Attempted assassination of Arthur Calwell

On 21 June 1966, an assassination attempt was made on Arthur Calwell, then leader of the Australian Labor Party.

On the evening of 21 June 1966, while campaigning for the 1966 federal election, Arthur Calwell addressed an anti-conscription rally at Mosman Town Hall in Sydney. Senator Douglas McClelland described the meeting as "quite a rowdy one", although Calwell himself stated it was "without incident".

Peter Kocan, a 19-year-old factory worker, stood waiting in the town hall's lobby. At some point he left to retrieve a sawn-off .22 calibre rifle that he had hidden on the grounds of a nearby Methodist church; he concealed it under his overcoat. He later told police that he had sawn off the barrel and stock the night before, as it was too big to fit under his coat. The meeting concluded at about 10:45 p.m., after which Calwell walked to the waiting Commonwealth car to be driven back to his hotel. He sat in the front passenger seat next to the driver Frederick Smith. Calwell usually travelled with his car window open, but it was closed when Kocan shot at him from point-blank range. According to Calwell, "there was an exploding sound coming from my left and the glass in the front nearside window shattered and I felt a stinging sensation to the front of my face in the vicinity of my chin". The bullet shattered the window before coming to rest in the left lapel of Calwell's coat. He received a number of wounds to his face from the shattered glass and bullet fragments, and his shirt was "badly blood-stained".

Calwell re-entered the town hall briefly to telephone his wife, and was then driven to Royal North Shore Hospital where he spent the night. He was released the following evening. Kocan attempted to flee, but was restrained by members of the crowd, including Bob Gould, Barry Robinson, and Wayne Haylen (son of Les Haylen).

The police said Kocan told them after his arrest:

Kocan later reflected, "the shooting logic was in the air at the time", pointing to the assassinations of Ngô Đình Diệm, John F. Kennedy, Hendrik Verwoerd and Malcolm X. "Unfortunately, we are creatures who pick up on what's around", he said. "If it had been a different era, my actions may have been different... Insofar as I had any thoughts about what would happen after the shooting, I assumed I'd be cut down in a hail of bullets."

Kocan was found guilty of attempted murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. The presiding judge Leslie Herron ruled that:

The sentence was upheld on appeal.

Kocan was initially jailed at Sydney's Long Bay Gaol before being transferred to Morriset Psychiatric Hospital for the criminally insane, where he began to study literature, philosophy and history, and to write poetry. Kocan was released after ten years in August 1976.

Calwell visited Kocan at Morriset, and wrote a letter to Kocan forgiving him for the act. The attempted assassination was the third assassination attempt in Australian political history following Henry James O'Farrell's attempt on the life of Prince Alfred in 1868 and the assassination of NSW Legislative Assembly Member Percival Brookfield in South Australia in 1921, though Thomas Ley, who died while imprisoned at Broadmoor Asylum for murder, was suspected of killing four political opponents in the 1920s.

• Kiernan, Colm (1978). Calwell: A Personal and Political Biography. Thomas Nelson. ISBN 0170051854.