Endorsements for The Colt with No Regrets
“Let his musings remind us of what we are losing before it is entirely lost”
Phillip Adams AO, FAHA
“I laughed until I cried”
Glenda Korporaal AO.
“A Joy to read.”
Henry Reynolds
“This is a book that should be read by all Australians: black, white, young and old”
Gracelyn Smallwood
“The Monster of Racism had been let out of the cage”
Hon. Bob Katter MLA, MP
“Let his musings remind us of what we are losing before it is entirely lost”
Phillip Adams AO, FAHA is an Australian journalist, broadcaster, columnist and farmer. His first by-line appeared in the Communist Guardian 65 years ago.
"As famous mastheads die, sadly defeated by ‘disruptive technology’ I feel a deep sadness for the decline of classic journalism. Perhaps something vibrant will replace it but, at the moment, this ancient practitioner can only regret its passing, the by-lines that, one by one, become fading memories. A recent example, the death of that valiant Queenslander, my old friend Evan Whitton."
"So, it is a great pleasure to celebrate the fact that Elliot Hannay is still alive and kicking. Elliot’s autobiographical musings are a joy to read, full of insight and humour. His long and ongoing career will, I’m sure, attract the attention of the Media Hall of Fame. More importantly, it should attract a wide readership. Let his writings remind us of what we are losing before it is entirely lost."
Phillip Adams AO, FAHA
“I Laughed 'till I cried”
Glenda Korporaal received the Order of Australia Medal on Australia Day 2019 for her services to print media journalism. A long-serving foreign correspondent, she is The Australian newspaper’s China correspondent and former associate business editor.
“The Colt’s book should be read by anyone starting out in journalism today. We may have jumped from typewriters to iPads, but the craft of journalism has some basic rules which can only be learned on the job- most times the hard way.
“The days when young journalists would learn from old hands in the pub how to get stories, ask questions, develop contacts, retain a deadly fear of errors and approach their work with the right mixture of enthusiasm, honesty, shoe leather, scepticism and compassion, are long gone. But the rules for good journalists are still the same.
“I laughed until I cried at Hannay’s description of some of the characters in his early days in journalism and his frank admission of his own painful naivety as he started out as a 16-year-old on his local paper in Bundaberg and shared his fears as editor of the Townsville Daily Bulletin when under pressure from dark forces.
“As he says, for years past and years to come, the essential challenge for any journalist remains the same – finding out who’s up who and who’s paying the rent.”
Glenda Korporaal AO.
“A Joy to read.”
Professor Reynolds is a leading Australian historian who pioneered the history of European/Aboriginal relations while living and working in Townsville at James Cook University.
“What a thoroughly engaging memoir this is. Apart from anything else it is so well written. It is a joy to read. From beginning to end the prose is that of a true professional. It has a spare clarity, a directness and economy acquired in a long career of journalism and an ongoing engagement with words. We learn so much about the now lost world when newspapers dominated the media landscape and there were large newsrooms and hot type printers."
“The focus is on Elliot’s career in provincial Queensland, more specifically in Bundaberg where he learnt his trade and Townsville where he edited the Daily Bulletin. This regional focus enhances the book’s importance. There is a shortage of studies which outline the way that national themes played out in the country’s major provincial cities.
“Elliot’s time in Townsville saw the final years of the confrontation between the Communist Party and the DLP and of even greater significance the fundamental transformation of the country’s attitude to race. He was also a sympathetic and perceptive witness to the milieu which gave rise to the Mabo case which changed Australia for ever.
Henry Reynolds
“The Monster of Racism had been let out of the cage.”
Hon. Bob Katter MLA, MP. Former Minister Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development, Heritage, Mines and Energy.
“In the 1970s-80s there was a rising between First Australians and the European newcomers (who are now 95% of the population). Serious confrontation, rioting, jailings and ongoing soul-destroying court battles were constantly occurring.
There was, inevitably, the rise of the extremist groups which Elliot Hannay not only was threatened by, but rather courageously confronted. He makes light of this in his book, but it was a dangerous time.
“To quote but two examples – in my hometown Cloncurry and nearby Mt Isa, there were three First Australians bashed to death in jail cells. Two water police who were regulating fishing and the environment vanished without a trace when they were working between two First Australian settlements. The violence was real, these were registered deaths. In neither case were the probable culprits investigated. That is both the alleged white and black culprits. No-one in the three arms of Government was prepared to further inflame the monster of racism that had been let out of the cage.
“Hannay, one of his northern colleagues Max Tomlinson and the ABCs Steve Austin were three journalists who threw their great personal courage and extraordinary strong sense of justice into the cause and made Australia a much better place than it was. They are, like so many others of the truly courageous history makers – destined to go unheralded.
“It should anger us that these journalists, as a result of their natural humility, at that time failed to communicate the fear and rage which they had to confront and the inspirational heroism they exemplified. But, those of us that were close to the action could see this so very clearly”.
Hon. Bob Katter MLA, MP
“Finally, the truth can be told… the Ku Klux Klan was a reality”
Professor Smallwood PhD ‘First Australians’ Human Rights”, MSc. Public Health, RN/midwife and activist of 50 years identifies as a Birrigubba, Kalkadoon and South Sea Islander woman and received the Order of Australia in 1992 for services to public health and HIV AIDS education. She was a guest of the South African President, Nelson Mandela at his African AIDS Summit in 1997, and won the Deadly Award for Outstanding Lifetime Achievements in Australian Indigenous Health in 2007. Professor Smallwood is also a member of the Harvard University FXB and Human Rights Consortium.
“This is a book that should be read by all Australians: black, white, young and old. Not just because it features my late activist father Archie Smallwood in one of the most powerful chapters of the Colt’s story, but because we all need to confront the insidious racism and bigotry from the land rights’ era which is still with us today in new forms, hidden in false agendas of nationalism.
“The author has been known to our family for almost 40 years as the newspaper editor who opened the door to our courageous father and other high-profile northern Indigenous activists. He writes in this memoir that he was just trying to do his job as an old-school journalist committed to providing his readers with both sides of an issue that had the potential to divide our nation. But not all editors were doing that in the 1970’s and 1980’s and I’m just glad that a young man like Elliot Hannay was in the chair at that time and was prepared to put the voices of my people into print.
“Finally, the full story can be told about how the Ku Klux Klan was a reality. Our homegrown white supremacists not only tried to block my father and other activists seeking justice for their people but were also out to destroy them”.
Professor Gracelyn Smallwood PhD