo Road jail when Laver was locked up for his opposition to the war in Indo-China.

   However Laver’s and his supporters ongoing attempt to con people into believing he represents ethical conduct should stop. Sure Laver goes on coaching tennis at the primary school across the road from where AHIMSA house stood. Kids of the middle class come and go at Laver’s tennis academy, but he should not be trusted with hard earned money. Let the rich pay for his excesses.

   Of course Laver will never show respect or acknowledge his failings, nor will he pay retribution to the community. After Bernie Neville kicked him out, the much needed aboriginal juvenile centre that Sam Watson and Link Up tried to set up at AHIMSA house was lost because of the financial mess that Laver left. He paid for the lunches using Ross’s money, he gave them free rent or reduced their rent in a building he did not own. The public trustee protected him from prosecution. He and his class reap the benefits and privileges. In those circles there is only silence towards the vulnerable and poor people that he hurt.

   If that chapter on Laver is the best the publishers of ‘Radicals’ can do, what is the real legacy from the Left that opposed US imperialism and the racist Springbok tour.

   Ian Curr
   19 Sept 2022

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2. The Hiroshima Day Rally held on Tuesday 8 August 1967 began in the Old Brisbane Markets in Roma Street just below the Dental Hospital. Children played in puddles as a throng of 200 or so people gathered holding placards and banners that opposed the war in Vietnam, conscription and of course the bomb.

   People assembled there to hear speakers address the crowd from the back of a truck with No More Hiroshimas and stop bombing Vietnam banners slung from its side. The march was led by the Brisbane Branch of the Waterside Workers Federation going past Trades Hall in Upper Edward Street and ending up in the Domain between Wickham and Ann Streets in Fortitude Valley.

   The crowd was addressed by communists, anarchists, members of the clergy and Labourites from under WWII air raid shelters as children played on Robbie Burns statute.

   The Qld Peace Committee had a hand in the organisation of the day as did the Trades and Labour Council led by Alec MacDonald and the Communist Party. The crowd was serenaded with peace songs sung by Geoff Wills and members of the Communist Arts collective from Lota on Moreton Bay.

   Here is the (silent) film of the rally and march shot by Grahame Garner from the Tramways Union.

   https://youtu.be/29v_TGs25Xk

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3. Over the years there have been a lot of derogatory things said about Laver of a quite personal nature … however my beef with him and people like him is political not personal. There are some issues that can not be canvassed here because they are of a private nature.

   I have heard and read bizaare allegations against Laver (the latest one is that he is an author of several sexist and pornographic novels) … I think these rumours are often silly, worthless, lack evidence and are devoid of any meaningful political perspective. They are scurrilous.

   What I asked (in writing and in person) the Public Trustee (Peter Carne) and his officers to do was to audit Laver, as Power of Attorney for Carl Ross Taylor and CEO of AHIMSA house to discover if his conduct was fraudulent and unethical. I provided the Public Trustee’s office with all of the financial documents available from AHIMSA house. Brian Laver (who claimed to be Carl Ross Taylor’s power of attorney) refused to provide cheque books for AHIMSA house. Laver paid AHIMSA house creditors by using pre-signed blank cheques. There is reason to believe one (if not all) of those cheques was fraudulent. Under the signature it had Laver’s full name (which was crossed out) and Ross Taylor’s signature substituted. The cheque was for $168,032 and was made out to a company whose sole proprietor was Will Marcus, an architect who had his offices in the building and had not paid rent to Mr Taylor for six years. Will Marcus then used that $168,032 cheque to pay the mortgage on his apartment in Mollison Street, West End. The public trustee allowed Challenger Bank to sell AHIMSA house for half its value.

   The Public Trustee who controlled Taylor’s business affairs (because of alleged incapacity) failed to fulfill his primary duty to his client Carl Ross Taylor. As a result of the Public Trustee’s failure, Taylor lost is family home, his retirement savings and finally his liberty (Ross was locked up in a high secure facility 100 kilometres away by the Public Guardian). Mr Taylor passed away on Sunday, 28th July 2019 at 1 am. The cause of death remains unclear. Some say it resulted from a fall inside the facility, others say it was kidney failure. No results of autopsy has been published (as far as I am aware). The Attorney – General did stand down Peter Carne but did so for reasons based on Carne’s personal conduct not for his failure of his fiduciary duty to look after the financial interests of his client, Mr Taylor. No proper audit of the business affairs of Mr Taylor (the owner of AHIMSA house) was ever conducted by the Public Trustee.

   As a result of these failings, a man has lost his life and the local community had lost a resource that had operated from 2004 – 2011. Sadly AHIMSA (Peace) house failed to engender a feeling of trust and solidarity, something that its self appointed CEO (Laver) must take some responsibility for.

   Ian Curr
   Editor WBT
   21 October 2020

   NB I am closing the comments section to this article.

   People can write to workersbushtelegraph@gmail.com

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4. Meredith Burgmann was involved in the movement against the Vietnam war and apartheid in South Africa, she was on the first Austrlain brigade to Cuba to ‘cut can for the revolution’. Discussion of the New Left and 60s radicals with Meredith Burgmann.
   https://soundcloud.com/ian-curr/sets/meredith-burgmann-60s-radicals

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5. It’s interesting that you make assumptions about my father and present them as fact. I believe you have next to know knowledge of his early life, or of him in general, and refuse to acknowledge all that both my parents did during this time in Qld. and this was evident when you stated that he came from a wealthy family. Far from it, let me assure you. There is much that I read about my Dad, and always have through the years, that I know is hogwash or distorted truths. I’m under no illusion that he is a faultless but I don’t like vendettas. As I said, he had scholarships so he would never have attended Churchie or UQ if he hadn’t. If you insist on calling that privilege then so be it.

   I am very aware of the clashes within the Left and the many factions and hatred that has run rife. I keep my distance from it and want no part in it. Of course it has been distressing at times. And I know very well how much my father and my mother and us kids sacrificed for their political beliefs and that includes financial gain.

   A little known fact is my parents generously let people from the Left live in our home while we were overseas only to return to it having been trashed and their car a wreak. So there were lots of generous people. And yes Ross was one of those people and my father never, ever said otherwise. He always told us how Ross would help us by giving us parcels of meat during difficult times. So if our life was so luxurious and privileged why would we need hand outs? I have nothing further to say regarding Ross. People turn against each other all the time, especially in political circles and as I said, I have no interest in engaging in something I know nothing about.

   Lastly, I don’t subscribe to the whole white, privileged, middle class nonsense making the rounds at universities. I’m a humanist. I don’t believe in identity politics.

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   1. Hello Tempe,

      There needs to be some acknowledgement of the wrong doing at AHIMSA house from Brian. He needs to take some responsibility for what happened to Ross. Ross lost his retirement savings, his house, and finally his freedom. Brian is partly responsible for this mismanagement of the business affairs of his friend. Brian also took advantage of Ross to further his own dreams, many of which were unrealistic.

      You say I do not know anything about how much your parents did and what they went through back in the 1960s. That they helped a lot of people often with little in return. Maybe you are right.

      What I do know is that others did help them too. Take this account by my friends Joyce and Phil O’Brien who supported Brian, Mitch, Barbara and Gail when they were jailed as a result of their opposition to the Vietnam war.

      Four of those arrested in October 1966 elected to go jail rather than pay their fines. They were:

      1. Gail Salmon – $6 fine (incarcerated 3 days in Boggo Road Jail, 1-3 February 1967)
      2. Barbara Jane Gaines – $16 fine (incarcerated 3 days in Boggo Road Jail, 1-3 February 1967)
      3. Mitch Thompson (incarcerated 3 days in Boggo Road Jail in solitary confinement, 1-3 February 1967)
      4. Brian Laver – $10 fine (incarcerated 6 days Boggo Road Jail, 10-16 January 1967)

      Here is Phil’s account of the support Brian and his co-accused received from others:

      “The period of great activity by students for civil liberties and opposition to the Vietnam war had been during 1966 and 1967. Many arrests of students resulted in their refusal to pay fines. Brain Laver and Mitch Thompson were in Boggo Road jail. Supporters were picketing outside the jail. Headquarters for picketers and friends was the home, opposite the jail, of a waterside worker, the late Jim Gill and family.

      Joyce and I arrived one Saturday morning to take part in the picket. We parked our Holden station sedan about 30 feet from the bus stop outside Jim’s home. State special branch and uniformed police were there all day in large numbers. About three in the afternoon one of the police cars suddenly came out of the jail and stopped in front of our car. Out the uniformed police got with their booking pad at the ready. Several of us went to my car.

      Constables Hutton and Beswich said I was parked illegally as you could be no less than 40 feet after the bus stop and 60 feet away from the approach to the bus stop. I attempted to explain the traffic act which in fact cited the distances of 40 feet before and 20 feet after a bus stop. The police were both very arrogant and said that they were not prepared to talk with me but would fight me in court. They handed me the traffic ticket. In the meantime, Jim Gill had got a tape measure and measured 32 feet from the bus stop to my parked car.

      I asked Constable Hutton to mark on the traffic ticket the distance, which he did. I had the traffic rule book in my hand at the page of parking near bus stops. I tried to reason with the two constables who were more arrogant and insulting than army provosts were during the war. I told them I would appeal against any fine imposed and would not be paying it. Time moved on and I received an order to pay for my alleged offence.

      I wrote to the traffic branch explaining my objection. Lo and behold, after some considerable time, I received a letter from the traffic branch signed by Inspector Hughes. It said that a technicality had been observed in the traffic ticket and no further action would be taken to enforce payment of the fine.

      On the day I was given the ticket, a student, Jim Beatson had parked his motor bike in front of our car. Beatson also was given a traffic ticket. I feel sure young Jim would have refused to pay the fine. Perhaps a further technicality was discovered by the police department.” – Towards Peace – a workers journey by Phil O’Brien and Bernie Dowling

      You are probably right about identity politics.

      Here is a light-hearted look at straight white males by another friend of mine …

      https://soundcloud.com/ian-curr/straight-white-males

      Ian
      16 Oct 2020

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      1. So racist and sexist and stupid and why is my father’s picture here? He has never played guitar. A political vendetta? I rest my case. Please refrain from using his pictures anywhere on this site in future. Tempe Laver

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         1. Tempe,

            Upon your request, I have taken the photo of Brian & the policeman down from the satirical song “Straight White Males”.

            The following article from the Communist Party newspaper [TRIBUNE: 25 January 1967 page 12] demonstrates the level of support the jailed protestors (including your father) received.

            Ian

            https://bushtelegraph.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/tribune-articles-jan-feb-19672_page_3.jpg

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6. We’re all alive. I love this photograph & was so glad to see it come to light. For the record, my father was not from a wealthy family in Rockhampton. They were lower middle class and had a small sports store. My father managed to secure a scholarship to both Chruchie and UQ. As for the accusation against him regarding Ross (who we did all consider a lovely, dear friend) I can not comment as I have no knowledge of what transpired. However I would say that the accusations here are pure speculation bordering on slander. I also know that the home you speak of (re: money invested) is not owned by my father. Some of what you say here is not accurate and should be amended. Thanks. Tempe Laver

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   1. Thanks Tempe for your comments.

      It is good that both you and your mother have acknowledged contributions made to your family by Ross Taylor during difficult times. For example Ross provided your family with meat when he was working at Cannon Hill Abattoir. [I worked there for only a week in 1967 and it was not pretty. Conditions were terrible and OH&S accidents frequent].

      Ross and many of his friends in the anti-war movement were working class not middle class, hence a significant disparity in privilege existed between them and Brian. None of the women and very few of the men could have aspired to the wealthiest and most expensive all-boys school in the State (Churchie). By these standards the Laver family were and still are both wealthy and middle class. Regardless of whether he had a scholarship or legally owns the house he lives in or not, to deny Brian’s position of white male middle class privilege is untenable.

      As to his actions as self-styled ‘CEO’ of AHIMSA House in West End, Brian aligned his ‘radical’ politics with his own self-interest. His conduct was unethical, unconscionable and fraudulent. He took advantage of an old man. If you do not believe me look to what Ross Taylor himself had to say as the bank sold his retirement savings from under him. Ross trusted your father and Brian took on the responsibility of running the community centre. That failure was his and he should be held accountable for it.

      Look closely at Ross (now deceased) in this video and listen to what he says and tell me this is not so …

      https://youtu.be/6wI4aP3WIyQ

      Ian Curr
      Editor WBT
      15 October 2020

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7. I met Janita (now Cunnington) while bushwalking on Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island) in 2018. See https://issuu.com/brisbanenews/docs/20180307/12

   I don’t know about the daughters.

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8. You state: Rather than Laver’s transformation to a radical, a far more interesting topic for a book would be how he managed to align his radical politics to gain the maximum advantage for himself.

   The answer is that he appeared to be in the right time in the right place and had few other financial options.

   What happened to Janita and the kids? Are they still alive?

   Read my autobiography of the same vintage Power Loving, Everything you didn’t want to know about sex and lawyers. This is coming out for Xmas as a new vocational text available from http://www.carolodonnell.com.au

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