8º of latitude

Veteran Queensland political reporter

Former political editor of The Courier-Mail Peter Morley, who has died aged 77.

It would be stretching a point to claim that Peter Morley was a friend. Our relationship was professional. In that mileu we got along well because with Morley you always knew he would get the fullest and fairest story out of whatever he was reporting on at the time.

Over a decade and a half in the 1980s and 1990s we shared a newsroom, he as writer, me as editor, and I can sincerely say he never fell short of excellence.

Others will have greater and better anecdotes than my favourite with which to decorate their memory of the man as a friend and journalist. But I’m especially fond of mine because as well as nicely summing up Morley’s relaxed professionalism, it springs from a tipping point in my own career.

The great Murdoch takeover of Queensland Newspapers, of which The Courier-Mail was flagship, brought with it intimations of dramatic corporate climate change. To edit Saki’s inimitable line in his Reginald in Russia series, one shivered as an Italian greyhound might on hearing of the approach of an ice age of which one personally disapproved.

To change the metaphor, the eventual rock slide on which I rode out of the building was still some time away. But you could feel the pre-temblor tremors, which like the real thing, can disorient you and induce at least mild nausea.

One Sunday evening, late, after a day of being editor-in-charge – the actual editor sensibly having Sundays off and insensibly practised in the art of leaving his mobile in his desk drawer – Morley was waiting for a sign-off from the subs’ desk so he could go home. He’d been on his feet or in his car for 24 hours chasing the story that he had then written, and he put his feet up on his desk while he waited.

Lachlan Murdoch, then merely an apprentice oligarch and fast-track corporate entry-level heir apparent, was in the office too. I hadn’t inquired why, since it was peripheral to the business of the day, which was to produce Monday’s paper.

But he didn’t like the fact that Morley had his feet up and told me to tell him to get them off the desk. I told him I wouldn’t do that, and precisely why.

Young Murdoch seemed not to like that. Tough. The offending feet remained on the desk until Morley got the OK from the chief sub and went home.

Farewell, Peter. You were a good bloke.