Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows businessman Alan Bond bringing the America’s Cup yachting trophy to Western Australia in 1983. It includes news footage and commentary that indicate the euphoria generated by the America’s Cup win, including the huge crowds that turned out to see the Cup arriving in Perth. The clip includes journalist Jenni Hewett, who describes how Western Australians felt that the Cup win put their state on the map. Paul Barry, journalist and author of The Rise and Fall of Alan Bond, says that Bond, buoyed by the win, felt invincible.

Educational value points

• The America’s Cup, shown arriving in WA in 1983, is the most prestigious and the longest-running competition in the sport of yacht racing. Since its inception in 1851 and until 1983, the Cup had consistently been won by the New York Yacht Club (NYYC). Bond financed three attempts before winning the Cup with the boat Australia II in 1983. Since that time New Zealand has also successfully challenged the USA for the Cup.

• The clip shows something of the mania generated by the 1983 America’s Cup challenge that galvanised not just Bond’s home state of WA, but the entire nation. The closeness of the competition made it all the more gripping, with Australia II only scraping through in the seventh and final race of the regatta to win four races to three. People celebrated the win at all-night Cup parties, and Prime Minister Bob Hawke famously said that any employer who sacked an employee for absenteeism the next day was 'a bum’.

• Australia II’s victory in the America’s Cup sparked much debate over whether yacht designer Ben Lexcen’s radical winged-keel design, or the skipper, John Bertrand, was most responsible for Australia II’s victory, but the NYYC felt Lexcen’s yacht design was crucial. The NYYC tried unsuccessfully to have the yacht disqualified on the basis that it was not an Australian design (as it had been tested and possibly designed in the Netherlands) and did not conform to the Cup’s design rules.

• The America’s Cup win made Alan Bond a national hero, widely admired for taking on a race that had been the preserve of the wealthy US establishment. The win, and his status as a self-made man, fed into a national tendency to support the underdog, and Bond made the most of this, and the success of his America’s Cup campaign, to support his business interests. The jingle heard in this clip, for example, which includes the refrain 'They said you’d never make it’ accompanied an advertisement for Bond’s Swan Beer that showed Bond and Australia II winning the Cup.

• The clip draws parallels between Bond’s aspirations and those of Western Australians. Paul Barry refers to Bond’s 'desire to show people’, and Bond said of the America’s Cup, 'You get out there and you’re as good as the next guy who might be a Vanderbilt’ (a Vanderbilt family member won the America’s Cup three times). As a result of their geographical isolation, Western Australians have tended to feel overlooked by the rest of Australia, and thus the Cup win assumed an enormous significance. It not only raised the profile of the state, but symbolised that WA could compete on the international stage.

• Western Australians felt that the Cup win would bring WA economic benefits. Since the winning syndicate of the America’s Cup chooses the venue for the next competition, in 1987 WA hosted the America’s Cup and Bond promoted this as an opportunity to attract new investment to the state. However the economic dividends gained from staging the Cup fell far short of expectations, and, in the event, the Americans reclaimed the Cup.

• The clip depicts and analyses Alan Bond (1938–), who was one of Australia’s wealthiest businesspeople during the 1980s. Bond took advantage of financial deregulation to borrow heavily and embark on a series of corporate raids. At its height, his publicly listed Bond Group and private company, Dallhold, listed Swan Brewery, the Nine television network and West Australian Newspapers among its holdings, as well as extensive property and mining interests. After the America’s Cup win, Bond’s profile was so high that Australian and overseas banks were eager to give him loans.

• As referred to in the clip, Bond was badly affected by the 1987 stock market crash. The high prices Bond paid for some of his corporate acquisitions led to a heavy overload of debt and resulted in bankruptcy in 1992. However, despite considerable debts to creditors, he emerged with a large personal fortune. Bond was subsequently found guilty of charges relating to impropriety in his business conduct, including the siphoning of money for his personal use. He was jailed as a result of these charges, but released in 2000 after serving just over 3 years.

This clip starts approximately 20 minutes into the documentary.

Man The America’s Cup.

We see footage of fireworks and celebrations of people in the streets and the winning America’s Cup team carrying the trophy through the crowd.

Narrator on footage Waiting for them was perhaps the biggest post-war crowd Perth has ever seen. Two of their heroes, Alan Bond and Ben Lexon carried the prize which will be responsible for re-shaping WA over the next few years.

Alan Bond I know the people of the world are watching.

Jenni Hewett is interviewed with a live scene of the city of Perth in the background.

Jenni Hewett There was an enormous amount of hype that came with the Cup and with the winning of the Cup and people were terribly, terribly excited about it. In the end, of course, it didn’t have the dramatic economic effect that people expected, um because they had all sorts of unreal expectations about what the America’s Cup was.

A bus and crowds of well dressed people wait on the street at night time.

Narrator The guest of honour was removed gingerly from her armoured limousine while the masses waited expectantly upstairs.

We see footage of Alan Bond waving to the crowd and shaking hands.

Jenni Hewett On the other hand, they still had in their memories, if you like, the moment of glory and the idea that Perth was finally on the map and that people were really paying attention to Perth and that’s a very big pull for people in Western Australia. They never feel as if they’re treated quite seriously enough.

In a hotel lobby is a book promotion with Alan Bond’s image.

Narrator And hot off the press…

Paul Barry is speaking at a conference.

Paul Barry When Bond became the national hero in 1983 and he won the America’s Cup, bankers throughout the world were keen to lend him as much money as he wanted to take, and he did take a vast amount of money. He had been told so many times that he’d got it wrong and he’d proved to people so many times that he was right, that he thought he could walk on water and he could get away with anything. As it has turned out, he hasn’t. As to what drives the man, I think your guess is as good as mine. He had an incredible desire to be better, to show the world, he had something to prove. I guess he had a chip on his shoulder, or maybe a forest on his shoulder and he was determined to come out on top. Money was the way in which he chose to do it. I don’t think money was really what drove him on. I think it was a desire to show people.