The rule book
He’s one of Australia’s top journalists, and with 40 books to his credit, including the Underbelly series and Chopper, Andrew Rule has arguably become one of this country’s most important crime fighters.
WORDS ELIZABETH MOORE
What do you do when someone hurls roof tiles at your windscreen in the dark hours of a winter’s night? If you’re one of Australia’s top journalists, you go straight for the source. “At the time I thought it was some bloody kids or idiots,” recalls Gold Walkley award winner Andrew Rule, who was at home in suburban Melbourne when he heard the glass shatter. “It was only after I traced the origins of the piles and realised they’d been carried from a building site two kilometres away that I thought, ‘This is interesting’. Somebody — most probably two people, a driver and a thrower — has actually gone and picked these up and driven them around to my place. This wasn’t just someone who picked them up from 10 feet away. It was a message that ‘We know what car you drive, we know what time you get home’.”
It was June 1996 and the father of three had just broken a major news story in The Age implicating a Victorian police officer in the murder of the man’s sister-in-law, Jennifer Tanner. It became one of Victoria’s most prominent crime stories of the decade and his reporting of the case was largely responsible for the legislative change that followed. Victorian police could now be stood down on the grounds the police commissioner had lost confidence in them. “The best stories are the ones that make a difference,” says the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year recipient, who has also won awards for his coverage of sport, transport and general news. “It’s gratifying sometimes to write something that does matter, and to right wrongs. To put light in dark places is the cliche I guess.”
Exposing shady places, sinister acts, shadowy figures and shocking motives has become something of a habit for the Underbelly and Chopper co-author and co-editor, respectively, although he acknowledges it is not without its own threats. “I have managed to get myself a reasonably interesting list of enemies, if that’s the word,” he says. “There are a few people that wouldn’t mind backing a car over me in a dark alley. The (Tanner) case, the Geoff Clark case, the Robbie Waterhouse story (I wrote a story over which Robbie Waterhouse was very keen to sue us for many millions and didn’t), they’re the main people.”
Andrew was responsible for what became one of the most significant stories in the history of Melbourne metropolitan masthead The Age when four women alleged they were raped by ATSIC chairman Geoff Clark. The prominent indigenous leader strongly denied the allegations and the story sparked widespread debate, and intense criticism, on the issue of trial by media. “Interestingly, most of those people, the people I would put on that enemies list, aren’t actually the up-and-down gangsters and crooks. Up and down crooks don’t worry me much because they run their own race. They’re in their own world. They’re not that crook on journos really, I don’t think,” Andrew says.
“I think the most dangerous subjects are the people who have a position in the world — the corrupt policeman, the corrupt politician, the corrupt businessman, the powerful, the wealthy, the ruthless. They are probably scarier opponents because they have a lot to lose.” The possible repercussions of digging up and disseminating the dirt on some of Australia’s most celebrated identities and notorious crooks hasn’t deterred Andrew from his dogged course. “I’m more of a feature writer, but I’ve always favoured life and death stories,” he says when comparing his style to that of collaborator John Silvester. Indeed, it is a collection of life and death, crime and punishment stories that bring the two to the Coast this month.
The two are speaking at the Noosa Longweekend, on the subject that crime does indeed pay. And they would know; not just by observation. Their Underbelly books, exposing some of the most criminal minds and activities and ingrained corruption this country has ever produced, have certainly paid off, with their popularity soaring, especially after the TV series of the same name. “When we did the books, various people came to us asking about the TV rights and we just kept saying ‘Show us the money’. Then Eddie McGuire came along and in his first week in the big job at Channel Nine, he set up a meeting with Screentime.” The rest is history, with the two negotiating for the show to maintain the name Underbelly – “the title was the valuable connection for us” – but otherwise handing over ownership on the broadcast front.
“The tail wags the dog,” Andrew explains. “We have no influence over the TV series. It’s a business arrangement and there’s an upside and downside to that. I think they did a good job of the first series and hit the sweet spot. It was very edgy and tough. Someone described it as a 9.30pm show, which they screened at 8.30, which I agree with. The follow-ups couldn’t be as successful and weren’t artistically. But it stands up. It’s the right product at the right time.” The show gave identities such as Carl and Roberta Williams and the Moran family a national profile. But Andrew decries notions it glamourised the underworld.
“The best series was the first one by a long way because it’s about the real story in Melbourne, and that doesn’t really glamourise it much because they end up dead or in jail or they’re portrayed as buffoons. They portrayed Carl Williams as a complete buffoon, more than he was I would suggest. I don’t think they glamourised it to excess. I think the ones since have tipped it over the edge a bit, and that’s just as a TV critic I would say that. And it’s certainly nothing to do with us and nothing to do with the way we would portray them in fact, in newspapers. We’re serious journalists who do serious journalism most of the time. Middle-brow broadsheet journalism. It doesn’t glamourise anybody — they end up dead or in jail.
“You shouldn’t mix up one with the other, any more than you should mix up Macbeth with real Scottish history,” he says. “Macbeth is Macbeth and Scottish history is Scottish history and the two have only a passing acquaintance.” While Andrew has shown more than a passing interest in broadcast, working as a television documentary producer in the late 1980s before producing Radio 3AW’s breakfast show for three years in the early 1990s, it is the written word to which he has remained forever devoted.
A boy from the East Gippsland bush in Victoria, he started life hungry for words and the stories they wove. “I was a very keen reader. I read voraciously as a child and, from a young age, I always thought I had an advantage in writing because I’d read so much and you learn by imitation of course.” His obvious English skills led him to work experience at the local paper in Sale in his final year of high school, after which he was offered a cadetship with The Gippsland Times and Maffra Spectator. He notched up a year of all-encompassing rural training before accepting a deferred enrolment at Monash University, where he gained majors in English and history. Upon graduation he was offered cadetships at The Age and the Herald. He started at The Age in January 1979.
Andrew quickly forged a career that could be effectively seen as two in one. “I’ve spent most of my working life doing more than one thing, starting 30 years ago when I used to write football on weekends for The Age or various other publications,” he says. His book endeavours soon followed and could today be described as prolific as he has written, co-written, rewritten, edited or co-edited more than 40 titles. His first book, Cuckoo: a story of murder and its detection, “was a fairly serious piece of research and writing and took me probably 10 weeks full-time and more than a year of weekends.” It was a bestseller in Victoria. “Twenty-two years later those words are still for sale, which is a good thing,” he says.
A sucker for a punishing workload, Andrew not only wrote the book, but also self-published it. “That taught me from the ground up how to do it. I really knew very little about it when I started and I taught myself a few things. Later I joined forces with John Silvester because I was an expert, I’d done one book,” he says with a self-deprecating laugh that, along with his eloquent but wholly natural voice, growls of his rural upbringing. “I may have done one or two other things as well,” he adds modestly.
“John and I have both been police reporters — he for The Sun newspaper as it then was, and myself for The Age. So we knew each other that way. We later worked at the same company — I went around and worked for The Sun, or The Herald Sun as it became. “We joined forces in about 1991 to publish the first Chopper book, which we rewrote and published. That joint venture was successful and we kept rolling, really. John came up with the idea, which was the Underbelly books, which are collections of our own journalism. It was a simple, logical progression to use that which we had already written and recycle it into books. That’s where it started. We are both working journos still. We’re both under the same roof, we both work at The Age or The Sunday Age and have since the mid ‘90s. We do our own thing but we combine.
“John is a career crime writer and does nothing else but crime writing. He is one of those rare things in journalism, someone who has stuck to one path and subject and become highly knowledgeable. He is someone who has done it for 30-odd years. His father was a senior policeman so he grew up in a policing household and his knowledge of police work and contacts are unsurpassed. Offhand, I can’t think of another crime writer in the country with the same credentials or experience.” While they also share a column at The Age, one of several Andrew writes, they both pursue their own stories with the gritty determination only journalists of the highest calibre can.
“Right now I’m working on a story with national and international components. It’s about the long-terms effects of people affected by a medical drug many years ago. It’s quite a touching story in many ways, but with a news element. It’s got news in it as well as the human element, so it’s the ideal combination.” “Anything else?” I query, as he would expect of a fellow journalist. “I’ve got a few good things I’m working on if I can get them up. I wouldn’t mind having a big look at the bikie culture problem, the whole rise of the bikies as business barons nationally. It’s very interesting — the rise of bikies as an organised criminal force, and a very sinister one. I think it’s an interesting area.” Maybe another Underbelly? We will have to wait and read.
Andrew Rule and John Silvester will present Crime Does Pay at The J on June 25 from 2pm, $35. The Noosa Longweekend, sponsored by the weekender, runs from June 18-27. Visit www.noosalongweekend.com.au
Story: Elizabeth Moore, weekender Issue 631, June 17th 2010
He’s one of Australia’s top journalists, and with 40 books to his credit, including the Underbelly series and Chopper, Andrew Rule has arguably become one of this country’s most important crime fighters.
WORDS ELIZABETH MOORE
What do you do when someone hurls roof tiles at your windscreen in the dark hours of a winter’s night? If you’re one of Australia’s top journalists, you go straight for the source. “At the time I thought it was some bloody kids or idiots,” recalls Gold Walkley award winner Andrew Rule, who was at home in suburban Melbourne when he heard the glass shatter. “It was only after I traced the origins of the piles and realised they’d been carried from a building site two kilometres away that I thought, ‘This is interesting’. Somebody — most probably two people, a driver and a thrower — has actually gone and picked these up and driven them around to my place. This wasn’t just someone who picked them up from 10 feet away. It was a message that ‘We know what car you drive, we know what time you get home’.”
It was June 1996 and the father of three had just broken a major news story in The Age implicating a Victorian police officer in the murder of the man’s sister-in-law, Jennifer Tanner. It became one of Victoria’s most prominent crime stories of the decade and his reporting of the case was largely responsible for the legislative change that followed. Victorian police could now be stood down on the grounds the police commissioner had lost confidence in them. “The best stories are the ones that make a difference,” says the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year recipient, who has also won awards for his coverage of sport, transport and general news. “It’s gratifying sometimes to write something that does matter, and to right wrongs. To put light in dark places is the cliche I guess.”
Exposing shady places, sinister acts, shadowy figures and shocking motives has become something of a habit for the Underbelly and Chopper co-author and co-editor, respectively, although he acknowledges it is not without its own threats. “I have managed to get myself a reasonably interesting list of enemies, if that’s the word,” he says. “There are a few people that wouldn’t mind backing a car over me in a dark alley. The (Tanner) case, the Geoff Clark case, the Robbie Waterhouse story (I wrote a story over which Robbie Waterhouse was very keen to sue us for many millions and didn’t), they’re the main people.”
Andrew was responsible for what became one of the most significant stories in the history of Melbourne metropolitan masthead The Age when four women alleged they were raped by ATSIC chairman Geoff Clark. The prominent indigenous leader strongly denied the allegations and the story sparked widespread debate, and intense criticism, on the issue of trial by media. “Interestingly, most of those people, the people I would put on that enemies list, aren’t actually the up-and-down gangsters and crooks. Up and down crooks don’t worry me much because they run their own race. They’re in their own world. They’re not that crook on journos really, I don’t think,” Andrew says.
“I think the most dangerous subjects are the people who have a position in the world — the corrupt policeman, the corrupt politician, the corrupt businessman, the powerful, the wealthy, the ruthless. They are probably scarier opponents because they have a lot to lose.” The possible repercussions of digging up and disseminating the dirt on some of Australia’s most celebrated identities and notorious crooks hasn’t deterred Andrew from his dogged course. “I’m more of a feature writer, but I’ve always favoured life and death stories,” he says when comparing his style to that of collaborator John Silvester. Indeed, it is a collection of life and death, crime and punishment stories that bring the two to the Coast this month.
The two are speaking at the Noosa Longweekend, on the subject that crime does indeed pay. And they would know; not just by observation. Their Underbelly books, exposing some of the most criminal minds and activities and ingrained corruption this country has ever produced, have certainly paid off, with their popularity soaring, especially after the TV series of the same name. “When we did the books, various people came to us asking about the TV rights and we just kept saying ‘Show us the money’. Then Eddie McGuire came along and in his first week in the big job at Channel Nine, he set up a meeting with Screentime.” The rest is history, with the two negotiating for the show to maintain the name Underbelly – “the title was the valuable connection for us” – but otherwise handing over ownership on the broadcast front.
“The tail wags the dog,” Andrew explains. “We have no influence over the TV series. It’s a business arrangement and there’s an upside and downside to that. I think they did a good job of the first series and hit the sweet spot. It was very edgy and tough. Someone described it as a 9.30pm show, which they screened at 8.30, which I agree with. The follow-ups couldn’t be as successful and weren’t artistically. But it stands up. It’s the right product at the right time.” The show gave identities such as Carl and Roberta Williams and the Moran family a national profile. But Andrew decries notions it glamourised the underworld.
“The best series was the first one by a long way because it’s about the real story in Melbourne, and that doesn’t really glamourise it much because they end up dead or in jail or they’re portrayed as buffoons. They portrayed Carl Williams as a complete buffoon, more than he was I would suggest. I don’t think they glamourised it to excess. I think the ones since have tipped it over the edge a bit, and that’s just as a TV critic I would say that. And it’s certainly nothing to do with us and nothing to do with the way we would portray them in fact, in newspapers. We’re serious journalists who do serious journalism most of the time. Middle-brow broadsheet journalism. It doesn’t glamourise anybody — they end up dead or in jail.
“You shouldn’t mix up one with the other, any more than you should mix up Macbeth with real Scottish history,” he says. “Macbeth is Macbeth and Scottish history is Scottish history and the two have only a passing acquaintance.” While Andrew has shown more than a passing interest in broadcast, working as a television documentary producer in the late 1980s before producing Radio 3AW’s breakfast show for three years in the early 1990s, it is the written word to which he has remained forever devoted.
A boy from the East Gippsland bush in Victoria, he started life hungry for words and the stories they wove. “I was a very keen reader. I read voraciously as a child and, from a young age, I always thought I had an advantage in writing because I’d read so much and you learn by imitation of course.” His obvious English skills led him to work experience at the local paper in Sale in his final year of high school, after which he was offered a cadetship with The Gippsland Times and Maffra Spectator. He notched up a year of all-encompassing rural training before accepting a deferred enrolment at Monash University, where he gained majors in English and history. Upon graduation he was offered cadetships at The Age and the Herald. He started at The Age in January 1979.
Andrew quickly forged a career that could be effectively seen as two in one. “I’ve spent most of my working life doing more than one thing, starting 30 years ago when I used to write football on weekends for The Age or various other publications,” he says. His book endeavours soon followed and could today be described as prolific as he has written, co-written, rewritten, edited or co-edited more than 40 titles. His first book, Cuckoo: a story of murder and its detection, “was a fairly serious piece of research and writing and took me probably 10 weeks full-time and more than a year of weekends.” It was a bestseller in Victoria. “Twenty-two years later those words are still for sale, which is a good thing,” he says.
A sucker for a punishing workload, Andrew not only wrote the book, but also self-published it. “That taught me from the ground up how to do it. I really knew very little about it when I started and I taught myself a few things. Later I joined forces with John Silvester because I was an expert, I’d done one book,” he says with a self-deprecating laugh that, along with his eloquent but wholly natural voice, growls of his rural upbringing. “I may have done one or two other things as well,” he adds modestly.
“John and I have both been police reporters — he for The Sun newspaper as it then was, and myself for The Age. So we knew each other that way. We later worked at the same company — I went around and worked for The Sun, or The Herald Sun as it became. “We joined forces in about 1991 to publish the first Chopper book, which we rewrote and published. That joint venture was successful and we kept rolling, really. John came up with the idea, which was the Underbelly books, which are collections of our own journalism. It was a simple, logical progression to use that which we had already written and recycle it into books. That’s where it started. We are both working journos still. We’re both under the same roof, we both work at The Age or The Sunday Age and have since the mid ‘90s. We do our own thing but we combine.
“John is a career crime writer and does nothing else but crime writing. He is one of those rare things in journalism, someone who has stuck to one path and subject and become highly knowledgeable. He is someone who has done it for 30-odd years. His father was a senior policeman so he grew up in a policing household and his knowledge of police work and contacts are unsurpassed. Offhand, I can’t think of another crime writer in the country with the same credentials or experience.” While they also share a column at The Age, one of several Andrew writes, they both pursue their own stories with the gritty determination only journalists of the highest calibre can.
“Right now I’m working on a story with national and international components. It’s about the long-terms effects of people affected by a medical drug many years ago. It’s quite a touching story in many ways, but with a news element. It’s got news in it as well as the human element, so it’s the ideal combination.” “Anything else?” I query, as he would expect of a fellow journalist. “I’ve got a few good things I’m working on if I can get them up. I wouldn’t mind having a big look at the bikie culture problem, the whole rise of the bikies as business barons nationally. It’s very interesting — the rise of bikies as an organised criminal force, and a very sinister one. I think it’s an interesting area.” Maybe another Underbelly? We will have to wait and read.
Andrew Rule and John Silvester will present Crime Does Pay at The J on June 25 from 2pm, $35. The Noosa Longweekend, sponsored by the weekender, runs from June 18-27. Visit www.noosalongweekend.com.au
Story: Elizabeth Moore, weekender Issue 631, June 17th 2010
