The Bulletin, November 5, 1977, p. 108.

After hitch-hiking home from Western Australia, Malcolm Fraser must feel that he has spiked any further Opposition complaints about Tammie’s VIP trip to Sydney’s Opera House. Stranded in the WA outback town of Meekatharra when the Prime Ministerial plane broke down on a Saturday, Fraser seemed to have no choice, in order to meet urgent engagements, but to have another VIP BAC 1-11 fly over to pick him up.

Instead, mining millionaire Lang Hancock took his Falcon twin-jet to Meekatharra, picked up the PM and flew him to Mount Gambier in South Australia at no expense to the taxpayer. That story appeared in the daily Press, but what it did not say is that Hancock, a constant critic of Mr Fraser, did not offer the lift: the PM requested it after painstakingly tracking Hancock down to his Pilbara HQ at Wittenoom, where the Falcon was fortunately on the tarmac.

Hancock apparently extracted his pound of flesh: according to daughter Gina Hayward he took the opportunity to impress on Fraser that his government’s reneging on the Fraser Island mine had done more than anything to scare foreign investment away from Australia, and to seek an assurance that such a thing would never happen again. Somewhere over the Nullarbor, according to the House of Hancock, Fraser said: “You have my assurance that it will never happen again. And you have my authority to spread that word.”