Free Phillip Adams by Philip Luker Page A

pulpit. When I used to go to Catholic Church as a youngster, the priest would get up in the pulpit and state the faith and the congregation would say, “Amen”. That’s what Phillip does.’ Gerard Henderson also had many complimentary things to say about Adams and stressed that he was commenting on this aspect of Phillip only because I asked him to.
    Some of Adams’ listeners and readers would give him full credit for staying left-wing while the Labor Party has moved to the centre; others would say he is clinging to old views of the world that have become redundant. The collapse of communism in many countries and the failure of socialism in others was a retreat from significant policies campaigned for by the left since the 1850s. The left finds it easy to define what it is against but much of its policy is still platitudes because no-one seriously believes socialism, as distinct from social welfare, will return. Many Americans think social welfare is socialism. They are entirely different concepts.
    Mark Aarons, journalist and author and son of the late Laurie Aarons, the most notorious communist in Australia’s history, is a true believer in the Labor Party but is one of the few who would admit that the left does not have a vision of what it could be in the future and that Adams is a victim of that as much as anyone.
    Mark was a Communist Party member from 1969 to 1978 and in 2010 published The Family File (Black Inc) about his family, particularly his father, who, Mark said, was the most spied upon person in Australia’s history. Page by page, Mark read 20,000 pages of records that ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation) had collected about Laurie, who died in 2005. Mark obtained the pages from ASIO by fax, with only the sources obliterated. I well remember my own mother, a Sydney North Shore Liberal, cursing Laurie Aarons as an evil person when I was a schoolboy in the 1940s. An ASIO executive, who was in charge of a 30-year investigation into Laurie, wrote to Mark to say he wholeheartedly agreed with what Mark had written about injustice.
    In contrast to Mark’s comment that Adams clings to redundant views, former West Australian premier and Australian Labor Party president, Carmen Lawrence, told me on a visit to Sydney that Adams is in front of some sections of the party: ‘His left-wing views are ones that can be implemented and that is an important thing about his contribution — it is realistic as well as idealistic. At the same time as I was campaigning for a more humanitarian approach to asylum-seekers, Phillip was raising the issue in his columns. The Labor machine has moved right but Phillip has stayed left. He doesn’t make you think he is better or smarter than he is, but on the other hand he likes to hold the floor,’ said Carmen. ‘You wouldn’t be able to do a job like his without having an ego, but his self-depreciation is real.’
    I believe Adams’ self-depreciation is his way of creating warmth between himself and his guests and listeners. He once told me, ‘I’m amazed by how little I’ve done,’ but this is really the humble front he shows to people. He is actually surprised by how much he has achieved — more than most of the pillars of society, business or government. Some of his weeks, even in recent years, are much busier than almost any other seventy-plus person could handle.
    For people who believe in the stars, even Adams’ star sign is enigmatic: Cancer. The Universal Psychic Guild says most Cancers are bundles of contradictions. They are compassionate and caring with family and friends but can cut to the bone with ever-changing moods. They are eccentric on the one hand but insecure about how others see them. Phillip Adams has these ­characteristics.

Chapter Six:
The Good Guy and the Flip Side
    Even Adams’ critics regard him as a good guy, but some of both his supporters and critics say