In the bitter federal election of 1917, Labor’s member for the marginal seat of Corio fell victim to dirty tricks. As a quartermaster sergeant in the AIF’s 3rd Division, A.T. Ozanne shouldn’t have been opposed. But Prime Minister Billy Hughes became electorally desperate, and he published a cable from General Monash, the division’s commander, which portrayed Ozanne as a deserter. Ozanne was indeed not in France with the AIF volunteers, but it was because he had been given medical leave, quite authentically. Monash was careless with the facts, and perhaps misled by officers who disliked Ozanne. Hughes’s ruthless use of the cable destroyed Ozanne’s political career.

Some extenuation applies to Monash. The general neither knew why Hughes wanted a report on Ozanne, nor anticipated its publication. The man who procured the cable knew exactly what he was doing. This was Keith Murdoch, head of the Melbourne Herald’s London bureau: ostensibly an independent reporter but acting in fact as Hughes’s political fixer. One assignment was gathering material to damage Ozanne: Murdoch’s real standing was known to the AIF generals, so, once the false desertion charge was unearthed, Murdoch could quickly persuade Monash that the cable was a legitimate prime ministerial request.