Thanks to Joe Toscano and Kelly Whitworth for the excellent work they are doing on Radical Australia and at 3CR in Melbourne. I am a fan of Joe’s Eureka tours to Ballarat and attended one about 10 years ago, driving down from Queensland.
Interview with Brian Laver
It was a shame that in this interview neither Joe Toscano nor Brian Laver could readily remember Sam Watson’s name … we are all getting old. Brian speaks as if he was a leader of the Left … if he wanted an example of true leadership he could have no better model than Sam Watson.
It turns out that Laver is being feted in books like Radicals: Remembering the Sixties by Meredith Burgmann, Nadia Wheatley. Plus Laver is writing his own memoir. Does his anti-war activities excuse him for what he did to his former friend and comrade, retired meatworker, Ross Taylor? Laver stole Ross’s retirement assets in a failed attempt to set up an Institute of Social Ecology at AHIMSA house in West End. Laver’s corruption is well documented in these pages (see references below).
What happened at AHIMSA house is yet to be acknowledged publicly by many people from the New Left who are writing up their histories.
An even greater shame that political colleagues and associates of Brian Laver did not keep a closer eye on him and reign in his excesses to prevent the harm that he did at AHIMSA house in Brisbane.
Let it be a warning to trusting people to be wary of similar ideologues with their sectarian, impractical, self-serving messages, and hiding behind stereotypes.
Ian Curr
16 Sept 2021
References
Radical Australia
The Failure of AHIMSA house
Brisbane’s Radical Books
The man who lost his hat