Talk:Jim Cairns

Untitled
New comments at the bottom please

I have written a replacement for this very POV paragraph. Morosi was not a "young staffer" - she was a 41-year-old businesswoman and she had been Lionel Murphy's girlfriend before she met Cairns. Adam 13:42, 14 Oct 2003 (UTC)

To the person who is anonymously vandalising this article, I will ask to have you banned if you persist. Adam 00:59, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * As a completely disinterested observer (I had no idea who Cairns was before seeing this article), it looks to me like 210.50.86.104 is (more) in the right here and User:Adam Carr is (more) in the wrong. Note that I am NOT looking for a fight here -- I'm just saying, Mr. Carr, that maybe you think this over one more time.

(New topic)

Q: (from Recent Changes): "Is there a polite way of saying he was nuts?"

A: One would say something like "frequent eccentric behavior" or "increasing eccentric behavior". (For what it's worth I have no idea who Jim Cairns is and no axes to grind here.)


 * People who want to edit articles or debate issues should become Users.
 * I will continue to delete irrelevant trivia inserted in this article by anonymous people, particularly those who seem to have an obsession with Junie Morosi's sexlife.
 * Cairns was not "nuts" or anything like it. His behaviour may have been foolish but it was not particularly eccentric.

Adam 06:43, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * "People who want to edit articles or debate issues should become Users." -- This is nonsense. The fundamental idea of the Wikipedia is that anyone can edit any article at any time -- Users, anonymous, or whatever. If you don't like this idea, working on the Wikipedia is likely to make you very unhappy. For what it's worth, I have been contributing to the Wikipedia since a few months after its creation, have quite likely contributed more to it than you have, and have never become a User, because in my opinion User status tends to result in wars over who said or did what, rather than discussions about actual article content. Have a nice day. :-)


 * I always have a nice day :) I think all contributors should become Users, so that they have a Talk page where things can be discussed. But I have no real problem with anonymous users contributing articles. My problem here was with an anonymous person aggressively and persistently changing this article by inserting heavily POV material in it, from the cover of anonymity. I objected to this and I still do. Adam

Doc argues Cairns was not nuts. I think there's a genuine question about that. Eccentric is a polite word for it, with which I am more comfortable.

He was clearly deeply and profoundly eccentric. How could we say otherwise, as the former Deputy PM and Treasurer was selling self-published turgid tracts in the Prahran Market, around Universities etc. How could we say otherwise when he became a "hippy" yet antagonised all the hippies by insisting on leaving the commune every morning to shave and shower. To be sure, nothing eccentric about going for a ride on the town bike Junie Morosi but the great question of Cairns' life and eccentricity raised by various friends, be they Phil Adams, Tom Uren and others, is why on earth take the whole thing so bloody seriously?

It derailed his career and discredited the entire Whitlam Government, which for all its troubles had very considerable achievements. Could we imagine such events happening now? Imagine John Andersen playing up with his Chief of Staff, walking around Parliament holding hands with her (or him) and going to the national Party conference talking about his "kind of love" for his staffer.

Call me Jack

I'm not Australian, but I recall hearing about huge protests against a possible war in Irak in Melbourne and Sydney (200 000 and up).

Should part of this sentence: "led an estimated 100,000 people in the largest political protest ever seen in Australia" be changed to "one of the largest political protests"? Tremblay 19 Oct 2003

The so-called "anti-war" movement is notorious for exaggerating the size of the crowds at their demos. The crowds at the Iraq demos were nowhere near the size of the 1970 Vietnam demo (which I attended). The one in Melbourne had 50,000 tops. The press is now too lazy (and too biased) to bother checking. Adam 01:30, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * Are you sure it isn't you who's biased because you have different views about Vietnam and Iraq? Organizers of demonstrations always tend to exaggerate their numbers, I don't think that was any different in 1970. As to Melbourne 2003, AP reports: "Police estimated that 150,000 people participated, while organizers put the crowd at 200,000" . Is the police biased too? --Wik 01:46, Oct 20, 2003 (UTC)

Not so much biased as lazy, I think. Last year the Sydney Morning Herald quoted the police as saying that 600,000 people watched the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. It turned out that they were just quoting the organisers, who had simply pulled a number out of the air. I wrote an article in the gay press proving that it was physically impossible for more than 100,000 people to fit along the Mardi Gras parade route. This year the organisers avoiding given any crowd estimate at all.

Regarding the Vietnam v Iraq demos, possibly the figure of 100,000 for 1970 is an exaggeration. I was only 16 at the time so my critical faculties weren't as sharp as they are now :). But that demo certainly filled the whole of Bourke and Swanston Sts from Parliament House to Flinders St Station. If that demo was 100,000 strong, then it is quite impossible for the Iraq demo to have had 150,000 or 200,000 - they just coouldn't have fitted into the streets they occupied.

The press were singularly uncritical of the Iraq demo numbers because most people who work in the press opposed the war and supported the demos. I don't deny, of course, that the fact that I supported the war influences my perspective on this. However, as I think the Mardi Gras example above shows, I am capable of making objective judgements on these issues even when I have a personal involvement. Adam 02:14, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I'm somewhat confused by the line "His father went to the First World War and never came back: his family never found out why." It doesn't really explain whether he died but the family was never given official notice or that he was MIA, presumed dead, or that he went AWOL, or that following war's end, he just didn't bother returning home from Europe. If someone can enlighten me (& other readers), that would be great. --Roisterer 22:24, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Would it be possible to get the image sourcing fixed up? I'd like to nominate this for FAC, but I think that's an inevitable objection. Ambi 00:27, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Mr Carr, the location of his funeral is unimportant-except if you are a private school boy whose been taught to worship obsequesiouly at the foot of the protestant Melbourne ascendancy (ie the Vizards and Elliots of this small provincial world called Melbourne)

Ah, now I understand - you're an old lefty who doesn't like the idea that Cairns had his funeral in Toorak. Well he did, and in a biographical article the fact is as relevant as any other. And it's either Adam or Dr Carr, by the way. Adam 08:02, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Ah, now I understand, you,re an old private school boy whose used to getting their way. Its irrellevant where he had funeral. Im neither old (im younger than you) nor a 'leftist' just some who wants edit a relevant page

If you're not an old lefty then you don't even have that excuse for this stupid deletion - at least old lefties are acting on their beliefs. This is a biographical article. The location of his funeral is a biographical fact, and since someone (not me) has seen fit to include it, it will stay unless a good reason is given for deleting it. On matters like this, yes, I am used to getting my own way and I usually do. Adam 08:18, 21 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Please avoid personal remarks such as:
 * I am used to getting my own way
 * you're an old lefty
 * you're an old private school boy
 * you don't have an excuse for this stupid deletion
 * Uncle Ed 12:13, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

"Old lefty" is not a personal remark, it is a political categorisation. The "Old Left" is a political category and is not related to the age of the person belonging to it. When the anon editor denied he was an "old lefty" I accepted that, as the above exchange shows. "Stupid deletion" is not a personal remark either, it is a characterisation of the editor's action. You may disagree with me but that's another matter. Why don't you mediate (if that's what you're here to do) on the substance of the matter (the deletion of factual material from the article) rather than wasting your and my time on trivia? Adam 13:17, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Opposition to the Vietnam War led by the Communist Party?
The article makes the claim that opposition to the Vietnam War was led in Australia by the "Communist Party and trade unions". This seems to completely overlook the Labor Party under the leadership of Arthur Calwell, whose opposition to the Vietnam War was so pronounced that it earned him an assassination attempt. I wasn't alive in 1970, but it seems to me fairly improbable that the Communist Party LED Australian opposition to the Vietnam War more than the ALP and the trade unions did. 203.206.101.47 14:25, 23 October 2006 (UTC)


 * To be clear, the attempt on Arthur Calwell's life was made by a mentally disturbed individual, and there is no reason to suppose he was "motivated" specifically by Calwell's opposition to the Vietnam War. It is also the case that the ALP's opposition was as much motivated by the historical opposition to Conscription as anything else.  In election speeches in the 1966 election Calwell referred to a "vote for conscription" being a "blood vote".  Remember the ALP split over the issue of conscription in 1917 - the original and by far the greatest of the ALP's splits.  I agree that the Communist Party was far too small to have actually led the anti-war movement, but they were certainly disproportionately represented in the leadership of the movement, and many trade unions, particularly those opposed to the war, were led by people with communist links (in that time at least).  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.161.78.193 (talk) 01:32, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

A Kind of Love - Unreliable Source
Heads up for anyone who comes along, most of this article is sourced to either Cairn's own words in the interview or 'A Kind of Love', which is a BA (Hon) thesis and thus not even close to a reliable source. --RaiderAspect (talk) 11:05, 19 September 2019 (UTC)