THE COOMBS A House of Memories THE COOMBS A House of Memories Editors: Brij V. Lal, Allison Ley Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200, Australia National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry The Coombs book : a house of memories. Bibliography Includes index ISBN 1 920942 88 2 (pbk) ISBN 1 920942 89 0 (online) 1. Australian National University. Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies - History. 2. Australian National University. Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies - Alumni and alumnae. 3. Coombs Building (Canberra, A.C.T.). 4. Universities and colleges - Australian Capital Territory - Canberra - History. I. Coombs, H. C. (Herbert Cole), 1906-1997. II. Lal, Brij V. III. Ley, Allison. IV. Australian National University. Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies. 378.947 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Cover design by ANU E Press Cover image, Matcham Skipper’s wrought iron frieze, photo courtesy of Coombs Photography Printed by University Printing Services, ANU This edition © 2006 Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University This book can be purchased from http://epress.anu.edu.au for the people of Coombs past, present and future Table of Contents Acknowledgements ix Foreword: The Coombs Building xiii William C. Clarke Part I The Coombs: A Portrait 1 The Coombs: Journeys and Transformations 1 Brij V. Lal Part II A Room at the Top 2 Salad Days 23 Oskar Spate 3 An OHB Beginner 35 Anthony Low 4 People and the Coombs Effect 43 Wang Gungwu 5 In the Room at the Top 47 R. Gerard Ward 6 Coombs Reflections 55 Merle Ricklefs 7 Turn Right at the Buddha 61 James J. Fox Part III Coombs Journeys 8 Hexagonal Reflections on Pacific History 69 Niel Gunson 9 Seriously but not Solemnly 79 Bryant Allen 10 A Wurm Turned in Coombs 87 Darrell Tryon 11 Northern Exposure: The New Guinea Research Unit 95 R.J. May 12 On the Wrong Side of Coombs? 101 John Ravenhill 13 Prehistory: A Late Arrival 109 Jack Golson 14 We, the Ethnographers 117 Kathryn Robinson 15 Real Australians in Economics 125 Ross Garnaut 16 Reflections of a Defence Intellectual 149 Desmond Ball 17 Political and Social Change: Not the Research School of Politics and Sociology 159 R.J. May Part IV Running the Coombs 18 Sue’s Story 171 Sue Lawrence 19 PAMBU, the Islands and the Coombs 179 Ewan Maidment 20 EWG and me 189 Claire Smith 21 Editing Reflections 193 Maxine McArthur 22 Finding Nuggets in Coombs 199 Allison Ley 23 A Fly on the Wall of Room 4225 207 Jude Shanahan and Julie Gordon 24 Fieldwork and Fireworks: A Lab Assistant’s Tales 213 Gillian Atkin 25 Coombs Administration 221 Ann Buller 26 At the Leading Edge: Computer Technology in Coombs 227 Allison Ley Part V Across Coombs 27 Have You Got a Title? Seminar Daze 235 Hank Nelson 28 Space Wars 243 Colin Filer 29 Dark Side of the Coombs 251 Allison Ley 30 All Corridors Lead to the Tea Room 259 Sophie Vilaythong and Lisa (Alicia) Dal Molin with Maxine McArthur Part VI Coombs Memories 31 Work and Play in the Coombs Building 1967–73 265 Peter Corris 32 Recalling the Coombs – Pacific History 1970–73 269 Kerry Howe 33 1970s Coombs Dramas 273 Grant McCall 34 The ‘Catacoombs’ 279 Michael R. Godley 35 The Old Hospital Building 285 Anton Ploeg Part VII Corridors of Coombs Tessa Morris-Suzuki 291 List of Contributors 293 Index 295 A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S Our grateful thanks go to many people who helped us bring this project to fruition. Jim Fox provided the initial support and encouragement which Robin Jeffrey, his successor as the Director of the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, continued. Pennie Pemberton at the ANU Archives provided assistance with the documentary material, and Doug Munro, F.B. (Barry) Smith, Anthony Low, Stephen Foster, Hugh Laracy and Hank Nelson helped with recollections and pointers for further work. Paul D’Arcy read the entire manuscript with care. We are grateful to Darren Boyd and the Noel Butlin Archives Centre for the photographs. Maxine McArthur both edited the volume and prepared the index with exemplary care and speed. Oanh Collins, of the Division of Pacific and Asian History, prepared the manuscript for publication with her legendary generosity and efficiency. Lorena Kanellopoulos, Duncan Beard and Jude Shanahan gave wise advice during the production stage. Our greatest debt is, of course, to our contributors without whom this book would not exist. Their warm support and affection for the project, despite its somewhat eccentric character—an anthology on a building rather than an institution or a discipline—made our task as editors very agreeable. But then Coombs people are an unconventional lot, and this is appropriately and unapologetically an unconventional book. Our pleasure at completing this project is tinged only with the regret that we were not able to include more contributions from colleagues both inside and outside Coombs. We hope nonethelss that they will recognize markers of their own special moments and echoes of their individual footsteps in the recollections here. Brij V. Lal Allison Ley Copyright Permissions A photographic representation of the statue of ‘Meditating Buddha sheltered by the Naga King’ by Matthew Harding and Nath Chun Pok by permission Matthew Harding; a photographic representation of Clifton Pugh’s portrait of H.C. Coombs by permission Shane Pugh; an aerial photograph of Coombs Building courtesy of Jeremy Clarke, SJ. Editors’ photo by Darren Boyd, Coombs Photography. ix Clifton Pugh's portrait of H.C. Coombs F O R E W O R D The Coombs Building William C. Clarke Any discipline can be the starting point for an education which is culturally rich, provided its formal content is regarded as a starting point and not as an end and provided that the scholar is in one way or another brought into contact with the developing fringes of his subject. —H.C. (“Nugget”) Coombs, Other People’s Money, ANU Press, 1971:180 I couldn’t write a poem about the building without going back to the man it honours. Australian-born, Nugget would have known the native silky oaks, kangaroo paws, and Eriostemon now gracing the main entrance, whose outer doors open outward to the world, as did his mind. Adviser to seven Prime Ministers, a principled economist, governor of the central bank, the best of public administrators, first chairman of the Council for the Arts, Chancellor of the ANU— the university he helped to found—supporter of environmental causes, but to go on with the accolade would affront the memory of a modest man. Modest but passionate, ready to use his influence into old old age in a crusade for the dignity and better treatment of Australia’s aboriginal peoples, titling a book on that cause and other matters of importance to his country Shame on Us! Essays on a Future Australia. But what of the building that bears his name? Was it dreamed into existence? For some it is an Escher image made real. For others, a labyrinthine puzzle, “the Catacoombs”, as with growing desperation they seek Seminar Room E—or B. xiv Clarke And often we Coombs dwellers meet lost souls peering this way and that who beg with some chagrin “Please, how do I get out?” having become lost in the building’s straight corridors (I calculate there are 51), all of which lead to non-right-angle turns and often to a branching of the ways, and at times to levels at slightly different heights calling for short links on longer stairs, some of which go straight while other grander ones circle gently in wells of iridescent tesserae. The building’s brickwork puts to shame most current craft. Less precise but very human are the nooks and crannies used in different ways by the denizens in their locale— some filled with a photocopier and sorting table, others have a pretty rug between a few chairs, a cubby for chats, for drinking tea, or at times champagne. The courtyards and the birds also merit words. Three linked hexagonal buildings contain three hexagons open to the sky, each with its own character, all planted with Australian shrubs and trees, one with splendid banksias, another favoured for bar-b-ques is graced with a handsome argyle apple and other eucalypts, the third offers capacious paths to the tea room. To enter any of them is to find a tranquil haven from the disordered world. Nor are we alone in our appreciation of the courtyards. Magpies and currawongs brandish their intensity of white against black, colour comes with the sulphur crests of raucous white cockatoos, the crimson rosellas chime from balcony rails like tiny glass bells, and we are further blessed by the scarlet and green of genteel king parrots. Aside from the birds, another presence other than human dwells within the building—brushtail possums, which the Field Guide to Mammals describes as a cat-sized terrestrial and arboreal possum that in cities commonly dens in building roofs. And in the Coombs Building, in the women’s loo near the Coombs Theatre, where a mother possum was accustomed to rear her young, which led a concerned soul to put a notice on the door requesting visitors to the loo to please not disturb the mother and babies.