by Ganesh Sahathevan
"The trouble is that the Australian press is still infantile....It does not know how to control its bowels. Only one paper has to get on to a good story and we get several cases of verbal and pictorial diarrhea, all trying to go one better"\
Adele Koh,c .1975
When campaigning for election in 2019 Penny Wong said that appointing her the first Asian-Australian foreign minister would send a strong message to Asians that Australia was not white and racist . Australian media, especially the ABC were happy to go along with that narrative, but a bit of research would have shown that relations between Australians and Asians, including Malaysians, were well underway at all levels long before Penny Wong Ying Yen was born.
It is highly unlikely that Penny Wong is unaware of that history, her Sabah Hakka-Cantonese father married an Australian from South Australia, while he was a student here. Given that history it is curious that Penny Wong has had nothing to say about fellow Malaysian and South Australian Adele Koh's contributions to that ongoing relationshsip. Adele Koh's contributions were quite public, and the photo above from The Advertiser was front page of the Malay Mail in 1977, when that paper was the country's premier afternoon paper. Those who knew her in Malaysia had a good laugh, all in the knowledge that someone whom they knew to be highly intelligent had conjured up yet another episode to amuse herself and entertain others. Wong's failure to acknowledge the work of others in an attempt to portray herself as the one born to redeem Australia's reputation in Asia and the world is even more galling given the record of the former South Australian Premier Don Dunstan's close relationship with Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew and Penang's Lim Chong Eu, and native appreciation of South East Asian culture. He was also married to Adele Koh, until her death in 1978.
I met Adele at one Press Ball. We used to have lots of Balls those days like the Ad Agency Balls. Every organization held one ball or another annually. However, when we questioned why nobody held the government’s Ball, a furor ensued and we never had anymore Balls and henceforth only Annual Dinners…..no more holding any Balls. Period. I digress….
Adele, when we reminisced, reminded me that she boarded with Mum when she had a brief stay in Taiping. I was training to be a teacher in Penang then. I remember Adele for many things, some told to me by her journalists’ colleagues. But we all agreed on one thing…..her legs were meant only for mini-skirts which was the rage then and dang, she did carry those minis so well. All typewriters stopped clacking when Adele entered the Press Desk. She had straight, healthy jet-black hair which was in vogue then. In 1975 she moved to South Australia as a political staffer and later became the wife of the 35th Premier of South Australia, Don Dunstan. "She has the high cheekbones of her Asian forebears," wrote one, "and she walks with the in-born grace of the East." The fact that she was from Penang added to her exotic status. If you thought she was a bimbo, how wrong you are. She chided the Australian Press:
"The trouble is that the Australian press is still infantile," she said. "It does not know how to control its bowels. Only one paper has to get on to a good story and we get several cases of verbal and pictorial diarrhea, all trying to go one better."
If cancer of the lungs did not end this young firebrand’s life can you imagine what she would today say about our Main Stream Media! Maybe much worse things! No?
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