In memory of PP McGuinness

Australia Day marks ten years since we lost a dear friend and supporter of the Centre for Independent Studies, P.P. (Padraic Pearse) McGuinness. A long-time editor and columnist at Fairfax, The Australian and Quadrant, “Paddy” was one of the most consequential pundits of his era. A serious thinker (and drinker), he sported a cloak, cane and was permanently black clad. He remained an anti-authoritarian, non-conformist individualist, who never took himself too seriously. Like him or loathe him, one could not deny that he always had the gumption to resist fashionable trends.

One such trend was interventionist economics that had continued to define the nation since Federation. In the late 1970s, when Australia was an inward-looking nation, weighed down by protectionism and stagflation, Paddy was one of a few economists and columnists to challenge the conventional wisdom of high tariffs, a heavily regulated arbitration system and the deadening hand of the nanny state. With his many newspaper columns  and leaders at the Australian Financial Review at the time, he played a leading role in setting the scene for a Labor government to usher in the free-market reforms that led to our long economic expansion.

We at CIS owe a special debt of gratitude to Paddy. Nearly 40 years ago – April 1978 — our founder Greg Lindsay organised a conference that promoted free-market values and kept monetarists honest. At the time, CIS was hardly known. But Paddy noticed, writing a provocative column on the proceedings under the headline “Where Friedman is a pinko.” Paddy put Lindsay’s phone number at the bottom of the column. As a result, CIS suddenly attracted a lot of attention, including from supporters and donors.

A decade later, in 1988, Lindsay and McGuinness started a monthly lunch group of assorted journalists, intellectuals and others in a pub in Balmain. Although PP is gone, the lunch continues. There will be a toast to Paddy next month.