STATE LIBRARY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA J. D. SOMERVILLE ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION OH 955 Full transcript of an interview with Nick Minchin on 19 October 2010 By Susan Marsden for the EMINENT AUSTRALIANS ORAL HISTORY PROJECT Recording available on CD Access for research: Unrestricted Right to photocopy: Copies may be made for research and study Right to quote or publish: Publication only with written permission from the State Library OH 955 NICK MINCHIN NOTES TO THE TRANSCRIPT This transcript was created by the J. D. Somerville Oral History Collection of the State Library. It conforms to the Somerville Collection's policies for transcription which are explained below. Readers of this oral history transcript should bear in mind that it is a record of the spoken word and reflects the informal, conversational style that is inherent in such historical sources. The State Library is not responsible for the factual accuracy of the interview, nor for the views expressed therein. 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Discrepancies between transcript and tape: This proofread transcript represents the authoritative version of this oral history interview. Researchers using the original tape recording of this interview are cautioned to check this transcript for corrections, additions or deletions which have been made by the interviewer or the interviewee but which will not occur on the tape. See the Punctuation section above.) Minor discrepancies of grammar and sentence structure made in the interest of readability can be ignored but significant changes such as deletion of information or correction of fact should be, respectively, duplicated or acknowledged when the tape recorded version of this interview is used for broadcast or any other form of audio publication. J.D. SOMERVILLE ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION, STATE LIBRARY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA: INTERVIEW NO. OH 955 Interview with Senator Nick Minchin conducted by Susan Marsden on the 19th October 2010 for the National Library of Australia and the State Library of South Australia. DISK 1 of 5 This is an interview with Senator Nick Minchin, who will be speaking with me, Susan Marsden, for the oral history collection conducted by the National Library of Australia as well as the State Library of South Australia. On behalf of both of the Directors of those Libraries, I would like to thank you for agreeing – I’m reading; I’m changing as I go – Yes, sure. – I would like to thank you for agreeing to participate in this program. Do you understand that the Libraries own copyright in the interview material and that disclosure will only be subject to any restrictions you impose in completing the rights agreement? I do. Thank you. This being so, may we have your permission to make a transcript of this recording should the Libraries decide to make one? You may. We hope you will speak as frankly as possible, knowing that neither the recordings nor any transcripts produced from them will be released without your authority. Okay. This interview is taking place today, on the 19th October 2010, at Senator Minchin’s electorate office, which is a characteristic Adelaide bluestone villa – (laughs) Indeed. – at 36 Grenfell Street, Kent Town, just outside Adelaide. Actually, I recognise this – it’s nice to know this is your electorate office; I didn’t know that it was, and I’ve often noticed this rather nice, handsome house on the corner here. Yes. It’s a fantastic office, yes. Beautiful, yes. It’s the best office I’ve had. It’s great. Now, I would like to start at the obvious place, which is your birth date and the names of your parents. Right. Well, born on the 15th April 1953 to Devon George Minchin and Betty Irene Rushbrooke. Rushbrooke. Was her maiden name, yes – with an ‘E’ on the end. And they were – leaping straight ahead to your maiden speech – Yes. – you say your father was a pig farmer when you were born. What were those circumstances? Well, he was, you know, had been a salesman, basically, prior to the [Second World] War. He’d been involved in advertising and he’d spent time in the United States on the road selling Vicks VapoRub and other products, and answered the call in 1939 and went to war, and after the War was involved in advertising in Hong Kong, and then came back to Australia and was looking to get into business of one kind or another with his older brother and, for some reason, (laughs) they bought a pig farm in Dural – which, of course, then was rural countryside outside Sydney. Dural? Dural – D-U-R-A-L. It’s now suburban, of course. But they had a 50-acre pig farm and, you know, interests in other little businesses. So when I was born he was, you know, a full-time pig farmer and my mother (laughs) lived in the farmhouse, and I had an older half-sister, and we were raising pigs. And what was your sister’s name? Susan. Susan. Yes. So your father or mother had been – – –? Because both my parents had previously been married and both widowed, which I guess is the reason they married – main reason they married. (laughter) Yes, both in fairly tragic circumstances, but, yes, lost their spouses at an early age. So it was the second marriage for each of them. But only had the one child from the prior marriage? Yes. It was just my mother had my older sister. My father hadn’t had any children, so I was his firstborn. And my mother and father had two children: me and my younger sister. What was your younger sister’s name? Melody. Melody – that’s a pretty name – with an ‘I-E’? No; ‘Y’ on the end. With a ‘Y’, yes. My father’s quite musical, so he took to naming my sister ‘Melody’. Just as well you weren’t called ‘Concerto’. But I don’t remember the pig farm because we moved to Newport Beach in Sydney when I was about two or three, when my father – according to him – got out the pig farm because the price of feed skyrocketed, which I think was a function of the Korean War – Yeah, quite likely, yeah, yeah. – and he then started a security business – being the budding entrepreneur that he was – (laughs) and we moved, as I say, to Newport Beach; so that’s where I was brought up. And that’s your earliest memory, is it? Yes, are of Newport Beach, you know, which was a fantastic place to be a child: the northern beaches of Sydney, if you know them? Wonderful, yes. It was just terrific. Where did you go to school then? So I went to Newport Public School in Newport Beach for all of the primary years, six to 12, during the course of which my parents divorced. I was about – – –. Oh, you were still in primary school, were you? Yes. I was only about eight, I guess, when they divorced – and had a terrible battle in the courts, under the old Matrimonial Causes Act over, you know who would get custody. Complicated in your family. It was dreadful. I sort of had this image burnt into my memory as being eight or nine and meeting some Supreme Court judge – this was the practice back then – you know, in all his robes, while he had to decide who was going to get custody and asking you questions that really were very difficult. So my mother ended up getting custody and so I stayed at Newport Beach – – –. Of all the children, of all of you, obviously, yes. Well, yes. My father actually adopted my oldest sister, half-sister, as his daughter, legally, because she had no father; her father had died. So it was the three of us, yes, and Mum had custody with, you know, access provisions and all that sort of thing.