Junie Morosi

Junie Morosi (born 26 July 1933) is an Australian businesswoman, who became a public figure in the 1970s through her relationship with Jim Cairns, Deputy Prime Minister in the Whitlam Labor government.

Morosi's appointment as Cairns's principal private secretary, and the nature of her relationship with him, aroused intense media interest, and the affair contributed to Cairns's eventual dismissal from office and the fall of the government.

Morosi was born in Shanghai, China, and educated in the Philippines.

Her father was Italian and part-Chinese, her mother Portuguese and part-Chinese also.

The family moved to Manila when she was a child and from age 8 she experienced life under Japanese occupation.

She worked as a journalist, becoming political correspondent at the Manila daily newspaper Voz de Manila.

She also worked in advertising and travel consultancy.

While Morosi was still a teenager she married a Filipino.

Together they had three sons.

In 1958 she was employed by Qantas, the Australian national airline.

In 1962 she moved to Australia, where she married a British businessman living in Australia, David Ditchburn.

Cairns and others pointed out that Elizabeth Reid, who had been appointed Whitlam's advisor on women's issues in 1973, had received the same sort of media attention.

In any case, Cairns and Morosi soon jointly decided it would be best not to flame the media fire any further and both publicly stated that Morosi would not take Cairns' offer of employment.

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 into the business affairs of Morosi and Ditchburn.

She continued to work in the airline and travel industry until 1974, when she was employed as an assistant to Al Grassby, the Commissioner for Community Relations.

Grassby had been a minister in the Whitlam government before losing his seat in the May 1974 election.

Her new job brought her into contact with other Whitlam government ministers.

In Canberra she read and was impressed by one of Jim Cairns' books, The Quiet Revolution, and arranged to meet him.

Cairns was then Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer in the Whitlam government.

Tom Uren, another Whitlam minister and one of Cairns's closest friends, later recorded that "Jim and Junie were attracted to each other from the first time they met."

She was attracted to his intellect and personal charisma, and he responded to her emotional warmth and unorthodox attitudes.

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.

In December 1974 Cairns offered Morosi a position as his Principal Private Secretary, a job traditionally held by a senior public servant.

Her business background made the offer at least defensible, but she had no knowledge of Australian politics or economics, and not much experience of managing a large and complex office.

The offer of employment aroused an immediate storm of sensationalist media coverage which began on 2 December 1974.

The fact that Morosi was "exotic" (the media's code-word for "Asian"), youngish (she was 41) and attractive was given much prominence.

To this were soon added allegations that both she and Ditchburn had questionable business associates.

It was also soon alleged that Ditchburn was using Morosi's position to further his business interests.

Cairns's friends urged him to withdraw the offer to Morosi, but out of both personal loyalty and a refusal to be bullied by the anti-Labor tabloid press, he refused.

He said that there would have been no media outcry "if I had appointed a man, or even a woman who was not good-looking."

After investigation, it was revealed that there were no irregularities and on 13 December 1974 it was reported that Morosi would accept Cairns' offer of employment.

The media circus resumed.

It was aggravated by Morosi's decision to give interviews to the Sydney tabloid The Sun and the mass-circulation Woman's Day.

Morosi said: "If I had been a white Anglo-Saxon male there would have been no story at all. One day, I was the most sinister, deadly enemy of Australia – a member of the KGB, the Chinese mafia, you name it."

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.

The press continued to encourage speculation; at the 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 attraction soon became sexual, although whether and, if so, when their relationship became a sexual one remained a matter of speculation until 2002, when it was confirmed as such by Cairns.