Cairns and Morosi
In late 1974 Cairns met Junie Morosi. Morosi had worked for Cairns' contemporaries, Al Grassby and Lionel Murphy. Morosi greatly admired Cairns from having read his academic writings and she introduced Cairns to the work of Wilhelm Reich, opening his mind to the relevance of human psychology as it related to social change. Cairns decided to offer Morosi a position as his principal private secretary.
On 2 December 1974, the media furore around Cairns' employment offer to Morosi began. Attention continued to build with the media attempting to justify the controversy by highlighting Morosi's lack of public service experience, her physical beauty and pointing out that she had often been seen dining in Canberra with senior Cabinet ministers. Over the next few days, the media coverage was unrelenting and progressed to sexual innuendo and vague allegations of impropriety on the part of Morosi and her high profile employers. Cairns and Morosi agreed and publicly stated that she would not take Cairns' offer of employment. Both The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian reported on Cairns' and Morosi’s statements with "press accused of spying", claiming press vilification brought about the outcome, but in such a way that accepted no blame or responsibility. By this stage the media had raised the scandal to "Morosi storm rocking government" status, and bestowed upon it a moniker: "The Morosi Affair". The Liberal Opposition called for a senate inquiry. After investigation, it was revealed that there was no impropriety on the part of Morosi and no preferential treatment given to Morosi. On 13 December 1974, it was reported that Morosi would accept Cairns' offer of employment.
Some months later, Cairns and Morosi were once again in the headlines. During the Australian Labor Party's National Conference in February 1975, Cairns gave an interview to a hostile reporter in which he spoke of "a kind of love" for Morosi. Cairns was not at this time directly asked if his relationship with Morosi was sexual. However, unlike other politicians of the time, he did not seek to suppress or publicly repudiate any of his private life. The press continued to encourage speculation; during the 1975 National Conference, a photographer hid in a tree and waited while Morosi, her husband, Cairns, and his wife were having breakfast on a balcony. The photographer took a photo just when Cairns’ wife left the balcony and with Morosi’s husband out of shot. The Daily Telegraph ran the picture of Cairns and Morosi the next day with the headline "Breakfast with Junie". Allegations were made in the House and the Senate and accusations of misconduct were bandied about from all parties involved.
In 1982, Morosi took 2UE and The Daily Mirror to court on defamation charges, with both Cairns and Morosi resisting the accusations of sexual impropriety and corruption, actively fighting against the media in an attempt to expose prejudice. Before the Supreme Court of New South Wales, Cairns denied under oath having had a sexual relationship with Morosi. The jury in that case found that the article in question did contain "an imputation" that Cairns was "improperly involved with his assistant, Junie Morosi, in a romantic or sexual association", but that this statement was not defamatory. Cairns did not receive compensation, although Morosi did.
On 15 September 2002, Cairns finally admitted on ABC radio that he had a sexual relationship with Junie Morosi. In a separate interview—referring to his decision to employ Morosi and the ensuing media storm that it created—he said that "looking back over it, it was a mistake on my part".
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