IPEC transport magnate Gordon Barton published the first issue of the Melbourne Sunday Observer on September 14, 1969.

It was Melbourne’s first regular Sunday newspaper. (Michael Michaeledes, who ran the Greek newspaper Torch , officially took the honours by publishing the Sunday Post, which lasted for seven editions. Dern Langlands started his weekly Postscript Weekender newspaper in August 1969. More about him in another report.)

Gordon Barton produced his Sunday Observer, selling copies at 12 cents each, and soon hitting a height of nearly 100,000 copies per week. It was sold at milk bars and outlets across Victoria, as well as being distributed door-to-door by a network of newsboys and newsgirls. The current proprietor of Local Media, Ash Long, was one of those newsboys, aged 12. Barton had enlisted 2000 youngsters, and Long was consistently in the top three sellers each week.

The Sunday Observer had a varied history between 1969-1989, and there was a hiatus until 2002 when Long resurrected the title under the Melbourne Observer banner. For the past 20 years, the newspaper has been sold as a midweek newspaper, available on orde from newsagents across Victoria. Now it is a free insert in The Local Paper, published in editions for localised areas in 40 local government areas in and around Melbourne, the Mornington Peninsula, and peri-urban areas.

The first edition of the Observer raced off from a number of presses around Melbourne’s suburbs: Progress Press at Glen Iris, Waverley Offset Printers, and Peter Isaacson Publications at Prahran. Later in the year, a new Goss press was installed at 822 Lorimer St, Fishermans Bend. Gordon Barton, head of the Interstate Parcel Express Company (IPEC), had become a newspaper pioneer after placing full-page advertisements in The Sydney Morning Herald to protest against Australia’s  involvement in the Vietnam war. Barton had joined with rival businessman, Ken Thomas of Thomas Nationwide Transport (TNT), to form the Liberal Reform Group (Australia Party), which supported Liberal Party domestic politics, but opposed both conscription and an involvement in the war.

In that first issue, Barton published his first editorial: “Cynicism, sterility and the musty smell of the 19th century fug the corridors of power in Australia.
“This country desperately needs better men and better ideas,” opined Barton.
Signing himself as ‘Chairman of Directors, IPEC Australia Ltd’, Barton went on to say:

• ‘SO THAT we may cease to behave like frightened larrikins abroad.
• ‘SO THAT our great and growing national wealth is put to its best use and not wasted
• ”SO THAT our children are educated to enjoy a good life.
• ”SO THAT our old people are honoured and protected from hardship.
• ‘SO THAT sickness and unemployment do not become burdens which crush the spirit.
• ‘SO THAT our Aborigines are given no less attention than our overseas investors.
• ‘SO THAT our personal rights may be protected and Parliament functions as a legislature and not as a rubber stamp.
• ‘SO THAT it becomes clearly understood that the purpose of government is to serve the people and not vice versa.
• ‘SO THAT common sense and humanity displace political dogmas and slogans in our national debate.
l• ‘SO THAT we may again be proud to be Australian.

“It will be the political policy of this newspaper to support such ideas and such men
“However, as a good newspaper should, we shall try to keep our opinion to our editorials and to give space in our columns to those who disagree.
“Our policy in regard to news is that it shall be objective, complete and concise and up-to-date.
“Our columnists will be expected to be independent, plain spoken and fearless.
“For the rest, the Sunday Observer will try to inform and entertain you and your family as best it can.
“This is possibly the first Sunday paper you have bought. It is certainly the first I have published. I hope you like it.”

Barton became increasingly vocal in his political viewpoints, and it seemed a natural progression to start a Sunday newspaper in the only state in Australia where such publishing businesses had been outlawed. Staid Victoria, 1960s style, had legislation called the Sunday Observance Act, which banned  bakers from selling a fresh loaf. from cinemas screening motion pictures, or from newspapers from even being published or sold. The only ‘fresh’ newspapers available in Melbourne on Sunday where those trucked overnight from Sydney: the Fairfax-owned Sun-Herald, and the Packer-owned Sunday Telegraph.

In Melbourne, the family-operated David Syme & Co. Ltd published The Age; and The Herald & Weekly Times Ltd owned The Sun News-Pictorial and The Herald. Barton’s efforts to market his new newspaper were stifled. There are two versions of the story: Barton claimed the powerful Victorian Authorised Newsagents’ Association refused to open their shops on a Sunday  for his paper. VANA said they were prepared to open but placed a firm order for just 50,000 papers, rather than the 100,000 or more tht Barton wanted to sell every week. Justice Anderson supported the newsagents’ version.

Instead, Gordon Barton ambitiously sought to form a network of more than 2000 newboys to sell his paper door-to-door across Melbourne. He placed advertisements to recuit the enthusiastic kids. Ash Long recalls: “At the age of 12, I was one of the first to apply to the advertisement in the Sun News-Pictorial for delivery people for the Sunday Observer. The job was simple. Deliver a newspaper every Sunday to anyone who wanted one. Oh … and there was a little extra to do. Because the Sunday Observer did not go through newsagents, the young delivery person was also responsible to sell the subscriptions, keep the records, collect the money, and forward the remittance. Not a bad expectation for two-cent per paper commission scheme.

Ash Long tells the story: “So, from October 1969, I started my newspaper career with the Observer. Living in working-class Reservoir, my round included East Preston’s infamous Crevelli Street, nicknamed as ‘Little Chicago’, for its motor-bike gangs and crime. As a skinny, nerdy 12-year-old with glasses, I had the fastest push bike in Melbourne! I soon learned the essentials of marketing a newspaper in Melbourne. If Collingwood won, you sold plenty, if the Magpies lost the footy, it was hardly worth the  effort.”

The first edition included a photograoh of Gordon Barton in front of a huge wall map of Melbourne, with 10 distribution zones supervisors, who each recruited 10 agents, who in turn had each recruited 20 newsboys. “The system was organised with military precision by Mr Barton of IPEC, assisted by circulation manager, Mr Alan Watson,” the paper reported. “More than 3000 copies were flown to Hobart this morning,” boasted the first edition. “Next week distribution will include Perth, Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane.

“When the huge offset press ordered by the Sunday Observer reaches Melbourne late next month, the circulation will grow even bigger,” the 1969 report said. Journalist Rohan Rivett critiqued the first edition, in a report in The Canberra Times, headlined: ‘Features, sport, but no scoops’: “Melbourne’s citizens were confronted with something new as they strolled last Sunday morning to the milk bar or “the deli” for their fresh Sabbath loaf. With minimum publicity – remember the big dailies had announced Sunday papers but produced nothing – Sydney’s ebullient Gordon Barton, Tjuringa Securities and IPEC Chairman and Australia Party backer, was suddenly offering Melbourne its own Sunday tabloid.’

Gordon Barton was active in politics, having been involved with the Liberal Reform Group, and then the Australia Party. These parties had stolen the headlines of the 1960s as the nation’s third political party. Barton was vigorously against the Vietnam War and Australia’s involvement.

Gordon Barton, at times, was a multi-millionaire, then next to broke; regularly used cocaine in his middle age; and was involved intimately with many women. He died a broken man: profoundly deaf, mentally degenerated, afraid to leave his house for fear of getting lost. In his final year, he was strapped to a wheelchair after a heavy fall; he died of kidney failure and respiratory problems on April 4, 2005.

Gordon Page Barton was born on August 30, 1929, in Surabaya, on the island of Java, where his father George was a Burns Philp manager for the Dutch East Indies and South Pacific. His mother was Antoinette (Kitty) Kavllears, who was raised in Holland. Mother and son arrived in Sydney in January 1939, with Gordon enrolled at Sydney Church of England Grammar School (‘Shore’).

Gordon Barton had an older brother, Basil, who enrolled as a trainee fighter pilot with the Royal Australian Air Force at Bairnsdale. Basil was reported as missing after his Beaufort bomber plane went missing in Bass Starit, north-west of Flinders Island. With the entry of Japan into World War II with the bombing of Pearl Habour in December 1941, a number of ‘Shore’ students were evacuated to the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. The Japanese took control of Surabaya, interring all male Europeans.

George Barton’s monthly payments stopped, and according to biographer Sam Everingham, Gordon Barton had no idea if his father was dead, injured or a prisoner-of-war. Gordon, at age 15, earned his first income, with the large sum of £15 from an essay competition run by a Sydney newspaper. At the end of the war, his father was released, and moved to Port Moresby for lesser duties.

Kitty and Gordon stayed in Sydney. Gordon promised to “work harder than anyone has ever worked and become rich so that none of us will have to worry about money again”. At age 17 he thought about becoming a journalist. He won an Exhibition scholarship to study law at Sydney University, and quickly signed up to write for Honi Soit, the student newspaper. He later took two degrees – Arts and Economics – simultaneously. He became active in student politics. He earned £1 per day gardening. He raced a plywood boat on Sydney Harbour at weekends. First prize was a trophy, while second prize was 10 shillings “Gordon always angled to come second,” Everingham notes.

He worked as clerk associate of Judge Harry Edwards in the NSW Supreme Court. Barton was involved in Liberal Party politics, often at odds with then-Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies. In 1950, Barton bought a truck on hire purchase, being paid to carry dangerous loads of 44-gallon drums of high-octane fuel. In 1951, young South African, Harry Ivory, partnered with Barton, paying £850 each, to invest in a truck on time-payment. Harry would drive during University terms, and Barton would drive during vacation times.

In 1952, he was impressed with the idea of door-to-door delivery employed by Ken Thomas of Thomas Nationwide Transport. With friend Jim Staples, he borrowed to buy a Reo truck. He combined legal work during the day, with truck driving – often 48 hours straight – at weekends.

Gordon Barton had met Yvonne ‘Vonnie’ Hand, a social work student, in 1949, and they married at the Melbourne Registry Office in 1958. Before and after their marriage, Gordon had a number of other sexual partners, including Judy Wallace, who fell pregnant to him several times. Barton organised abortions each time. Biographer Everingham said: “He had always made it clear to Vonnie that he was simply not the one-woman type.”

By 1957, Ivory & Barton had eight trucks, and expansion in Tasmania was a major part of the operations. In 1958, Barton had his eye on Rex Transport, run by the McNamara borthers; and on Interstate Parcels Express Company (IPEC) operated by Charlie Nesbitt and Alf Charleson. Gordon Barton had caught up with old university colleague, Greg Farrell, who was running his family’s carrying business. They joined forces.
They successfully had a petroleum company inject £16,000 into the business as a loan, in return for a guarantee to use that company’s fuel for all vehicles for the next 12 months. They found loopholes to avoid paying some road taxes. They worked their way around a law prohibiting the carriage of freight by road in Victoria against the railways; they rented a truck shed in Moama so the freight travel became interstate, and was protected by the Constitution.

In theory, freight was driven the 200 kilometres from Melbourne, unloaded at Moama, and then reloaded onto another vehicle. The purchase of the IPEC business in 1962 required £250,000. At the time it was legal to use the assets of the company being acquired to supply the funds to enable the purchase. A source of funds was selling the trucks to drivers, with lease arrangements in which deductions were taken from drivers’ wages.
The IPEC business was soon delivering more than 10,000 consignments daily.

Biographer Sam Everingham says by 1963 “Barton and his partner Greg Farrell were making serious amounts of money from their express freight and insurance businesses. “No longer did the growing empire need to survive on its borrowings alone. However, in their attitudes to money the pair were opposites.“Barton’s entrepreneur-ial drive meant meant he would spend the takings before they could be put in reserve. On the other hand, Greg Farrell was forever trying to conserve cash. He would drive his car into work via Gladesville bridge to avoid the 20-cent toll on the Sydney Harbour Bridge.”

The Roadswift business was added. It sold the Commer trucks used in the IPEC fleet. IPEC had a celebrated protracted fight with the Federal Government in its bid to gain a licence to move its freight by air. Federal law, under the two-airline policy, protected the interests of Ansett and TAA. Barton used the media effectively to advocate his company’s case. A Four Corners investigative report was aired on July 24, 1965. Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies was unhelpful.

Barton said of Menzies: “He was pompus and arrogant … supercilious, exteremely patronising; he had a savage wit, as great deal of ability that got him by, and style – yes,style.” Menzies double-crossed the IPEC interests. Barton soon had to absent himself from IPEC matters. His wife Vonnie suffered from a brain tumour, suffering badly, whilst raising two young children, Geoffrey (‘Tigger’) and Lucinda (‘Cindie’). Barton continued with fighting IPEC’s battle to operate air freight, and increased his political activity, particularly against the Vietnam War which had seen conscription re-introduced in November 1964.

Barton paid $1782 to take out a full-page ad in The Sydney Morning Herald to convey a message to visiting US President Lyndon Johnson that not all Australians were “all the way with LBJ”. The phone calls did not stop. Hundreds of people contacted him, pledging their support for an anti-Vietnam campaign. New Prime Minister Harold Holt called an election. Barton and supporters – including John Crew – fought the election as the Liberal Reform Group. There were 12 candidates in New South Wales, and 10 in Victoria. They picked up an average of 5 per cent in each of the seats they contested. In October 1967, Barton announced a name change to the Australian Reform Movement. Occasionally its press and television advertisements were refused by major media groups.
(In July 1969, the group again changed its name, this time to the Australia Party.)

In February 1968, new Prime Minister John Gorton gave the hollow promise that no more Australian troops would be sent to Vietnam. Barton and Farrell had started Tjuringa Securities, a corporate raider, that enjoyed mixed success with its takeovers. One of the successes was the Federal Hotel Group, that in 2019, was still in the hands of the Farrell family. In 1969, Gordon Barton’s wife Vonnie had further reverses in her health. All knew that she was dying. She passed away on August 4, 1969. Cindie was five, Geoffrey not even two.

A business colleague describes Gordon Barton’s behaviour immediately after the ‘funeral’ service as being regarded as “cold blooded”. Within six weeks, Barton was launching the Sunday Observer newspaper in Melbourne.
His political supporters had encouraged him with the newspaper idea, after the success of his open letter in The Sydney Morning Herald.

Melbourne did not have a Sunday newspaper, and Barton saw an opening. John Crew was invited to lead the project. Michael Cannon, as Editor, was delegated the task of recruiting up to 20 full-time and part-time journalists.
Much of the organisation was haphazard. In Gordon Barton: Australia’s Maverick Entrepreneur, Sam Everningham notes: “In November 1969 financial controller John Jonstas received a phone call from a Melbourne customs clearance agent. “‘Hello, we have a printing press here for clearance and delivery to Fisherman’s Bend in Melbourne.. We need payment of half a million dollars as soon as possible.’ “‘Sorry,’ Konstas said, ‘you must have the wrong number. We are a transport company – IPEC. We need a printing press like we need a hole in the head.’ “‘Wait a minute.’ Konstas still recalls hearing the rustling of paper down the phone. ‘Do you know a Gordon Barton?’ “Konstas’s jaw dropped. He admits now that his boss could often be forgetful in informing him of the sometimes enormous vast requirements that needed to be conjured up at little notice.

“A 1972 entry in his ASIO file would damn the expensive machinery as the source of ‘some of the worst subversive and trouble making literature for the anti-Vietnam and anti-apartheird and radical student movements’,” Everingham recorded. On Sunday, December 14, 1969, the Sunday Observer became the first newspaper in the world to publish photos of the US-led massacre of at least 175 Vietnamese civilians – mostly women, children and the elderly. Gordon Barton had heard of the photographs, and had lover Marion Manton smuggled in the negatives. The images were shocking. Initial reports claimed “128 Viet Cong and 22 civilians” had been killed in the village during a “fierce fire fight”. General Westmoreland, the commander, congratulated the unit on the “outstanding job”.

As relayed at the time by Stars and Stripes magazine, “U.S. infantrymen had killed 128 Communists in a bloody day-long battle.” Hundreds of letters were received from readers. Meanwhile, the Observer was being regarded as “poison” by IPEC staff. The Observer’s leftish editorial coverage offended business owners who were key customers of the transport company. “The Observer’s politics were foreign to Greg Farrell and he would sometimes be furious at the fallout,” Everingham recorded.

“However, given that Barton was dealing with the recent death of his wife, Farrell was prepared to be patient and sympathethic. “Nonetheless, John Konstas believes that Farrell pleaded with Barton a number of times to close the paper.” Konstas said: “He enjoyed the power it gave him. He would ring up Jim Cairns and get straight through. “It opened a lot of doors to people who he had not been able to access previously,” biographer Everingham wrote.

Within a year, Gordon Barton had opened a second newspaper.The first issue of the Sunday Review appeared on October 11, 1970. From mid-July, 1971, Gordon Barton underwrote The Review himself. Distribution was extended to include Adelaide, Tasmania and to New Zealand. Later, Perth was added. Richard Walsh – who had advised Barton to start a newspaper rather than a political party – was recruited to run the Review, flying in from Sydney each week.

Barton’s decision to raise the 12 cent cover price to 15 cents sounded the death knell for the Sunday Observer. Stuart Golding reported in Jobsons Investment Digest in early 1971 that “the hatchet men are in at Gordon Barton’s Press establishment’ which is ‘reeling under a heavy financial loss and circulation slide. The Jobsons criticism was generous … after all, the analysis was being generated by rival publisher Maxwell Newton. Jobsons reported that Observer MD John Crew had been replaced by former Ezra Norton-associate, David Manuel.

“Barton’s erstwhile partner (Greg Farrell) is known to be out of sympathy with the paper and it’s leftish political line.” IPEC was said to have lost up to $24,000 weekly on the paper, with sales said to be down as low as 61,000 copies: “It had moved from a 64-pager to a 48- pager, and it had three editors in a little over a year.” Barton’s press empire finally fell after he had tried to back-door the long suffering distributors by attempting to set up an independent newsagency
system without them. The agents all decided to ‘go fishing’ on the same weekend.

“The Melbourne newspaper, the Sunday Observer, is almost certain to cease publication, and not be published this weekend,” reported The Age. “Its editor, Mr Kevin Childs, said last night he had been told this by the managing director of the Sunday Observer, Mr John Crew. “He was also told that Mr Gordon Barton, the chairman of IPEC Australia, the company which launched the newspaper, would be talking to the staff of The Observer this morning.

“It was understood that distribution problems would be the cause of the closure. Circulation had fallen to 80,000 from an ‘all-time high’ of 120,000. The company had been unable to distribute the newspaper through normal outlets. It is believed the newspaper has lost its publisher $1.5 million in the 14
months of publication. IPEC will continue to publish the weekly Sunday Review at its Melbourne plant.”