Alan Fitzgerald, Australian journalist, died from cancer he was , 75.

Alan John Fitzgerald was an Australian author and journalist, best known for his satire relating to Canberra and Federal politics died from cancer he was , 75..

(1935 – 31 March 2011) 

Fitzgerald arrived in Canberra in 1964 from Fiji where he had gone to join The Fiji Times, then owned by Pacific Publications, Sydney. However, he was also invited by editor, John Douglas Pringle, to write satirical columns for The Canberra Times, having met Pringle in London some years earlier. He later broadened his opinion pieces, writing for The Sun-Herald, The Sunday Observer, The Sunday Australian, The Bulletin, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Alan Fitzgerald also became a correspondent for CBC, Ottawa, in 1974 and as well conducted his own current affairs program for 9 years on Canberra radio station 2CA. He was also a frequent contributor to ABC radio programs and made regular appearances on Channel Seven's breakfast program.
In 1967 he was elected to the ACT Advisory Council as a 'True Whig' on a joke platform of promising to do nothing. He was re-elected in 1970 with 21 per cent of the vote, ahead of the Liberal Party candidates and second only to the ALP team. For many years, he was a member and chairman of the ACT Historic Sites and Building Committee (now Heritage Council) that had been established at his initiative to protect historic homesteads and buildings at a time of rapid expansion of Canberra into the surrounding rural area. The Committee prevented the development of a suburb within the Lanyon Homestead site and recommended the acquisition and management of Calthorpes House in Mugga Way as a home museum.
Alan became seriously involved in politics when he stood for the Australia Party (founder Gordon Barton) as its candidate in the May, 1970 by-election for the House of Representatives seat of Canberra. He gained the highest vote of any Australia Party candidate in any election but was eliminated from the count in a final distribution of preferences. He stood again for the Australia Party for the seat in the 1972 Federal election.
He was elected President of the National Press Club for two terms 1969–70 and 1970–71 and remained on the committee for many years.
Alan Fitzgerald graduated from the Australian National University with a Bachelor of Arts degree (English and Political Science).
He joined the National Capital Development Commission and became its Director of Public Information and after its abolition in 1989, transferred in the same position to its weak successor, the National Capital Planning Authority.
He became a member of the Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery and published a conservative magazine, The Australian National Review for five years and also established The Australian Constitutional News.
He was a foundation member and chairman of the ACT & Region branch of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy and played an active role in the debate about Australia becoming a republic. In 1998 he was the organisations primary candidate in the election of delegates to the Constitutional Convention but lost on a final distribution of preferences to the ARM candidate, Frank Cassidy. However, he attended the Convention as an alternative delegate and media officer for ACM and a number of Independent delegates.
He lived in the Canberra suburb of Isaacs with his wife, Maria, and had six grandsons. He previously lived at Farrer and Hughes with their two sons, Dominic and Julian. Dr Dominic Fitzgerald is now Associate Professor and a respiratory physician at the Children's Hospital, Westmead, Sydney while Julian Fitzgerald is a member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery, Canberra, and author of two books, "Lobbying in Australia" and "Inside the Parliamentary Press Gallery - Seeing Beyond the Spin".
Fitzgerald died of cancer on 31 March 2011 at the age of 75.^[1]

Bibliography

• Fitzgerald's Canberra: A Guide to Life in the National Capital (Dalton Publishing; 1969, 1970 and 1971) ISBN 0-909906-00-9
• The Best of Fitzgerald (Dalton Publishing; 1970)
• Old Fitz's Unparliamentary Handbook (Clareville Press; 1976)
• Historic Canberra, 1825-1945 (Australian Government Publishing; 1977)
• Italian Farming Soldiers: PoWs in Australia, 1941-47 (Melbourne University Press; 1981)
• Alan Fitzgerald's Canberra with cartoons by George Molnar (Clareville Press; 1983)
• Canberra's Engineering Heritage (editor; Clareville Press; 1983)
• Canberra and the New Parliament House (Lansdowne Press; 1983)
• Canberra in Two Centuries – A Pictorial History (Clareville Press; 1987)
• Victory: 1945, War & Peace (Gore & Osment/Australian War Memorial; 1995)
• Barons, Rebels & Romantics – The Fitzgeralds' First Thousand Years (Clareville Press; 2004)
• The Italian Farming Soldiers (revised editions; Clareville Press; 1999, 2007)

 

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