From the Somme to 'Sydney's Little Chicago' by Landers Neil

Author:Landers, Neil [Landers, Neil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Books Unleashed
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Allegations in Parliament

T

his was now a time of queues and endless petty restrictions. Food, clothing, petrol and many other items were rationed. Goods considered essential, such as tea, sugar and potatoes, sometimes could not be obtained at all. It was also a time when many people began to cheat at least a little to get around those restrictions.

The Depression and start of the war had left the nation’s breweries and distilleries short of capacity and raw materials at a time when demand for their products rose in the tensions and dislocations of war. Supplies to hotels were rationed at fixed prices. But those supplies, under the name of sly grog, could often command a higher price elsewhere, such as at nightclubs. Ensuring that the normal laws of supply and demand operated in those difficult times helped provide a useful addition to the income of many publicans and, it was said, some police officers and politicians, even quite senior ones. It was similar, and occasionally worse, with other products in short supply. Sometimes goods ‘fell off the back of a truck’. Since Bankstown was where many of those truckloads originated, this was said to happen more frequently there than in most places.

It was also a time when many people with even small influence pulled at least a few strings. As probably happens in most such situations, some people were much better at pulling strings than others. Few seem to have been better at this than Ray Fitzpatrick.

By then Fitzpatrick had acquired some uncommon signs of wealth, including a large home and large cars, for that period of general austerity. As his wealth continued to grow he had become the subject of increasing rumours. The most serious concerned the dry dock at Garden Island, which had to be knocked down in parts and rebuilt, delaying its completion until near the end of the war. The alleged reason was materials inferior to what the government had paid for. So well was Fitzpatrick doing that he had attracted the attention of the federal taxation department. His biggest problem however was Charlie Morgan.

Exactly when or why the trouble began between Fitzpatrick and Morgan no-one knew, or else would not tell me. George probably knew more about that than almost anyone. But by the time I was asking he was long dead, and this was something I never heard him talk about. The most anyone would say was all Olive, by then also long dead, had told me: that a business deal between them went wrong and they ended their relationship in great acrimony. Like her, they implied complicity of Morgan in questionable activities of Fitzpatrick during three to four years as Fitzpatrick’s legal adviser.

In October 1943, after complaints Morgan had made about some matters to government ministers did not appear to produce results, he sent to the parliament’s Joint Committee on War Expenditure a letter to him from Skevington concerning sub-contract work for Stuart Bros, a company that had become the main contractor for construction work at Bankstown aerodrome.

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