Over the balmy summer months, while we were all concentrating on the tennis, a significant event occurred in Melbourne. It is remarkable that it has not been covered or even mentioned in the mainstream media, or at least not yet. The event in question was the complete demolition of the old office block that previously stood at 437 St Kilda Road.

You could hardly say that the old building was a masterpiece of architectural triumphalism. True, but it was nevertheless a significant building, the scene of a major event in our political history and therefore part of our national estate. But now it is no more, its demolition complete, the site excavated and the foundations being laid, even as we speak, for the construction of a new building of 77 prestige residences, the most expensive of which is a steal at a mere $8 million.

Why, then, was the building of such significance that its passing should be noted and not just ignored? The reason is that the building was not just any old building, but the former headquarters of the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (Asio) and thus the site of the notorious raid by the then Attorney-General Lionel Murphy at dawn on 16 March 1973, designed to root out evidence of alleged Croatian terrorism in Australia that Asio was alleged to have been hiding. The building, and the raid itself, were particularly significant because it turned out that the raid was completely useless and uncovered nothing about Croatian terrorism or anything else.

In conducting his raid, Murphy certainly put Asio and its building on the map as, provided with a sledge-hammer should he need it, he worked his way through the building only to find, on all the available evidence, nothing at all. But in the meantime, the raid sent a shiver down many spines, as it gave us a taste of how some authoritative regimes use the security service for domestic political purposes.

Murphy was clearly not raiding Asio to show his concern for bolstering the cause of national security. Nor could he conceivably have believed that Croatia posed any real threat to Australia. In any event, even if there were any such evidence, it could just as well have been left to the police and Asio to handle. It is pretty clear that Murphy’s real intention was to sap our national security and weaken public confidence in our institutions, including Asio, by smearing it. The intention of the raid was clearly to disparage Asio and denigrate those who made such a contribution to our security by serving within it.

Moreover, the raid was clearly the beginning of the downward slide of the Whitlam government. Indeed, Whitlam himself described the raid as, ‘The greatest mistake the government has made.’ He certainly had a lot to choose from. And if the raid was a great mistake, it must surely be beyond argument that mistakes by government, particularly ‘great’ ones, should be remembered, in the hope that they might deter any similar mistakes from occurring in the future.

Added to this, Melbourne is now in the grip of an insane campaign by the lunatic left to defile national monuments and denigrate anyone or anything that smacks of the dreaded ‘colonialism’ that they hate so much, but which gave us our foundations as a nation. Noting the site of Asio and the events that occurred there would be a good first step to reversing this destructive trend. In other words, we should stop destroying our past and start preserving it.

It is therefore regrettable that the raid has slipped out of the public consciousness and that its last remaining link, the demolition of the building where it all occurred, has been allowed to pass unnoticed and unrecorded; so far.

But it may not be too late. I hope, even at this late hour, that we could start a national campaign to have each of the bijou residences at 437 St Kilda Road named after a former director-general of Asio and with suitable plaques inscribed Charles Spry, Harvey Barnett, Dennis Richardson and the names of others of their erstwhile colleagues who held that important post.

One permanent monument in particular is certainly called for: the pre-eminent $8 million penthouse should be named ‘The Murphy’, after Lionel himself, as it is only just and proper that he should be remembered for this historic event of 16 March 1973 and his part in it.