Life and politics is like a lottery; you need to be in the right place at the right time. The owner of these wise words is former Gold Coast Mayor Gary Baildon, AM, a true gentleman of politics and well-known public figure who was recognised in the Australia Day awards for his outstanding community input and dedication to civic pursuits.
“I was absolutely stunned when I was announced as the Gold Coast Citizen of the Year.
“Quite frankly when you’re in politics and council you get those accolades, but as far as I’m concerned I was out of it,” he says.
Modesty is one of the many endearing qualities Gary possesses; I discovered many more during a chat with him at his picturesque Paradise Water’s apartment the morning after the event.
For nearly two hours he spoke about his public and private life, how he mingled with royalty at Buckingham Palace, used to sell communist books from his Surfers Paradise newsagency and how his daughter had her life cut tragically short because of cancer.
He talks fondly about the three-months that he and his young family spent road tripping around Europe. I laugh at an off-the-record story about the night he sat at a dinner table beside Princess Anne, and he laments the fact he’s no longer the chairman of the Gold Coast Waterways Authority.
As a small boy in the 1940s Gary used to holiday at Currumbin after World War II and he vividly remembers the wood stove inside his family’s beachside house. He grew up in Brisbane in a time when it was perfectly acceptable to carry guns on public transport; in fact he did just that when he was an Australia Army Cadet.
“I remember they gave me a 303 rifle and I would get on the tram to go home carrying my 303, with the bolt in it and everything, and nobody would blink an eyelid. If you got on to public transport with a gun these days it would be quite a different story,” he says.
Surfers Paradise Hotel beer garden in 1957 was developed from part of the old Surfers Paradise zoo. Alexander McRobbie, photographer. City of Gold Coast Local Studies Library
Looking south over the swimming pool at the Chevron Hotel. Arthur Leebold, photographer. City of Gold Coast Local Studies Library
Tallebudgera Creek and bridge with Burleigh Headland in the background, circa 1940s Image: City of Gold Coast Local Studies Library
Previous Mayor Denis Pie, Alderman Betty Diamond, newly elected Mayor Lex Bell, Alderman Peter Webber and Alderman Chris Gibbs, after the 1988 election of the Gold Coast City Council. Image: City of Gold Coast Local Studies Library.
Sign at the entrance to the drive-in bottle shop and beer garden of the Surfers Paradise Hotel. City of Gold Coast Local Studies Library.
Aerial view of central Surfers Paradise looking north, Queensland, 1961. City of Gold Coast Local Studies Library.
Camping grounds, Goodwin Terrace, Burleigh Heads, circa 1940s. City of Gold Coast Local Studies Library.
Gary moved to the Gold Coast in 1960, met a local girl, fell in love and bought into a newsagency and menswear business with her family. He threw himself into the business alongside his wife’s family that included her uncle Fred Laws, who played rugby league for Australia back in the day.
“I’ve always been a reader and unfortunately I didn’t get to university but fortunately one of my closest friends went to the University of Queensland and then got a scholarship for Oxford. He used to assign books for me,” he said.
“We were just a small newsagency kiosk opposite the Chevron Hotel and after a little while I thought it would be a good idea to extend the premises and start selling books. As soon as I did that the business just took off. I became the largest paperback seller in Queensland.”
Even back then the Gold Coast was a very cosmopolitan town with residents from all over the world, some were survivors of WWII searching for peace in a foreign country and others had decided to move up from Melbourne after discovering the fabulous lifestyle the city offered.
“We used to sell the Jewish News and it was delivered on a Friday afternoon at about 3 o’clock, we sold about 300 copies every week,” he said.
With a twinkle in his eye and a chuckle, Gary jokes about how there’s a possibility he’s on ASIO’s watch list because he used to frequent the communist book shop on Elizabeth Street in Brisbane. He used to buy books such as the Thoughts Of Chairman Mao and resell them at the newsagency. The little red books were big sellers and flew off the shelves for just 50 cents.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if I’m somewhere in their (ASIO’s) archives as a person of interest,” he says with a grin on his face.
“I still remember going to work in the tram and was just standing there reading this little red book. I remember wondering what people thought about me, they probably believed I was some mad communist or something.”
The contents of his book came in handy when he was the mayor for eight of his 14 years as a Gold Coast City Councillor. One of his favourite quotes comes from Chairman Mao and he said he often used to recite it to his councillors at election time.
“I used to tell them that the threat of the hangman’s noose concentrates the mind,” he says.
Australia Day winners
Gary Baildon, Gold Coast Citizen of the Year 2016
Gold Coast City Crs Jan Grew and Dawn Crichlow with Mayor Baildon at the official opening of the Local Studies Library, Southport, 1997. City of Gold Coast Local Studies Library.
Mayor Tom Tate and Gary Baildon, Gold Coast Citizen of the Year 2016
Beach scene, Main Beach, Queensland, circa 1940's. City of Gold Coast Local Studies Library.
Main Beach Bathing Pavilion from the beachside, Southport, Queensland, circa 1938. the City of Gold Coast Local Studies Library.
Kirra Pavilion and beach from Kirra Hill looking north towards Bilinga and Tugun, Queensland, circa 1940s. City of Gold Coast Local Studies Library.
Surfers Paradise Hotel, corner of Cavill Avenue and Pacific Highway, Surfers Paradise, circa 1940s. City of Gold Coast Local Studies Library.
Gary earnestly tells me that he never aspired to help run the city; he just fell in to it. He was working between 70 and 100 hours a week in his business when Lex Bell rang him and said he was going for the mayoralty. It was 1988 and Lex, who is the city’s current Division 7 Councillor, asked Gary to consider being a candidate for Surfers Paradise.
It was two days before nominations were due to close, and after discussions with Kathy the hardworking newsagent decided to throw his hat in the ring. Not surprisingly he got elected and so started his long and productive career in public service. A few years into it Lex was re-elected and asked Gary to be his deputy, it was a natural progression really.
Prior to becoming a councillor he was heavily involved in the community, particularly the Chamber of Commerce and the Rotary Club of Surfers Paradise, where he was president in 1975. Throughout his years in business Gary saw a lot of ‘characters’ and he speaks affectionately about them all, especially the original Suntan Man John Patterson.
“An industrial chemist by profession, he used to stand at the top of the beach and spray people with oil. He had a little machine with a pump and the oil came from mutton birds.
“On his pith helmet he had this stuffed mutton bird; he was quite the character.
“He used to come into the Surfers Paradise Hotel Beer Garden at lunch time where Stan Bourne’s orchestra was playing.
“I’d often go in there to eat my sandwich and buy lemonade and I’d see John walk in, buy a beer, put some of the mutton bird oil in it and take a sip. He’d then tell the patrons how good it was.”
While John was giving Gary a laugh, the former head of Ford in Australia Charles Smith was giving him advice; he became a mentor of sorts for the young businessman. Charles, who introduced the iconic Falcon into Australia in the 1960s, told Gary that while it was important that he listened to everybody he should always make up his own mind about something.
“He was a tall fellow with an incredible mind, he used to come and see me in the newsagency. One day he pulled up in his chauffeur driven car and said to me: ‘You know Gary the one regret I have in life is that I don’t have a small family business like yours’. That was just stunning to me. Here was the number one industrialist in Australia, a man who could have picked up the phone and spoken to the Prime Minister, and yet he wanted what I had.”
Gary didn’t become mayor until the late 1990s and by this stage he had three adult children; one of which was an Olympic swimmer. Andrew, now in his 40s, is the owner of Superfish Swim Schools while his older sister Anna is the director of business events for Gold Coast Tourism. Tragically the Baildon’s lost their eldest daughter Kate to breast cancer. She was just 31 when she died and had three children aged 6, 4 and 18-months.
“She was so talented, she could paint anything. When we went to the Olympics to watch Andrew swim she sewed Australian-themed sequins on the back of denim jackets, it was beautiful. Kate could just do anything, she was so artistic. What a loss,” says Gary quietly.
In months before her death and despite her illness Kate was at voting booths helping her father campaign for the mayorship. Gary says he’s been truly blessed in having a loving and supporting wife and family, and this is obviously the case because as we near the end of our conversation he gets a text message from Kathy asking if he was okay.
After he replies that he’s nearly done and we talk a little more about his time as mayor, the sister city he set up in China, his friendship with the ambassador for Qatar, his ambassador roles at the Animal Welfare League and the Gold Coast Hospital Foundation, and the time he visited John Howard to ask for money and ‘he bounced me around his office’.
He says that despite the mammoth amount of growth the city has had, the Gold Coast remains a very cosmopolitan place to live. It’s home to the rich and famous and he believes there’s probably more millionaires per capita in the city than there is anywhere in Australia.
His eyes light up as he remembers the time he was able to change the life of one regular Gold Coaster. The man had done some work and alterations around his house in preparation for sale and the council hadn’t approved them.
He came to Gary and asked if there was anything he could do to help.
“I put a call through to officers to see if they could help the bloke. The next thing I know he comes in to see me with a copy of book he’s written to thank me.
“And I never have forgotten that because he said he was in dire straits and that I’d changed his life. Sometimes you just make a phone call and change someone’s life.
“As mayor the most satisfaction I have had was helping the ‘little guy’.”
So what was his biggest achievement as mayor? Without a second’s hesitation Gary says it’s the tram, or the G as it’s now known.
“Of all the things I’ve done in my life I reckon that’s my number one achievement. I introduced it to council in September 1997; I remember it like it was yesterday. The study that was done by the council and state government was a 30-year plan and the tram was the key to that plan. I took it as my job to make sure that we campaigned to get the money.
“There were many other types of transport options suggested but the one that I could see would be successful was the light rail and I’d like to think that it’s my one great achievement. I’m absolutely delighted with its achievements, it was a battle to get the funds and commitment but eventually they came to the party.”
The room falls silent as the G bustles past a few hundred metres away and Gary says: “Of course a good idea has many fathers.”
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