Bob Bottom
Fairfax, The Daily Telegraph (ACP), The Bulletin, and other media
“I lived for much of that time with … armed police living in the house 24 hours a day. My children were young; they grew up … most of their life with police gunmen in the house to protect us against the heavies of organised crime.’’
Bob Bottom risked his life fighting organised crime as a journalist, a source to other journalists and as an advocate for the creation of federal and state crime-busting commissions. In a role that is unique in Australian journalism, he often acted as a conduit between police intelligence units and reporters, exposing the Mr Bigs of the criminal underworld.
Career Timeline
1959: Bottom leaves his first job as a telegraph messenger to work as a journalist at the union-owned Barrier Daily Truth in Broken Hill, NSW.
1961: Aged 17, Bottom moves to the Richmond River Express in Casino, NSW.
1962: He returns to the Barrier Daily Truth, and also writes for The Bulletin. His exposé about gambling, betting and liquor laws in 1963 leads to an inquiry into the NSW police. He is attacked by the then NSW Premier, Bob Heffron, senior police and local union leaders.
1965: Bottom accepts a job as a regional journalist with the ABC in Broken Hill. His reporting upsets the powerful Barrier Industrial Council, which tries to impose fines and bans on him.
1968: He joins The Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph in Sydney. His investigations into organised crime, the Mafia and licensed clubs prompt the NSW government to establish the Moffitt Royal Commission. Bottom is protected around the clock by federal police for two weeks while he appears as a witness.
1974: Bottom launches his own weekly newspaper, the Regional Advertiser, to provide independent journalism in Broken Hill.
1976: With organised crime becoming a political issue, Bottom takes a position as press secretary to NSW Deputy Premier Leon Punch (National Country Party).
1978: NSW Premier Neville Wran appoints Bottom as a special adviser on crime. Bottom recommends the creation of a national crime commission. However his concerns about job security and the Government’s commitment to fight organised crime lead him to quit and join The Bulletin.
1979: Bottom becomes special adviser to NSW Opposition leader, John Mason, for approximately six months. By now, he has worked for the leaders of all the main political parties.
1980: He returns to The Bulletin and buys interests in Aeroplane Press, Burwood, and Weekly News, Bankstown. The Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, announces a national crime commission will be established, a concept Bottom has recommended. It later becomes the National Crime Authority. Bottom is regularly threatened, followed, and even sued (unsuccessfully) by dangerous organised crime figures.
1984: Bottom becomes a source and adviser at The Age, providing journalists David Wilson and Lindsay Murdoch with tapes and transcripts of phone taps illegally created by undercover police. The resulting stories become the basis of The Age Tapes, leading to state and federal inquiries. He assists reporters from The National Times and The Sydney Morning Herald with their own versions of stories based on the phone taps.
1986: The NSW government accepts Bottom’s proposal for a drug crime commission. It later engages him as an adviser when it reforms the Commission into the NSW Crime Commission to target all organised crime.
1988: Bottom joins a steering committee for the creation of NSW’s Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC).
1991: He becomes publisher of the Island and Mainland News at Bribie Island, Queensland, and writes special articles for The Courier Mail and The Bulletin.
1997: A report by Bottom leads to the creation to the forerunner of the Crime and Misconduct Commission in Queensland.
2002: He assists in reforming the National Crime Authority, which becomes the Australian Crime Commission.
2004: Bottom participates in the Victoria Police Organised Crime Strategy Group, which develops a plan to confront Melbourne’s underworld after the gangland wars in which 28 people were killed.
2006: In retirement, having sold the Bribie Island newspaper and returned to NSW, Bottom writes occasionally for The Australian and The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.
Honours
1997: Medal of the Order of Australia, for ‘service to the community and to journalism through the investigation and reporting of organised crime in Australia’.
2002: Honorary Doctor of Journalism, JSchool, Queensland.
2004: Lifetime Achievement Award, Australian Crime Writers Association.
Books
Behind the Barrier (Gareth Powell Associates, 1969)
The Godfather in Australia (Reed, 1979)
Without Fear or Favour (Sun Books, 1984)
Connections (Sun Books, 1985)
(Edited) Big Shots: a Who’s Who in Australian Crime, by David Wilson and Lindsay Murdoch, Sun Books, 1985)
(Edited) Big Shots II, by David Wilson and Paul Robinson, Sun Books, 1987)
Connections II (Sun Books, 1987)
Shadow of Shame (Sun Books, 1988)
Bugged (Sun Books, 1989)
Inside Victoria: a chronicle of scandal, with John Silvester, Tom Noble & Paul Daley (Pan Macmillan, 1991)
Fighting organized crime (BBP, 2009)