In Mourning Over Death Of The Aussie Fair Go
Newcastle Herald
Friday September 19, 2003
SEVERAL people this week attended the funeral, at a small suburban cemetery, of a formerly well-known Australian, Ozzie Fairgaux.
Mr Fairgaux's funeral was deliberately low-key, partly at his own request and partly as a result of uncertainty among authorities and neighbours as to the precise date of his death.
It was a cause of some distress and embarrassment to many of his former friends when it was announced that Mr Fairgaux had been found dead in his modest suburban home. His body, apparently in an advanced state of decay, was discovered by a debt collector working on behalf of Centrelink.
Forced to break into Mr Fairgaux's house in order to remove furniture and saleable items to cover a possible pension overpayment, the debt collector found the old man's body lying on a bed.
Neighbours said they hadn't seen Mr Fairgaux for months since he'd become too frail to continue with the voluntary community work that once occupied him.
``We hardly knew him at all," one neighbour was quoted as saying. ``We only moved into the suburb a few years ago. We did ask him if he wanted to sell his house it's a big block he's got there but he wasn't interested and we didn't talk to him after that.
``He used to get Meals on Wheels and some Homecare nursing, but all that got cut out by the Government. I don't think he liked being a trouble to anybody. I'd sometimes see him waiting at the bus stop, but they got rid of the bus service last year and I don't think he could afford taxis. He was basically a quiet man who kept to himself. Do you know if they are going to auction his place?"
Mr Fairgaux, who served in the Australian militia during World War II, was at one time a social activist with slightly left-wing views.
A collection of his essays, Fairgaux for All, was published in 1947, shortly after his return from active service. The book is long out of print and copies are practically impossible to find. His writings revealed him as a man who strongly believed in free public education, quality health care for all people regardless of their economic status, full employment, decent basic wages and work conditions, an accessible justice system and transparent, accountable government.
In his last newspaper interview, in 1975, he summed up his total philosophy: ``When I was sent to fight I realised that the government could find any amount of money it wanted for bombs and tanks and planes and bullets, and I thought, well, why shouldn't we insist they be just as diligent in finding money for things that are really worthwhile, like schools, universities, public transport and housing, health care, sporting grounds, national parks and a fair justice system?
``While we were off stopping bullets and getting blown apart and doing the same thing to a lot of other poor buggers from Japan it occurred to us to ask ourselves whether people were meant to serve an economy or whether it should be the other way around. We decided it ought to be other way around. When we survivors got home we made up our minds to demand that it be that way. I mean, what's the point otherwise? A lot of us felt the same and I think for a while we were winning."
From the late 1970s on, Mr Fairgaux's views fell out of fashion and these days economists deride them with considerable venom. The few people with whom he maintained a correspondence throughout the 1980s and 1990s say that he became increasingly despondent as the years passed, finally refusing to discuss his views.
In one of his last known letters to a close friend he wrote: ``Nobody is interested in Ozzie Fairgaux anymore. I hear them say `Ozzie Fairgaux is old-fashioned and nave'. Well, blind Freddie can see they're giving up everything I fought for and I can't make them understand they're being conned. I may as well just shut my trap. They'll wake up one day and I hope for their sakes it won't be too late."
(Author's note: Any resemblance to actual persons is coincidental.)
© 2003 Newcastle Herald