I strolled across from where I was working and heard the Bishop remind us of the social justice consequences of privatisation, and by inference, the core values of the Labor movement which were being breached.

Mick was no stranger to this debate.

His opposition to privatisation in the Carr Labor caucus was legendary.

No doubt his language would have been more colourful than the Bishop’s.

Mick had two pet hates — senior public servants (‘the fat cats’) and National Party politicians.

The former were targeted whenever Mick spotted some injustice.

Many a ministerial door in Parliament House was suddenly shut when Mick sauntered down the corridor.

Treasurer Michael Egan’s office was always locked in anticipation.

On many occasions I would hear ‘Cloughy’ on the phone to some poor minder in a ministerial office or government department with the words ‘look sonny, not your fault, but I want the organ grinder, not the monkey”.

On one occasion, I rang him enraged that a student of mine was overlooked for an apprenticeship, although he had achieved an excellent rating in every category in his work experience evaluation at the same State utility for which he had applied.

I told Mick just to have the matter checked out.

I should have known better.

The following day I received a phone call from a senior public servant in Sydney advising me he was taking charge of the matter, not the local depot.

Within a couple of days, the young boy was asked to go for a medical and was then awarded an apprenticeship.

Wrong process and unjust assessment had been exposed.

The boy distinguished himself in his apprenticeship.

He is now a respected tradesman in the mining industry.

He still probably doesn’t know what happened behind the scenes.

The National Party rump was another of Mick’s targets.

Mick told us of a by-election out west in the late 1970s.

As a Labor politician, he was sent out by Sussex Street to give out ALP how-to-votes and to monitor a booth in ‘tiger country’.

He counted those that entered the little school to vote, and at the end of the count the number who had ‘voted’ was a lot larger.

Mick inquired of the local poll clerk on the disparity.

Not knowing who he was, the friendly farmer’s wife said that she recorded a number of votes on the phone because a lot of the cockies were harvesting and couldn’t get into ‘town’.

Maybe there was a touch of the blarney in the story.

Perhaps he had a soft spot for the Nats.

After all, I’m sure Mick would have done the same thing if it was Labor voters on the phone.

If Mick had have been born a century ago, I’m sure he would have been a shearer and the bane of every pastoralist in the west.

Mick developed an enduring friendship with Neville Wran.

At first we were all a bit suspicious of the new Labor Leader of the Opposition.

He arrived in Lithgow to meet mining lodge officials.

Mick was the host and Gerard Martin and I were brought along for ‘experience’.

Wran was an urbane figure with Brylcreamed hair and a pin-striped suit to match.

We awaited the sparks when Jack “Paddy” Savage, the mining union’s president, told him what he expected of a future Labor Government.

Jack, who was also great mentor of mine, was a master of pub vernacular, and he lit the tiny miner’s union office in Mort Street with his harangue.

The future Labor leader, and prominent ‘silk’, eased his fashionable tie and undid the buttons on his double-breasted coat, and in a few minutes had peeled off even more paint from the walls of the office.

Jack was stunned and the lodge officials were even seen to blink.

Behind the pin striped suit was a boy from ‘old Balmain’.

Wran’s friendship with Mick and Jack started that day.

As a young novice, I knew that ‘Nifty’ would become the best Labor Premier and politician of my era.

Gerard Martin would agree.

Mick’s political tussles with Harold Coates, another skilled politician, were legendary.

In 1976 Mick defeated Harold by a few dozen votes.

On Mick’s instructions we convinced the returning officer to wax the locks on the ballot boxes after the count, ‘just in case’.

Police were then called to impound the votes.

The Police Sergeant didn’t take too kindly to the impertinence of two young warriors acting for Mick’s interests and invited us to stay in the cells with the boxes.

We thanked the sergeant, but celebrating the victory long into the night at the Court House Hotel was more appealing.

Mick had forgotten to ‘shout’ since his outback days, but he would always have a personal handout for the battlers that were losing their race.

He was also a supporter of disabled people who were seeking employment.

He didn’t need any Disability Discrimination Act to remind him of his moral responsibilities.

He was real cricket tragic, a good cricketer in his day, and was proud of his son Peter who played Sheffield Shield cricket for Western Australia and Tasmania.

Peter opened the bowling in Tasmania with Michael Holding — otherwise known as ‘Whispering Death’, one of the greatest fast bowlers of all time.

The languid, lithe Jamaican and Mick became good friends through Peter.

In his best health, Mick would not miss going to the West Indies for an Australian-West Indies series.

The Sabina Park Test in Jamaica was a mandatory experience.

Mick and Michael had one common trait … they didn’t take prisoners.

Mick loved his cricket at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

He would always find opportunities to heckle an umpire for a dubious decision against an Aussie batsman.

No matter that the taunts were delivered from the august precincts of the lower back deck of the Members’ Stand.

He would also find opportunities to speak to some old mates about the cricketing past.

However, Bill O’Reilly and Stan McCabe were his type, not Don Bradman.

My enduring memories of Mick during election campaigns, in which I played a humble hand, was watching the former telegraphist banging away on his typewriter that had seen its best days many years before.

When he was cranky he would spontaneously rush out a press release, the type that delights a plaintiff’s lawyer.

One of my jobs was to rewrite the text and tone down the adjectives much to his protest.

A constant sight on election night was Mick with his pencil and rubber in hand, and in a flash, summing up a score of voting returns with his angular finger scrolling down the columns, the pencil being much quicker than the calculator and the rubber usually let off free.

I wonder what he would think of the young poll driven Labor technocrats of today — those minders that adorn Ministerial and Party offices whose careers traverse university, ministerial or party office, and then straight into Parliament.

Those who Mick would say needed to get a real job.

Perhaps there’s something to be said for the outback telegraphist and the postmaster.

Mick I’m sure is in Heaven looking for someone to argue with in the Labor caucus.

I can see his scowling face, as he reports that at least there’s no senior public servants or National Party politicians around.

In Pace Deum.