Harvey David Mathew Combe (26 April 1943 – 21 September 2019) was National Secretary of the
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also simply known as Labor, is the major centre-left political party in Australia, one of two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-right Liberal Party of Australia. The party forms the f ...
(ALP), a political consultant and lobbyist, an Australian Trade Commissioner, a Senior Vice-President International of
Southcorp Wines
Foster's Group Pty. Ltd. was an Australian beer group with interests in brewing and soft drinks, known for Foster's Lager, now called Carlton & United Breweries since the company was renamed in 2011. Foster's was founded in 1888 in Melbourne, ...
, and a consultant to the Australian wine industry. He achieved a degree of unwanted prominence through the
Combe-Ivanov affair of 1983.
Early life
Harvey David Mathew Combe was born in 1943 in
Adelaide
Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...
, South Australia, and was educated at
Prince Alfred College
, motto_translation = Do Brave Deeds and Endure
, established = 1869
, type = Independent, single-sex, day & boarding
, headmaster = David Roberts
, chaplain = Reverend ...
and the
University of Adelaide
The University of Adelaide (informally Adelaide University) is a public research university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. The university's main campus is located on N ...
where he earned a BA. He became interested in politics at university and joined the ALP, partly through his friendship with
Don Dunstan
Donald Allan Dunstan (21 September 1926 – 6 February 1999) was an Australian politician who served as the 35th premier of South Australia from 1967 to 1968, and again from 1970 to 1979. He was a member of the House of Assembly (MHA) for th ...
. (He became Patron of the Don Dunstan Foundation in 2004.)
[
]
Career
Combe was National Secretary of the Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also simply known as Labor, is the major centre-left political party in Australia, one of two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-right Liberal Party of Australia. The party forms the f ...
(1973–1981), a political consultant and lobbyist (1981–1985), and an Australian senior trade commissioner (1985–1991), and held senior executive and board positions within the Australian wine industry (1991–2008).
Politics
In 1973 Combe became the youngest-ever National Secretary of the Australian Labor Party after the election of the first Labor government for 23 years. In November 1975, he was allegedly the co-instigator, with Gough Whitlam
Edward Gough Whitlam (11 July 191621 October 2014) was the 21st prime minister of Australia, serving from 1972 to 1975. The longest-serving federal leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) from 1967 to 1977, he was notable for being the he ...
and Bill Hartley, of an unsuccessful approach to Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolution ...
's Iraq for a gift of $US 500,000 to help fund Labor's 1975 election campaign. However former Labor Party leader, Bill Hayden
William George Hayden (born 23 January 1933) is an Australian politician who served as the 21st governor-general of Australia from 1989 to 1996. He was Leader of the Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1977 to 1983, and served as ...
, later Governor-General of Australia, in his autobiography published in 1996, reflected the doubts held by some about the blame attached to Combe over the episode when he said that " ... it appeared that the national secretary of the Party, David Combe, was being left isolated as a scapegoat in this fanciful escapade." In the event, Labor lost the 1975 election. In an article published in ''The Bulletin'' in January 1982 Combe suggested that Labor's defeat was partly due to the influence of the CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
.[ However, before the 1975 dismissal Combe had worked for the United States of America in what a historian has called "a discreet relationship", providing inside-information about the Labor Party to diplomats.
Combe remained National Secretary until July 1981, when he resigned to establish a lobbying business, David Combe and Associates Pty Ltd. The firm reportedly "received a great fillip in March 1983, when the Labor Party was re-elected to office. Business perceived Combe as the most influential lobbyist then working in Canberra."][
]
Combe-Ivanov affair
In 1983 Combe was accused of compromising Australia's national security in dealings with a Soviet diplomat, Valery Ivanov
Valery Nikolayevich Ivanov (russian: Валерий Николаевич Иванов) (born 1948) was a Soviet diplomat.
As First Secretary of the Soviet Embassy to Australia, he was expelled on 22 April 1983 under suspicion of being a spy afte ...
.[Blesing, Meena. ''Was Your Dad a Russian Spy? The Personal Story of the Combe/Ivanov Affair.'' Sun Books, 1986.]
The National Library of Australi
catalogue entry
states: "by David Combe's wife, Meena Blesing".[Milliken R ]
' The Independent, London, 1 August 1995[Cain, Frank ''The Australian Security Intelligence Organization: An Unofficial History'', Abingdon: Frank Cass & Co Ltd 1994 . Preview a]
Google books
Of particular relevance, Ch. 10
ASIO in the 1980s
pp223-252;
"Australian-Soviet Trade" pp.227–228;
"The Third Man – Lawrence Matheson" pp228-230; and
"The Rise and Fall of David Combe" pp230-234. The rest of the chapter discusses "ASIO and the Combe-Ivanov affair" and "Justice Hope's Royal Commission".
The Combe-Ivanov affair developed out of a trip Combe and his wife made to the USSR in 1982, in the course of preparations for which they met and developed a relationship with Valery Ivanov, then the First Secretary at the Soviet Embassy in Canberra. Soon after the formation of the Hawke government ASIO raised concerns that Combe, closely aligned to the ALP, might be being compromised by a Soviet citizen with KGB links. Ivanov was expelled from Australia in 1983 by Prime Minister Bob Hawke.
The highly publicised events were investigated by the Hope Royal Commission on Australia's security and intelligence agencies of 1983–1984. The commission found that Combe had indeed been targeted by the Soviets, but there was no proof of intelligence breaches or of any threat to national security.[Pryor, Geoff]
National Library of Australia, retrieved 1 July 2015. Speaking after Combe died on 21 September 2019, former Hawke government minister and NSW Labor Party Secretary Graham Richardson
Graham Frederick Richardson (born 27 September 1949) is an Australian former Labor Party politician who was a Senator for New South Wales from 1983 to 1994 and served as a Cabinet Minister in both the Hawke and Keating Governments. He is c ...
said that Combe's death had saddened him and that "David make a big contribution and the whole Ivanov thing ... well, he got short-changed."[Troy Bramston and Simon Benson,]
Hawke, Russian Spies and sad goodbyes to David Combe'
''The Australian'', 25 September 2019. Richardson said that the handling of the Ivanov affair "... was a massive overreaction ... but we had no experience in dealing with that ... we didn't know what to do."
Trade commissioner
Combe was later appointed as Australia's senior trade commissioner in Western Canada from 1985 to 1989, and in Hong Kong from 1990 to 1991.[
]
Wine industry
Combe was Senior Vice-President International and ran the European operations of Penfolds and Southcorp Wines during the rise in popularity of Australian wines in the 1990s. He is credited with developing significant export markets for Southcorp Wines
Foster's Group Pty. Ltd. was an Australian beer group with interests in brewing and soft drinks, known for Foster's Lager, now called Carlton & United Breweries since the company was renamed in 2011. Foster's was founded in 1888 in Melbourne, ...
, whose exports increased in value from $A 40 million in August 1991 to $A 300 million in June 2000.[ In 2000 Combe was named Australia's Top Export Salesman by ''Overseas Trading'' magazine and was included in the list of "Twenty Five Most Influential Australians in Asia" published by ''Business Asia'' magazine.
From March 2001 to November 2003 Combe was a non-executive director for the Western Australian wine producer Evans and Tate Limited.
In 2004, in a speech at Bordeaux, he lambasted the wine-purchasing policies of UK supermarkets, which, he said, "if committed in Australia, would represent major breaches of the trade practices laws".
In June 2004 he was appointed Chairman of Simon Gilbert Wines, He retired as a director and chairman in February 2007, "to take up another position within the wine industry".
]
Portrait
In 1983, Keith Looby
Keith Looby (born 1940 in Sydney, Australia), is an Australian artist who won the Archibald Prize in 1984 with a portrait of Max Gillies.
Early life and education
Looby was raised in the Sydney suburbs of Newtown and Bondi. He studied at Ea ...
painted Combe's portrait. The portrait was an unsuccessful entry in the Archibald Prize
The Archibald Prize is an Australian portraiture art prize for painting, generally seen as the most prestigious portrait prize in Australia. It was first awarded in 1921 after the receipt of a bequest from J. F. Archibald, J. F. Archib ...
of 1983, and conspiracy theories on this matter abound. David Combe said in 1998 that there was 'circumstantially a good case to believe that some trustees were heavied by the Party' into rejecting the work.[David Combe and the portrait]
National Portrait Gallery, Canberra[ In 1998, Combe donated his portrait to the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra, "through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program".][
]
Death
Combe died on 21 September 2019, aged 76. The national president of the Labor Party, former deputy prime minister of Australia Wayne Swan
Wayne Maxwell Swan (born 30 June 1954), often colloquially referred to as Swanny, is an Australian politician who is National President of the Labor Party. He was previously the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia and Deputy Leader of the Labor ...
, paid tribute to Combe saying that as national secretary of the party, he had "revolutionised the party's conferences, turning them from concealed and private affairs into public events which are now the largest political gatherings in Australia." His friend Richard Whitington, in an affectionate obituary, said that "the twists and turns in David Combe's life and career demanded courage and resilience of him and he displayed those qualities consistently and in abundance." Talking of Combe's work with the Labor Party, Whitington observed that, "He was a product of the Labor movement and a servant to it, motivated by strongly held beliefs in individual rights and Australia's potential as a more caring, compassionate and independent nation."[Richard Whitington,]
Much more to Labor servant than probe over links to Russian agent'
''Sydney Morning Herald'' 30 September 2019. See also an extended version of this obituary at Richard Whitington,
RIP David Combe: often challenged, always charming'
''Richard Whitington website'', accessed 29 September 2019.
References
Further reading
* Marr, David. ''The Ivanov Trail''. Melbourne: Nelson, 1984.
NLA catalogue
* Aarons, Laurie. ''The Stumblebum Syndrome: ASIO and David Combe: The "Security" Threat to Australian Democracy''. Sydney : Red Pen Publications, 1984.
NLA catalogue
* Royal Commission on Australia's Security and Intelligence Agencies, ''General Report'', Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1985.
NLA catalogue
{{DEFAULTSORT:Combe, David
1943 births
2019 deaths
Australian businesspeople
Combe–Ivanov affair
People from Adelaide
University of Adelaide alumni
Australian Labor Party officials