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Fourteen: Beach and forest
The election date was announced officially by Wran the next day, at a seminar for ALP candidates which had already been scheduled by Head Office. It would be a twenty day campaign -- the shortest ever.
We were up and running. Arrangements had been made for a number of events which would form the backbone of the campaign in Manly. The big guns had been booked. Hawke was due in the electorate three times: to hand over the Quarantine Station, for a dinner at the Harbord Diggers, and to address a conference of reginal newspaper editors. Wran also would be at the Quarantine Station handover, and would return on the last day of the campaign to open Freshwater High School. A farewell dinner for Jack Ferguson, who was retiring, was set for the Thursday before the election.
Willie and David had found a vacant corner store on the flat of Manly, in Pittwater Road. The rent asked was exhorbitant, but it was in a prominent spot -- and we only needed it for three weeks. In the 1981 election, our campaign office at Manly Vale had not been in a central position, and we had used it as an annex to the campaign headquarters in my electorate office in the Corso. This time we had plenty of space in a much better position.
The electorate office had its normal role to continue -- interviewing constituents, keeping in touch