Jim McGilchrist Oral History - Transcript Two

Date of Interview: 17 December 1985

Interviewer: Annie Wall

Place of Interview: Nambour

Transcriber: Heidi Scott

Transcript

BEGIN TAPE 1/SIDE A

AW: Jim how and when did you first decide to become actively involved in the politics of the Country Party as it was then?

MCGILCHRIST: Well I became involved in a political party for a very definite reason, in that I could see things that I felt and the organisations I was a part of felt, ought to be changed. And the only way you can change it is by being a member of a political party, and basically that’s the reason why I became heavily involved in politics.

AW: Was there a reason why you chose the Country Party?

MCGILCHRIST: Probably because my dad before me and the area was represented by Sir Francis Nicklin. It had been represented by the then Country Party members for a very long time. And so I sort of grew up in an atmosphere.

AW: Yes, yes. And was the Country Party very active in the early fifties in this area?

MCGILCHRIST: It wasn’t as strong, the organisation wasn’t as strong, simply because probably a bit of complacency, we’d held the sea for such a long time, we had such an outstanding representative in Sir Francis that the organisation tended, not necessary to become very active. These things changed later and we are a very active, a very solid organisation now.

AW: Well in that time were there many branches locally or were there just one?

MCGILCHRIST: No the branches were basically, the organisation was basically the same as it is now, on the ground. But the involvement of the members was nothing like to the degree that it is now.

AW: And what about membership numbers, were they high, or did you have to go out and recruit …

MCGILCHRIST: Well the actual membership, that’s the people that actually paid a membership fee, was much lower than it is now because the requirements of the organisation, financially, in relation to fighting campaigns and things of that sort, was very much at a lower level than it is now. Although we had people who regarded themselves as members of the Country Party, they weren’t financial members because they were never approached to be financial members. We had ample funds because the campaigns in this area were low key campaigns because it was basically a blue ribbon seat, it had been for so long.

AW: And what about the state of the Labor Party in this area, was that very politically active?

MCGILCHRIST: It has lacked really substantial candidates over the years. Partly because the Country Party and later the National Party candidates we feel have been such a high calibre that the ALP were reluctant to spend time, and the candidates were reluctant to put a great deal of effort into a campaign they saw no prospect of winning. And I think that situation tends to depreciate the standard of the opposition.

AW: Yes. Was there any time when the Labor Party was perhaps nipping at the heels of the Country Party and you sort of had to get out and work a bit harder, or has it always been just so easy?

MCGILCHRIST: Well up until this time, but our attitudes have changed now of course but I’m speaking basically of the Nicklin and early Ahern era …

AW: Yes, that’s the period I want to talk about.

MCGILCHRIST: Well at that time we say no viable opposition at that time and some of the candidates, I could name you a few who were not really worthy of being Labor candidates, they weren’t really worthy opposition.

AW: Do you want to name them for me or not?

MCGILCHRIST: Well perhaps I’d better not, but they’d still be living.

AW: Right. So you didn’t have to sort of door knock and what ever?

MCGILCHRIST: No, we didn’t then because of the dignity and the prestige of our member at that time.

AW: And why do you think Sir Frank Nicklin was so popular?

MCGILCHRIST: Well first of all basically he was a thorough gentleman, he was a very tough politician, encased in a thick veneer of a gentleman, that’s basically what he was. When the occasion arose, Frank Nicklin was a very tough negotiator, but he always handed the kid glove first in his negotiations. He never resorted to abuse or abrasive language even in his most, you might say, bitter debates, Frank still maintained a decorum. And that was the reason why even his, I think you’ll find his political opponents are still prepared to admit that Frank was a gentleman at all stages of parliamentary debate.

AW: And can you tell me a bit about his political platform, leading up to his becoming premier in 1957.

MCGILCHRIST: He was implacably rural orientated. He had a breath of understanding of all facet soils and stratas of society, but I can well remember some of the speeches he made when they were proposing to establish this last grainery, this project they were doing in Central Queensland, you might remember this. And they were, the gear government at that time was proposing to socialise agriculture to the extent that the Government was going to enter into the production of agriculture. It was destined to fail because of the way it was set up. But Sir Francis at that time made the statement that the government could save itself all this expense, all this administration set up and so on, simply by guaranteeing growers a price. He said that’s all you need to do. And I can very well remember, and his words were only too true because the whole venture failed, there was millions of dollars went down the drain for no good purpose at all. And that was, he had an understanding and a foresight that others didn’t seem to have and didn’t appreciate at the time.

AW: As things went on, how did the Country Party reconcile farmers needs with the commercial type development that was happening on the coast in the late fifties?

MCGILCHRIST: We’re not as some people or some media may present us, a high bound, rural bound Party. Within our ranks now, we have here in our local branch we have professional people. Our branch president is a professional man, he’s not a farmer, he’d never been a farmer. Our branch treasurer is an educationalist, he’d never been a farmer. We’ve got a very broad spectrum of people now that have come to the National Party because we have a clear cut line, we have a clear cut policy and we adhere to that policy. We don’t waver because we get some pressure groups as you say “nipping at your heels’, we determine a policy through our organisation, and that’s related to governments, to our members and that’s the policy that’s implemented. And it’s a blend, it’s not dictated by any one section, because we have a blend of all professions, business people and rural industry people within our party, our membership, our branch membership. So that there isn’t anyway now that the party will take a line that serves only one section of society.

AW: What about then though, back in the fifties. Was there a feeling at all of perhaps it was the farmers party?

MCGILCHRIST: Well that prevailed up to the point where we changed the name, and those of us, I advocated the name change.

AW: Well that was in 1974 wasn’t it?

MCGILCHRIST: Yes. But that was leading up to this. We could see that if we were ever going to expand into other areas, if we were ever going to get rid of the hayseed image that we had, that we had to embrace policies that were attractive to other sections, that understood it, and demonstrated that we understood the need of other sections of society, of other industries and so on. And that was when we started to broaden out base, and we did have some resistance from some of the top echelon in our organisation because they felt that we were a country party and we ought to remain a country party. But those of us of a younger generation could see that if we wanted a party with a political future, a party that was able to implement policies to institute, and implement policies, that would be for the benefit of the State at large, then we had to broaden our base. And so this gradual broadening of the base took place up until the time we deemed then that we must change, that it was essential that we present ourselves as a new image.

AW: And you said just a minute ago that you sort of initiated that move, was that within this local …

MCGILCHRIST: Oh no it was done, I wouldn’t know really who we would point to as being the one person. It was a general consensus if I might borrow Mr Hawke’s word. It was those of us that looked a bit beyond today and tomorrow could see that if we were to remain a substantial party, that we had to change this image. That we weren’t going to attract business people, professional people to an organisation that presented an image of being rural orientated. We still maintain a very strong rural base, but we do have, when you see our party membership now, and if I told you our party members here in Nambour and who our branch president was, you’d probably be surprised.

AW: Right. And how was the name National cut, how did that come about?

MCGILCHRIST: There a great many opinions expressed on this, what the new name ought to be. One of the favourites was the National Country Party, which I objected to and a number of others objected to because we felt that if we were going to present the party as a new image party, well then we had to have a complete break. And it was one of the titles that was suggested among several others, and it was debated at length at branch party levels, until finally this was the name that was chosen by the party members.

AW: It’s a long developing thing isn’t it?

MCGILCHRIST: Oh yes, yes.

AW: Yes, an on going thing. When did Mike Ahern first become politically interested, and what lead to this?

MCGILCHRIST: I don’t know when Mike Ahern first became involved in politics, I suspect it was because it was his father before him was an ex-State President, and Mike would have grown up probably as I did with a fairly strong family influence. My first experience with Mike was when Sir Francis was retired, there was a plebiscite conducted to select his successor. And this was the first time that I had ever seen, that I had every met Mike Ahern.

AW: So that was what, ’68, or round about then?

MCGILCHRIST: And the circumstances I think bare repeating because they’re quite humorous. The members of the plebiscite, the candidates all came round to the, as they do to the financial members of the party and they seek your endorsement, because in a plebiscite it’s only the financial members of the party that vote. And several of the hopefuls had been round to interview me, or to present themselves to me as a financial member, there was Jack Beausang, and Merv McLuskie and the president of the RNA, Mr Barnett, he was a chemist in Maleny. They were ones that came round and I took the view that it wasn’t a matter of being a meeting between gentlemen, it was a matter of I wanted to find out how good they were, and I was a bit rough on some of them. Some of them took exception to it, and others, well they didn’t appreciate it. One fellow, he looked like a poor old dog that you’d kicked in the ribs, you know, because I asked him a few pertinent questions. Anyway I was mowing one morning in the orchard, and just when I got near the end of the row, this was on a tractor of course, when I got near the end of the row, there was a very tall young fellow in a pair of shorts and so on, and he came to the end of the row, and I stopped the tractor, and he walked over, and he put his foot up on the footboard of the tractor. And he said, “Good day, I’m Mike Ahern.” And I looked at him and I looked at him and I thought, well are you. I said to myself, I’ll pull a few tail feathers out of this young sparrow, this young rooster and see how good he is. So straight away I said to him, “Well are you?” I said, “Well I’ve got a bone to pick with you.” Now that’s the very first words I ever said to Mike Ahern. And I took him to task on a couple of things, and Mike wasn’t the least bit offended, he just backed up and had a go, and he gave me as good as I gave him. Well I didn’t say anything to him, but as soon as he left the farm, I got on the phone and rang Gran Parker, and I said to Gran, “Look, forget about the rest of them, this is our fellow.” I said, “He’s young and he’s smart, he’ll have a go, he’s got the background, he’s got everything as far as I’m concerned.” I said, “Well he’s the one I’m going to support.” Well Gran said “If you say that, that’s good enough for me.” So we were the two first in the field that promoted Mike Ahern.

AW: He was elected when he was only twenty-six years old, did that…how did people feel about that, because that’s very young?

MCGILCHRIST: It is, but I think Mike made his own way in his own, by his ability. I think if I hadn’t met him and tried to find out what he was made of, I probably would have said he’s a bit young too. But wherever Mike went he impressed people to the point, and he made his way in the house very quickly too. Because there were several matters, major matters, submissions that we presented to Mike and he presented them to the house in such a, not only impressive manner, but in a manner that he was able to handle interjectors. He was a season campaigner from the first speech he ever made, because of his background as Young National Party, he was an able debater and also because of, I suppose, the genes he inherited from his father. So it was only young in years, it was not young in maturity.

AW: Well you know it was a fairly courageous step to replace Sir Francis Nicklin with someone so young. How did the local business people from Nambour and areas react to that? Did they support him immediately or did it take a while?

MCGILCHRIST: This is quite a story really. We had at that stage, I’m speaking from the industry now, we had Mike who wasn’t a horticulturalist, he came from rather the grazing background. But when we approached Mike, when he was duly elected and presented material to him that we wanted brought right, and there’s a number of things that I can talk to you about. Mike was able to see the problems quite clearly, he absorbed the information that we put to him, and he was able to put it to the House as a very able advocate of the Fruit and Vegetable Industry. And we at that stage had no other representative, no other lobbiest in the house. And there were matters that we wanted changed and there were also matters, members of the Liberal Party who were very hostile to our own C.O.D. And these things had to be counteracted in the house because it wasn’t doing our industry any good at all. And so we found in Mike a very able advocate. And the more and more material that we fed to Mike and the more very able representations he made in the house, the more his stature grew.

AW: Right. Was there any opposition locally from within the party against his standing for election?

MCGILCHRIST: Well of course the plebiscite is suppose to provide a platform, well it did because there were, just forgotten how, but about eight or nine people. Like Whalley Burnett standing, Jack Beausang, Merv McLuskie was Deputy Chairman here at the time, there was a couple of pineapple growers, there were people from various walks of life. All presented themselves as candidate in the plebiscite, and the first preferences didn’t favour Mike, but it was the second and third preferences that favoured Mike. But once that was settled everyone then accepted him.

AW: Yes, right.

MCGILCHRIST: But that was the area where the debating took place.

AW: Yes, and did that take long to get to that point?

MCGILCHRIST: They usually allow six or eight weeks for a campaign because it allows the members, the candidates a chance to contact the members, they usually present themselves personally as they did with me.

AW: Right. Well now can you tell me about the campaign leading up to his eventual election. How was that conducted locally?

MCGILCHRIST: We were a little concerned that we had a young candidate, relatively unknown as far as the public, he was very well known organisational wise because he’d been in the Young Country Party, and been National President. But one of the things that we did was the Fruit Growers Council, rightly or wrongly, because we had confidence in him, we did a certain amount of promotional work unofficially of course. And the fact that he received a high commendation from Sir Francis. I think was the real fact that he was elected without any great opposition, because he was elected with a fairly comfortable majority. But I think the fact that Sir Francis gave him a high commendation, and those of us that had met him were prepared to do a bit of leg work on his behalf. I think from then on it was the blue ribbon Country Party following, and also those two other factors that brought Mike into the House.

AW: Did you have a public relations person to get the campaign going, or was it just local members?

MCGILCHRIST: No, we weren’t as sophisticated in those days as we are now, we had a campaign director, and then we had a campaign committee.

AW: How would the director have been?

MCGILCHRIST: Bruce Pages had always been the director in name, but I was the unofficial – as I done a number of times since – I was the unofficial researcher for the issues that we ought to handle, the replies to the press and I was generally in the media side of the campaign. I was the media committee chairman, if you like to call it. And Mike would always confer with me if, well I always scanned the press to see what sort of comments and letters were coming in and see what sort of replies ought to be made. And then Bruce was looking after the itinerary, and also the policies that had to be developed as the campaign proceeded because there were unforseen things. When you don’t research an electorate you don’t really know what the issues are until you start to conduct your campaign, and then they start to surface, and then you have to handle them as you go along. These days we don’t do that, we research the electorate before, by market research. So it was a campaign that, the fact that with Sir Francis, we’d never really had to fight a campaign because there was nobody that could challenge him, but we did start to learn how to campaign when we first sort of started to promote Mike. And we did become a lot more sophisticated a lot better organised, the organisation, Mike rejuvenated the organisation, and gradually we’ve come to become a much more effective campaign group than we were before.

AW: So you had press releases and things like that coming out for the campaign, well what else would you have done, I mean did they put up posters on telegraph poles?

MCGILCHRIST: Oh yes, there was always a set area of operation that you set about. The Campaign Committee organised these things automatically. There were so many posters that would come out and then there were press interviews and then there were always public meetings, but that was always an accepted format.

AW: A standard routine, yes. Well with the public meetings, would he have gone to all the smaller areas within the electorate?

MCGILCHRIST: Depending on just how much time he had but that was the idea, that we promoted Mike in every corner of the electorate. I went round with him in several areas, several centres that he wasn’t known, that I was known and this was the way it was done. He was accompanied into new areas by somebody that was well known in the area.

AW: Yes, so it’s quite a big management type thing isn’t it, to get an election campaign going.

MCGILCHRIST: It is when you’ve got a new candidate.

AW: Yes, yes. And since then have you continued on in the same way with each election?

MCGILCHRIST: I was right up until I left Mikes electorate. But I still have very close contact with Mike. We told you that they had their engagement party at our place, and what a wing-ding it turned out to be, it grew like topsy, you know. And I think that was indicative of the affection that Mike had established in the short time from when he was elected until he became engaged. Because there were just so many people that wanted to meet Mike’s lady, you know.

AW: And have you still got that close relationship with him?

MCGILCHRIST: Oh it’s every bit. I’ve just had a Christmas card from him, and we exchanged greeting. But I suppose we can disclose this, but I’ve got Mike’s private, secretary’s private phone number, and it’s only a matter of, it wouldn’t be more than a week ago that the Fruit Growers wanted to know something regarding an act. And I just rang Mike’s secretary and the next day I got a ring back from him to say well Mike says so and so. And that’s the relationship that we’ve still got now. And I’ve got an invitation to ring Make at any time I wish. Now what surprised me was at the opening of the new research centre at the Perwillowen Research Station out here, in his opening sentence, Mike stood in front of a gathering of hundreds of people, and he said, “I want to make it quite clear, that if it hadn’t been for the support and the lobbying of two people who are sitting in the front row,” he said, “I wouldn’t be here today.” And he named Grand Parker and myself. And I thought, well that’s really something, I thought it was.

AW: Yes. When Joh Bjelke-Peterson was elected to Premier in 1968, were you surprised, was he the person that you expected to see there?

MCGILCHRIST: Well as a matter of fact, we were unsure of what Joh’s capacity was because he hadn’t been in any prominent cabinet position; the Works Department you wouldn’t say was a front runner. And we actually, a group of us here actually went down and had an evening at Sir Francis’s home in Caloundra, and we asked Sir Francis some advice on whether we ought to promote Ron Camm or whether we ought to promote Joh. And well Frank told us off the record that he felt that Joh would eventually, he said he’d probably put his foot wrong a couple of times in the beginning, but he said, “I would say, leave things be.” Now there was a short time after that there were a group of parliamentarians, National Party Parliament, Country Party it was then, that felt that Joh wasn’t given a chance to try it, it was only that he had a folksy home-spun type of politics that people didn’t appreciate and didn’t understand at that time, he was quite a difference personality from Frank. And they were comparing him with Ron Camm, and Ron probably presented a better image than Joh, but at the same time I don’t think, as events proved, I don’t think Ron had the far-sighted capacity or the command of things that Joh had. You know I first met Jose when he had a pair of sandshoes with the toes out of them.

END SIDE A/BEGIN SIDE B

MICGILCHRIST: There’s a chap coming round to buy one of dad’s dozers, a D.A., he said, “We’ve got to go round and help them load it.” So by the time we got round to the depot, which was in Matthew Street, the chap was there with this old low loader, and he just said to everybody, “well, get out the way, I’ll soon load this dozer,” which was a D.A .it’s a big lump of a dozer. So we just stood back, and he very smartly got the D.A. on the low loader and Max’s father, I can still remember this, he said, “By-gee Joh,” he said, “how far are you going to get with these baldy tyres of yours?” And Joh said, “I’ll get where I’m going.” And he had, as I said, the toes out of his sandshoes, a jacket without a singlet, and that was when he was mulga pulling with the ball and chain. And so that was my first impression of, I didn’t even know who he was at the time, all I know was he was Joh. And it turned out afterwards that that’s who he was, because he related the story at one meeting here about the time he bought an old dozer from me.

AW: Sounds like that statement was the statement referring to his life I think.

MCGILCHRIST: That’s right.

AW: Now with D.A. Low, he held both local positions and state.

MCGILCHRIST: Yeah, he was the Shire Chairman. And also the local member for Cooroora.

AW: That’s right. Was there any sort of conflict of interests there, because that would have been fairly unusual to hold both positions?

MCGILCHRIST: It’s not the only time it’s happened, but I think in this day and age he couldn’t possibly have handled it, because the type of politics, the standard of politics has changed in the House and it’s changed dramatically in the Shire. Because the Shire’s grown, it’s no longer as it was then, basically a rural Shire. Because I can remember the time, probably when there were no new buildings in Maroochydore at all, and it was basically a rural Shire, and it was the rural Shire that maintained the coast at that time. And although there were moves a foot, I remember the first meetings that were held to try and get a name for this area. And I remember well enough when the first time that the Sunshine Coast was ever suggested as being an answer to the Gold Coast. And that all happened in D.A. Low’s time, and he was very heavily involved in what was called the North Coast Council Progress Association. But his job at that time, neither job as a member of the Shire Chairman – were as anything like as demanding as they are today. And I believe that he was able to gain some benefits of the Shire because of his association with ministers in the parliament. Dave, he pleaded with me for quite a long time to offer myself as a Councillor, because he wanted me on the Council, but I didn’t because we were establishing a pretty big orchard at the time, and I didn’t see that I could do justice to both.

AW: He seemed to be very popular and the newspapers of the day gave the impression that he was popular locally. However when he was disposed by Eddie DeVere, the paper started saying that all wasn’t as good as they’d been saying. Do you remember that?

MCGILCHRIST: Yes, I remember that very well, because I was Eddie DeVere’s campaign champion. The main issue that I took with Dave Low was over the use of 2, 4-D, for the eradication of groundsel. At that time the Council was fostering the use of 2, 4-D, it was using it by it’s own employees, and at no stage would they accept any argument from the fruit growers, that whilst they were eradicating groundsel they were also severely damaging our crops which were in the main susceptible. And even after the Weedicide conference that was set up by Sir Francis Nicklin, and under strict instructions from Sir Francis, no reports or release of minutes was to be permitted. Dave Low came back and gave a completely untrue account of what occurred to the press and I immediately protested to Sir Francis over this. And Sir Francis very soundly rapped Dave’s knuckles, and I felt then that I’d lost confidence in him, because I could no longer accept him as being totally truthful. And that was the reason why, and Eddie DeVere’s conduct during that time was totally impartial, he was prepared to listen to our problems, and if we were able to substantiate our claims then Eddie was quite prepared to act on our behalf. And this was the reason why I felt that he was a thoroughly reliable person and that was, he had a capacity, I felt that was, he had great potential. And he was a thoroughly reliable person, and that’s the reason why I joined Eddie’s campaign committee. And I remained on it until the last one when we were defeated.

AW: Right. Can you tell me then how the fruit growers and vegetable growers fought the use of 2, 4-D chemicals?

MCGILCHRIST: Well to go back to the time when the damage first appeared – that was in 1959 – when the Council fostered, although they refused to admit they did, but they did. They were instrumental in bringing in a helicopter – Bames McGray, to spray groundsel under the Dulong Lookout and there was a great demonstration, Belly who went on about it. The copter came in and sprayed the groundsel, and it was only a matter of days after this when odd symptoms started to appear in the passionfruit, that was just under the shelf. There were odd symptoms appearing on tomatoes in Hunchy, and there were odd symptoms that appeared on bananas in Yandina. And when we tried to connect this, we had no scientific backing at this time, when we tried to connect this to the spraying of 2, 4-D from the aircraft, D.A. Low just laughed us out of court, and so did Stan Tutt. They refused to even consider the fact that what they were doing was damaging to our crops. And it was only, we enlisted the aid of the one person in Queensland who had had a great deal of experience with hormones, and that was Frank Berrill in the Primary Industries Department. But being at that time a senior member in the department who had been instructed by his minister not to take any part in this campaign, this was the big handicap that we had. Frank helped us through the back door, that was the one alley we had that had any qualifications, and Frank was convinced the same as we were, that this aerial spraying was the small droplets, the fire microm droplets were drifting on air currents, and they were drifting for miles. But bare in mind that at this stage we had no one to turn to. The Government of the day with the exception of Sir Francis, had very strong influence from grain growers, graziers, sugar growers, people that wanted to use, whose crops weren’t susceptible to 2, 4-D. We were the only section, the rural section who were being injured by 2, 4-D. The cattlemen all wanted the groundsel eradicated by 2, 4-D. And so we were fighting the grain growers, the graziers, the dairymen, and the sugar growers because they had nothing at risk and they wanted to use this chemical. So it took us from 1959 until…and Grand Parkers orchard was severely damaged by what we suspect was herbicide, we had no proof. Because the only person who could offer an opinion on these things had been gagged by his own minister. And we spent countless hours in looking at damage that was being cause, and couldn’t be related to any other reason at all, except by the drifting of 2, 4-D. And it took us six years before we were able to break through this total area of disbelief. They laughed us out of court, you know they said we were nuts and it wasn’t until we convinced Sir Francis, and Sir Francis came up and spent one Easter on Grand Parker’s farm, looking at the damage. And he was impressed with our argument, with our sincerity to the point where he ordered this weedicide conference, this inquiry. When we were able to state our case before an inquiry set up by Sir Francis, and we were able to convince that inquiry that what we were saying was substantial. And D.A. Low was at this conference, and this was another time that I was referring too. He claimed that his Council weren’t suing 2,4-D or 2, 4, 5-T, and previously I had gone there particularly to gain evidence, and I bought a gallon of it, and I had a docket from the Maroochy Shire Council selling me a gallon of 2, 4, 5-T. And yet he swore at this, he assured the weedicide conference that they didn’t do these things. Well after he did that I put this receipt on the table, and I handed it to the Chairman, Sir David Muer at that time, he was the coordinator general. And this thing went round the table like a hot potato, and D.A. was discredited because of what he’d said. But when he came back from this conference and made this press release, well we couldn’t reply to it, because we were under strict instruction from Sir Francis that no one was to comment or release minutes. He wanted this thing to be thoroughly investigated with the idea of eventually legislating to protect us. But as we said we had to fight D.A. all the way and we had to fight Stan Tutt all the way.

AW: We have a series of photos in the library of that aerial spray round Hunchy, up there. And so he obviously, when he brought in his helicopter, took photographers up there to photograph.

MCGILCHRIST: Well of course because he claimed that it was going to be the greatest thing ever as far as the eradication of groundsel. Now we’re not arguing against the effectiveness of eradication of groundsel, we’re arguing against the fact that it was being used by ill informed people.

AW: When you said symptoms appeared on various crops between here and Yandina, what sort of symptoms were showing? You know you said you couldn’t chemically prove that it was as a result of spraying.

MCGILCHRIST: Well you see, a 2, 4-D or dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, if you want to know it’s right name, is simply a synthetic copy of the natural occurring hormone in dyleacedic acid. And if it’s sprayed on a plant the molecules of 2, 4-D attach themselves to the molecules of carbondioxide that’s being absorbed by the plant, in it’s normal process of absorbing elements of the air, the atmosphere. And everywhere those molecules of carbon go, they’re translocated from the leaves to the growing points. It’s like a computer that’s in every stem or every growing point in the plant, there’s a mini computer that computes the amounts of hormones required to make the plant grow. And one of the hormones that make the plants grow in, is dyleacedic acid, that’s the chief growth hormone. Now that’s in metered amounts and makes the plant grow normally. The plant cells both divide and multiply, and enlarge. But when you get an excessive quantity of a substance that the plant can’t differentiate between being a synthetic and a natural, what you’ve got is a total imbalance, you’ve got a total or a gross over supply of what appears to be this growth hormone concentrated in the growing points of the plant. And it immediately causes then to rapidly expand, the terminal twigs all distort and twist, and the leaves curl up. What it really does is cause everything to suddenly expand too rapidly. In terminal twigs on passionfruit they perform all sorts of odd shapes. Pawpaw’s leaves, they’ll turn out like the claws of a bird turned upside down. Bananas, if it’s on the banana itself, everywhere there’s a spot of hormone that lands on the fruit itself, it will cause a lump, like a gall. If it’s on the young plant it will cause the leaves to twist. Well I could keep going if you like on the type of injury that this was causing. But we still had no way of determining to the satisfaction of the courts, what was causing the damage, because basically it was only an opinion, and the only person that could have given an opinion in the court that the court would have recognised, was Frank Berrill. And Frank Berrill wasn’t available to us. Now it wasn’t until under Sir Francis Nicklin’s direction that his ACDC Act was formulated, and eventually as I just told you, we had an Act, but we didn’t have the means of testing the plants that we claimed had been injured, to the satisfaction of the courts. Bearing in mind that the only way we were ever going to get any redress was through the courts, through insurance companies. And it wasn’t until we had a laboratory equipped with a gas chromatograph, and we did a lot of controlled trials where the leaves from unaffected plants were run through, and we got graphs of all the leaves, or all the crops that weren’t affected. And then they would deliberately spray a known concentration onto these plants, the leaves would be then run through the gas chromatograph. And we did this with all the crops, and we did it with varying strengths of 2, 4-D so that in that laboratory now they’ve for a complete library of graphs showing a tomatoes plant that’s been sprayed with a concentration so many days ago. Now the court now accepts, what we have is the ACDC Board, the board that administers the Act. And when they analyse a leaf of a plant that we suspect had been injured, and they issue a statement to the effect that it does contain a percentage of 2, 4-D, that is not challengeable, there is nobody in Queensland, in the law system that will challenge that statement. So we’ve progressed to that stage now where we can definitely arrive at a decision that is acceptable to the court.

AW: And that was done at the Perwillowen Research Station was it?

MCGILCHRIST: Well no, the ground work, a lot of the ground work was done at the Perwillowen Research Station, but Frank Berrill was the person that did it. And he did such a lot of work behind the scenes; he worked at night with a torch on certain things. To understand this effect fully, we would spray a leaf on a tomato plant halfway up, and then we’d watch which way the symptoms appeared, to see whether the chemical travelled up or down, or whether it travelled laterally, or what it did. And that was the trail and error method we used, and that’s how we got a pretty substantial knowledge of this chemical now. Because no other agricultural chemical has been researched world wide to the extent that 2, 4-D and 2, 4, 5-T have.

AW: Right. So that was fairly significant, well it was absolutely significant, wasn’t it?

MCGILCHRIST: Well it is now because the legal fraternity won’t challenge a statement by the ACDC Board, and the courts accept it. And that’s the big mile stone we’ve got redress, we’ve got a place where we can appeal to that we’ve never had before.

AW: So when Council today, the local Council put out graphs on notices, how do they treat the groundsel today?

MCGILCHRIST: The normal method is still using 2, 4-D, but it’s done within very stringent bounds, it’s not simply done irresponsibly like it was done. Because there was nobody who could challenge them before, they just did it and that was it, and if your crop was damaged well you were just unlucky. And it was an intolerable situation, because we were gradually producing an atmosphere here that was hostile to the production of horticultural crops. Now days of course, the Council is required to be very prudent in the use of 2, 4-D because it’s under the, we’ve gone a step further than we did originally, we’ve got this declared a hazardous area. And within a hazardous area, there are very strict limits on the use of 2, 4-D.

AW: Right. And do you personally still keep an eye on that?

MCGILCHRIST: Well sure, it was only last night that I had a call from a person that was wondering what the situation was. And I was introduced, when they were looking at amendment to the ACDC Act, only early last year, I was invited to go down to the ACDC Board and discuss the amendments with them. And I was introduced by the secretary of the board, to the board as the father of the Act.

AW: Oh right, that’s nice. We just go back to Mike Ahern for a little while. What do you think his future is? And do you think his being Catholic has had any effect on his political career?

MCGILCHRIST: I’m enthusiastic, I’ve always been enthusiastic about Mike’s capacity, I’ve never had any reason to doubt him because every submission that we’ve put to him, every matter that we reported to him that needed attention was attended to, and it’s been attended to in a very professional way. He’s gained a status in the House, where very few people in the House challenge anything that he says, because he’s following in the footsteps of Sir Francis where he doesn’t become involved in the usual dog fights, because his capacity is just a bit above this sort of thing. And that’s why he stands out in the house as the prospective leader. He resembles Sir Francis to such an extent that I feel that he’s the logical leader.

AW: Is that how the party is feeling as well do you think?

MCGILCHRIST: I’m quite sure that they look at Mike and say well who else, you know. Because of his capacity, his capabilities, and the fact that he’s a young man, his present portfolio, which I have discussed with him in great length, and Tanya has, and others. And we find that he can still talk the language of today’s technology, he can still talk the language of today’s young people. He’s not you might say, remote from anybody.

AW: And what about you Jim McGilchrist, where are you off with your work? Are we going to see you in the foreground at all, or are you going to remain….?

MCGILCHRIST: I’ll probably remain doing things like I did as Chairman of the Save the Sugar Towns Committee. We received a very hearty vote from the cane grower’s only yesterday afternoon. I think there are things that I am able to do as a member of society that probably I can do as well or better than some others, because I’ve had a very long experience of lobbying, of writing submissions, I’ve appeared four times at Tarret Ford and Industries Assistance Commission, and I feel that I still got quite a bit to offer. I’ve taken on the job of president of the Fruit Growers Council, and I’m now standing in Grand Parkers shoes, I don’t know how successfully but I’ll be doing the job to the best of my ability. And I don’t have any intention of just fading out of things by any means.

AW: No, well thank you Jim, it’s been a pleasure talking with you.

End of Interview