Sunday, September 04, 2005

Our Mate Clarkey - Part 1

I remember first meeting David Clarke in 1995 at a Young Liberal meeting held at a pub in Kirribilli. At the time, I was on the executive of the Bankstown Young Liberals. My girlfriend at the time was the president of Parramatta Young Liberals. Alex Hawke was nowhere to be seen.

The Young Libs I was associated with were part of a coalition known as “the Team”. These Young Libs were not associated with the ruling “Group”. Most of us were Centrists, but there were some hard-right people at the meeting. One of them was David Clarke.

Among the people at the meeting was a young PhD student from Sydney University named Peter Phelps. He produced a newsletter known as “The Atlas”. Peter was a bright young lad with conservative views. Chairing the meeting was Nick Campbell, then president of Kuring-gai Young Libs. I knew Nick from Macquarie University, where he had some involvement on the periphery of the Liberal Club.

David Clarke was introduced to me as a “hard right-winger” by an old friend John Ruddick, former staffer to Ross Cameron MP and the voice behind “Banjo” on the Stan Zemanek Show. John was a huge fan of “Clarkey” and introduced him as a hero of “the Right”.

Clarke was immediately interested in my background. He was particularly interested in whether I had a “Moslem” affiliation. From Day 1, he encouraged me to get “Moslems” to join the Young Libs. I told him I found it difficult to recruit as most of my friends were ALP voters.

“Don’t worry about that. Even if they’re ALP members, we can get them in. Take me along to their functions. I’d be happy to show them that we hate homosexuals and Jews as much as they do”.

At first, I thought he may have been joking about hating Jews. I wasn't sure whether his beef was with specific Jewish people or with Jews as a whole. It was also often hard to tell if Clarkey was serious or half-joking - he always came across as a jovial fellow.

But in my subsequent encounters, Clarke boasted about how he had acted for Slovenian writer Lyenko Urbanchich in a defamation action against prominent Jewish community figures.

Clarke told me of his affiliation with a Catholic organisation called “Opus Dei”. Both he and his wife were active in the organisation, and Clarkey often boasted about how Gamal Abdel Nasser had asked Opus Dei to help him administer Egyptian universities.

Mr & Mrs Clarke were also huge fans of the late Bob Santamaria. Clarke encouraged me to subscribe to the magazine “News Weekly”, then published by an organisation associated with Mr Santamaria.

I later read about Mr Santamaria’s role in a schism within the ALP and the formation of the Democratic Labor Party (DLP). Clarke’s wife was a leading figure in the “Democratic Students Club”, the student wing of the DLP, at the University of New South Wales.

As I got to know David, I noticed he would often invite friends of mine to special meetings in the city. For some reason, I and a number of others were not invited. Us non-invitees all had one thing in common – we were from non-Christian families. Clarke was always "hush-hush" about these meetings, never explaining what they were about. Also attending these meetings was Senator Heffernan.

Later, I started publishing factional publications for non-Group Young Libs. These included a newsletter entitled ‘Westerly Winds” and a magazine entitled “pro-Action”. Clarkey enjoyed reading these publications, but did question my open promotion of multiculturalism.

I recall on one occasion being lectured by Clarkey about Pauline Hanson. I expressed my reservations about Ms Hanson in an article for pro-Action. Clarkey was upset at my article, and said that Pauline was a great conservative Australian who deserved our support.

When I pointed out that she was criticising the Prime Minister, Clarkey told me that the PM actually supported Hanson’s agenda. Clarkey said all good conservaives should support Hanson as she represented what mainstream Australians believed in. He showed his support by sending a letter of support and a donation to the One Nation Party. Clarkey also actively agitated in favour of One Nation within the party, and voted against a State Executive motion to place Ms Hanson’s party last on the Liberal Party how-to-vote card.

Clarkey had a special venom for certain Parliamentarians. These included Senator Marise Payne and John Brogden. Indeed, Clarkey and Bronwyn Bishop would often be seen huddled at State Council meetings plotting against Brogden. Bronwyn was particularly concerned that Brogden was stacking out branches in her Federal Electorate Conference (FEC) to secure his own position as State MP for Pittwater.

In 1998, I sat on a preselection panel for Pittwater. Clarkey sat down with me before the meeting and came up with a nasty question for me to ask Mr Brogden at the preselection. I was reluctant to ask the question as I deemed it too nasty. Clarkey insisted I ask it, even threatening me with expulsion from the non-Group forces.

Against my better judgment, I asked a nasty question. Thankfully, it wasn't the identical question Clarkey had drafted. Clarkey's question concerned lowering the age of consent for homosexual males. My question concerned whether Brogden had any involvement in the Group effort to unseat Federal Member for Cook Stephen Mutch, who was patron of my Young Liberal branch.

Despite my nasty question, John went onto win the preselection convincingly.

At all times, Clarkey insisted that he had no ambitions of ever entering Parliament. He sad he was too devoted to his legal practice. Clarkey’s sole source of work was in personal injury and workers compensation. However, his bread and butter was soon being affected by changes to legislation affecting these compensation regimes. Clarkey decided there was no future in personal injury, and hence began his attempts to gain preselection for the Upper House.

To be continued …

© Irfan Yusuf 2005

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting stuff.

Anonymous said...

Irfan

I remember you very well from those Young Liberal meetings at which we both met David Clarke. David also said to me things like "Why shouldn't wwe discriminate against wogs and Asians in our immigration system".

Irf - with all of the leaks that have been happening at the moment in the Liberal Party - I think you should consider going to the telegraph with these stories.

This is just the beginning - Alex Hawke is another VERY shady character. Interestingly when I was in his branch he was pro-abortion and an avowed atheist - but I suppose you can't be an atheist when you want to be the next member of Mitchell - I suppose that's what he is aiming for by going to Hillsong.

Anonymous said...

Irfan saw your 4 corners crap. You look and talk like a pompous Jabba the Hutt.You even smell bad on television. I guess your 'wife' didn't want to hang around to listen to your mad harangue against the entire world. I will order you 6 filthy kebabs. 3 for you to cram into your mouth for a quick snack. And the other 3 for you to shove up your other shithole. Dinner and Sex Irfan style. Congratulations on being the fattest slug on the Mossad payroll

Anonymous said...

Thank you for the kind words about me. We had some great times 'fighting the good fight'. But let me also correct the record:

1. Megan was your long-term girlfriend and she got rolled out of Paramatta YLs in an intra-factional dispute. Sad for Megan, perhaps, but that branch was moribund and Alex Hawke gave it the kiss of life. That hardly make you an unbiased observer of Alex Hawke.

2. Neither were you not the rest of 'The Team' were 'Centrists' - we were social conservatives and economic dries, much to the chagrin of opportunists like Paul Zammit.

3. 'Suave' Nick was hardly a model of propriety, having once threatened me with blackmail after getting his hands on a compromising photo of me with another YL.

4. I can honestly say that I have never heard either David or Alex make a racist remark in their lives.

5. John Brodgen did not win preselection for Pittwater in 1998. The preselection was won by a Radio Broadcaster, and it was mid-1996. I remember it well, because it was after midnight and I was dozing in the car park waiting to hear the result. The Radio Broadcaster got dumped by the (Group-controlled) State Executive and John Brogden was installed as his place.

6. I have great respect for your writings on Islam - having twice read the English traslation of the Koran myself - and I like to think of you as Australia's Irshad Manji, only prettier :-)

7. Whatever happens, insha'Allah. He's both our God.

ABYLWCV

Anonymous said...

Gee guys, don't play the man or anything.

Anonymous said...

I think Irfan touched a nerve with his comments on Lateline last night.

Amir

Anonymous said...

Just make sure the six kebabs that you provide for yusuf are moslem halal.

This is a way of killing chickens that involves slitting their thoats, and letting the blood run out. No self inflicted stab wounds here. The delights of halal butchery.

yusuf hates kebabs from lebanese CHRISTIAN kebab shops, because "I hate eating electrocuted chickens".

yusuf hates lebanese christians and their kabab shops, all christians, and homosexuals, yet makes much of himself being black.

Anonymous said...

Irfan you fuck-up. Order a double serving of reality with your next meal of grease and lard. Look deeply at your continuing attempts to reach martyrdom by maximising your own suffering at every opportunity (while even fighting a bullshit gallant battle on behalf of the dead Patrick) and furthermore pretending there is some sort of parallel with John Brogden. Next you'll be strapping some dynamite to your morbidly obese carcass and hoping to die while claiming to somehow help the Palestinians.

John Brogden was Australia's most consumate actor and conman who's main amusement in life was that he kept on getting away with it.

Until some proper journalism reveals the truth it is easy to accept that the only people gossiping about him were the variety of jealous and petty wannabes from the left-wing. I can accept that Brogden got so caught up in the act of being emotional and distraught that in a moment of trying to cause maximum hurt to the person who loved him most he managed to go a bit-over-the-top in his search for victimhood and theatre. It appears amazing how there was a conga line of rescuers. Of course if John Brogden is a successful sociopath then it's only a short pause to finalise the book deals and stack the pre-selection race against Bronwyn Bishop. Thanks for allowing me the chance to chuck in a nice head-fuck conspiracy theory for someone to run with.

Isn't cricket a game where you are supposed to bat for one side only?. So how can any bisexual leftwinger like your previous correspondent know much about what constitutes the game of cricket. I am offended that you have taken a perfectly noble word like 'decency'and then suggested that it has a place in politics. It never has. The only thing decent thing to do in politics is to make the effort to stop politician scum from rising to the top. When they do anything to curtail their full enjoyment of power by way of accident or disaster it is a service to the nation to stand on the sidelines applauding. Which is why it is perfectly acceptable to applaud a cricket LBW. Not to praise the bowler. Just to say 'thank God that arsehole has lost his wicket' and only a few more to go before everyone can go home and do something useful.

Anonymous said...

When do we get part two? Will it be as factually incorrect?

Will you perhaps tell the truth this time?

Anonymous said...

Where is part 2?