Free Phillip Adams by Philip Luker Page B

his personality has a flip side. For example, he is a champion name-dropper. Another Philip, Philip Ruddock, who argued with Adams on-air and in print several times when Ruddock was immigration minister and attorney-general in the Howard Liberal government, told me at his electorate office in Berowra, on the northern outskirts of Sydney, ‘Adams and I have always had a civil relationship. He’s always treated me well when he’s interviewed me. You couldn’t fault his behaviour and his approach is professional and appropriate. He lets me say what I want to say, whereas some other radio people, such as Alan Jones, push their own views and talk over you.’
    Based on the thousands of listeners’ and readers’ letters and emails to Adams that I read at the National Library in Canberra, almost as many people dislike his views as like them, but no-one I spoke to, or whose letters I read, said he is bad tempered, although two said he sometimes becomes nasty when crossed — and I experienced that Adams’ emotion myself. He has a genuine concern for people and wants to contribute to a better world. The only problem for several of his friends is that he is impatient and abrupt. He has no time for pleasantries or chitchat — to his mind, it’s a waste of time.
    He is a kind person and a softie. During one of the hour-long meetings we had at his office in Paddington, Sydney, he fixed me with his sapphire blue eyes and described an incident when he was at East Kew primary school in Melbourne. A local preacher used to come to the school every week and drone on about the bible. Phillip didn’t believe a word of it. He told me, ‘At the end of the year, the preacher said he wouldn’t be back the following year. It was obviously a health issue — he looked dreadful. He told the class it would comfort him if any boys could stand up and say they accepted God as their personal saviour as a result of his teaching. The whole class froze. I knew my father conducted similar lessons in schools and I stood up out of sheer sympathy for the preacher.’ Even as a schoolboy, Adams could not only sum up the situation but had a huge feeling for others.
    But he has a dark side, and one example of it is his tendency to overplay it. He is funny, engaging and effective, but overstating things is a flaw. Hugh Mackay told me he wonders whether Adams slightly exaggerates his own importance. ‘I don’t detract from his importance,’ said Mackay. ‘He has been a towering figure in Australian cultural life. But sometimes he overstates his contribution. And in spite of his openness, he is very prejudiced, politically, religiously and culturally.’ These are very human characteristics. Mackay once said, ‘I can’t imagine anything more tedious than a perfect person, especially if it was someone who also demanded ­perfection from me.’
    Hugh Mackay has had personal experience of Adams the good guy. When Mackay divorced, Adams was concerned and kept in touch with him more closely than before. Adams’ concern for people, both broadly and personally, is not always recognised by people who don’t know him. People think he’s clever, influential and knows many people in high places but it’s not widely understood that he has a great warmth for people.
    The best way to make the world better and nicer, unless you are the US President, the Pope, Oprah Winfrey or Rupert Murdoch, is to do whatever you can, or use whatever pulpit you have, to persuade people — not to become good, because that would be pretty futile — that there are things they can do to make the world a bit nicer, and to do them.
    Peter Best, the music composer, told me, ‘Under John Howard, Australia became a much meaner place. It is possible for politicians — and Paul Keating did it — to bring out the nicer side of the national psych. Phillip has been plugging away at that for