Remembering Ray O’shannassy - Militant Communist & Trade Unionist
“Ray O'Shannassy no ratbag!”
NOTE your story (Canberra Times, July 1,p. 3) Recounting the opening of Ray O'Shannassy House in Nar-rabundah. I was thrilled to see this highly intelligent and caring man honoured at last for his stand for the underdog, the poor and downtrodden folk in the ACT.I was saddened at your reference to him as a "ratbag". Obviously, your journalist didn't know Ray.
I worked with him at the back bar of the old Hotel Canberra. I also served with him on the ACT Trades and Labour Council as a delegate for the Fed-erated Liquor Union, of which I was firstly a delegate and then a union organiser. One of the first disputes I was given as an organiser was to go to the Defence Canteen, where Ray worked and had been sacked. My job was to hold a stop-work meeting and get him reinstated. All these instructions from the senior organiser with "tongue in cheek".After investigation of the dispute, I found that, as always, Ray-was in the right and had the support of 90 per cent of his work-mates. I took the dispute right to the top and was eventually happy to have Ray reinstated, for which he commended my handling of the case.
Ray helped a lot of people who, when the chips were down, were left to flounder by the rest of society. Ray picked them up, made representations on their behalf and put them back on their Feet again.He, himself was "blackbanned" by the very system and people who should have helped him to help others. He became secretary of theACT TLC and held that position for about two years and did a damned good job whilst he held the job.
Ray had an amazing photographic memory and could recount figures and facts and printed speeches, etc, years after he had read them.Ray was an honest man and I was one of the admirers of his amazing abilities. I was sorry that his political views clashed with mine, but he stood by his convictions and helped others. He was outspoken about those he believed had abused their positions or had "rorted the system."
I was very sorry and disturbed to hear of his death and am sorry the media has sought to ridicule this very intelligent man. I am sure that those people who Ray helped will join with me in remembering the things he did for them, the times he visited people who served prison sentences and brought them smokes, sweets and the help and loving understanding to help them cope with life and get back to living a normal life again. RIP to a man who had great compassion and love for his fellow man and woman.
VIDA C. WINE
Waramanga
Man arrested twice in day
Mr Ray O'Shannassy, 58, un-employed, of Anembo Street, Narrabundah, was arrested twice yesterday ai.d charged with refusing to leave the offices of the Department of Housing and Construction in the ACT TAB building in Dickson.He was granted bail of $100without conditions when he appeared before Mr Dobson, SM,early in the afternoon.He appeared again before Mr Dobson at about 4pm, and was granted bail of $100 with the condition that he was not to be on the department's premises during the period of his remand unless invited by an authority of the department, a condition he did not accept. Mr O'Shannassy was remanded on the first charge to February 9, and on the second to February 17, He pleaded not guilty to both.
Lawyers' picnic that keeps giving -Ray O’Shannassy
By Jack Waterford
MANY YEARS ago, one of Canberra's most prominent nutters, agitators and public nuisances was Ray O'Shannassy, a former secretary of the ACT Trades and Labour Council, leftie activist, and personal victim of a number of union-employer blacklists on account of his being Ray.
Ray was indefatigable, if never spectacularly successful, in his causes. Irritatingly, he was often right in his arguments, even if he had a pronounced tendency to make mountains of molehills and, after a while, to lose sight of his original cause because of fresh grievances gathered on the way. But he never conceded defeat; after any ''setback'' battle was soon renewed.
Ray tended to favour the sit-in. Some bureaucrat bothering you? Occupy his office until you get a hearing or a result. If he called police to lift and drag Ray out, Ray still had a degree of upper hand: he would plead not guilty, tying up court time and witnesses for ages. And it was fun irritating magistrates, sometimes (indeed often) so that they would make an appealable error or be outfoxed. Experienced silks would come to watch Ray match wits - often successfully - with judges.
Ray would never accept bail on conditions. If a charge-room sergeant or magistrate offered bail provided he agreed not to return to the official's office, he would refuse. If they let him go anyway - because remand in custody is so expensive ($1000-plus a day) he would be back in the official's office in a flash.
Soon many government offices had extensive security to prevent easy entry by people such as Ray. The cost of installing security at the Attorney-General's Department headquarters alone was more than O'Shannassy had earned in his whole life. Anti-O'Shannassy barriers in other buildings, 20 years before September 11, 2001, probably cost $10 million. Ray was a one-man job creation scheme - in jobs he was, thanks to the ancestor of the CFMEU, blacklisted from.
At one stage, public officials held a conference to canvass what they could do about him. Major General Ron Grey, head of the AFP, which spent 5 per cent of its Canberra budget arresting, locking up and prosecuting Ray, suggested that Ray be given a pension of $3000 a week, and a free suite at the flash Lakeside Hotel.
Everyone laughed; the chairman suggested that it was time to get serious. Grey said he was deadly serious. O'Shannassy, he pointed out, was costing the taxpayer many times this every week. Using a fraction of it keeping him reasonably happy would save millions.
Of course his argument was so eminently reasonable, no one took any notice, and costs continued to mount. Finally, Ray was badly treated by a Sydney bureaucrat and began occupying his offices, and consuming the days of Sydney officials and NSW cops, until he died, God rest his soul, in custody in Sydney.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/lawyers-picnic-that-keeps-giving-20120310-1ur0c.html