Peter Hardacre

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Peter Hardacre (second from the left) and colleagues.
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Gough Whitlam, foreground, and Arthur Calwell in the famous 1963 picture. (Click on image to enlarge.)

Peter Hardacre was a well known member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery, held in high regard, particularly among colleagues in Canberra. He served for five years as a member of the Canberra branch committee of the Australian Journalists Association between 1967 and 1972 and was president of the photographers' section in the ACT for two years between 1967 and 1969. He died at the age of 41, in 1979.

Hardacre is best known for his (now disputed) role in taking the picture of the ALP’s ‘36 faceless men’ outside Canberra’s Hotel Kingston in March 1963. Journalist Alan Reid and Hardacre caught Labor leaders Arthur Calwell and Gough Whitlam standing outside the hotel while important political deliberations were going on inside. Subsequent research suggests that even though Hardacre has gone down in history as the photographer, he may not, in fact, have taken the picture. According to Ross Fitzgerald, the most likely candidate was a friend of Reid's, Vladimir Paral (now deceased), who was not a professional press photographer but an amateur who worked as a scientific photographer at the John Curtin School of Medical Research.

Whether the snapper was Hardacre or Paral, the result was five damaging photographs that appeared in Sydney's Daily Telegraph on Friday, March 22, 1963.The implication was that those inside were determining policy rather than the elected leaders. It is said that this interpretation contributed to Labor's loss in the ensuing election, and thus ‘helped change the course of Australia's political history.’

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