Forty years after Donald Mackay's murder, the Calabrian mafia still thrives
Lesley Hicks
This Saturday marks a sad, significant anniversary. Forty years ago on a winter's night in Griffith, NSW, a hired gunman shot and killed businessman and would-be politician Donald Bruce Mackay just as he was getting into his mini-van. Somehow the killer managed to haul the awkwardly heavy body into another vehicle and took it away for disposal – and to this day no one knows where.
That is one reason that Don Mackay's murder has never been fully out of the public's memory and consciousness, and why the media keeps on recalling the mystery. The other reason is that the Calabrian mafia-type criminal organisation found responsible for planning and organising the elimination of Mackay, known as The Honoured Society, 'Ndrangheta, or La Famiglia, still exists. It is still involved in organised crime, including the murder of those considered a threat to their activities.
Don's concern at the disturbing drug-related trends he saw in Griffith in the 1970s led him to stand as a Liberal Party candidate in both state and federal elections. He was never elected. His death was evidently due to his attempts to expose marijuana-growing rackets in the rich agricultural Riverina district. Eventually some men served sentences in Victoria for conspiracy and carrying out his assassination.
One, James Frederick Bazely, was convicted of conspiracy to murder Mackay and was alleged to have carried out the actual killing. While not from the Calabrian mafia community of Griffith but a gun for hire from Melbourne's criminal fraternity, it seemed that Bazely observed the same code of silence, omerta. Probably that was necessary to ensure his own survival. He always denied guilt and never revealed what was done with Don's body. Convicted in April 1986, he served a sentence and was released from jail in 2001. But those who gave him his orders were never brought to justice.
Before Don died, his wife Barbara was relatively unknown outside Griffith. As an involved and supportive wife of a public-spirited husband, she was raising their four children, active in the Uniting Church and working part-time as a physiotherapist. Don's death and disappearance catapulted her into an unrelenting media spotlight that rarely left her for the rest of her life. She remained active and outspoken despite increasing health problems. She died aged 65 in 2001.
The manner and mystery of Don's murder made it a defining moment in the battle against organised crime in Australia. Like Don before her, Barbara Mackay refused to be silenced about the issues behind it – the racketeering with mafia associations and the resultant corruption of police, politicians and other public officials. She followed closely and at times was a witness in the series of royal commissions and inquiries into drug trafficking and corruption that followed.
The first was the Woodward Royal Commission of 1977-79; the Royal Commission into the Mr Asia heroin syndicate of 1981 led by Justice Donald Stewart came next; then in 1984 the inconclusive inquest into her husband's death; in 1986 the trial of the conspirators Gianfranco Tizzoni, George Joseph and the gunman James Frederick Bazley; and in 1986 the special inquiry under Justice John Nagle into the police investigation of the death. This, like the other inquiries, exposed at best sloppy and at worst questionable or corrupt behaviour.
As a thoughtful Christian, and a gifted and sought-after speaker, Barbara Mackay spoke and wrote often about the underlying sickness of society of which drug abuse, violence and corruption are symptoms. Her courage and faith made her a person of wide influence, greatly loved and admired in her own right. The media's "grieving widow" image, though true on one level, utterly failed to do justice to who Barbara was and what she achieved. Many considered her, along with her husband, to have been a truly great Australian.
In some ways it seems astounding that despite the passage of time and the efforts of police, the 'Ndrangheta organisation responsible for Mackay's death remains well and truly active today. But in terms of cynical realism, maybe it's to be expected. The same names that the Mackay family and I knew well as I wrote their story in Griffith in the 1970s are evident in recent accounts of organised crime activity. Forty years later children and grandchildren seem to be maintaining the family business.
To take one example: Francesco "Little Trees" Barbaro was named by the Woodward Royal Commission as a leading figure of the 'Ndrangheta cell responsible for Mackay's murder. By 2008, with various criminal exploits along the way, Francesco's son Pasquale Barbaro was arrested as principal organiser of an ambitious importation into Melbourne of millions of ecstasy tablets hidden in tomato tins.
Enter Pasquale Timothy Barbaro, from the third generation of that family. He was described as a flamboyant gangster with a reputation as a feared and hated figure in Sydney's underworld. He was due to face trial in February 2017 on drug manufacturing charges. He had made so many enemies that few were surprised when in November 2016, aged 35, he was gunned down in a Sydney street.
In Italy since 2012, Mafia-fighting authorities have taken the last resort course of separating children aged 12 to 16 from their families and sending them away – sometimes into foster care, and sometimes accompanied by mothers anxious to escape the mafia grip – taking drastic measures to break the family bonds that have made 'Ndrangheta one of the most powerful criminal syndications in the world, spanning from Italy to South America and Australia.
One could ask many questions about Italy's methods. One wonders: Is there any way here in Australia to break the nexus between the mafia-type organisation as it exists here and the families in its grip, in order to penetrate and weaken its hold and its criminal power?
For the murder of Donald Mackay, however, a 40-year-old mafia crime here in Australia, the silence may never be broken. While the criminal fraternity observe omertawe may never know the full truth of what happened on that night in Griffith.
Australian Mob
Moderator: Capos
