Frank Browne

Francis Courtney Browne (9 September 1915 – 14 December 1981) was an Australian journalist. In 1955 case, Browne was jailed by parliament for three months under the doctrine of parliamentary privilege. Life and career Frank Browne was born in the Sydney suburb of Coogee to New Zealand-born tailor Courtney Brown and Linda Veronica, née Heckenberg. He attended Christian Brothers' College in Waverley and went on to enter the Royal Military College, having failed to win a bursary for university. In August 1935 he was discharged and described as "temperamentally unsuited to the military profession"; Browne would later claim that he was in fact expelled as a result of an affair with an officer's wife. He also claimed (falsely) to have won a "gold pocket" for sporting excellence.

After leaving the military Browne became a cadet journalist on Smith's Weekly and then travelled to the United States, writing for the Chicago Tribune. He boxed professionally as "Buzz Brown" in the featherweight division. It was later rumoured that he had served with communist forces in the Spanish Civil War in 1937, receiving a Soviet decoration after his wounding, a fact he later refused to confirm or deny. He returned to Sydney in 1938.

Browne is best remembered for his involvement in a parliamentary privilege case in 1955. Labor MP Charles Morgan began the affair in May by objecting in parliament to a reference made in the Bankstown Observer (of which Browne was the editor) alleging his involvement in "an immigration racket". The standing committee on parliamentary privilege found Browne and the Observer'''s owner, Raymond Fitzpatrick, in breach of said privilege, and the two were called before the Bar of the House on 20 June.

Browne formed the Australian Party on his release, which enjoyed little success, and in the 1960s wrote a column for the Daily Mirror. He contested the Australian Senate unsuccessfully in 1974, and continued publishing Things I Hear until 1977. In that year he travelled to Rhodesia to work for Ian Smith. He died in the Sydney suburb of Darlinghurst in 1981 of liver cirrhosis and was cremated.

BooksThey Called Him Billy: A Biography of the Rt. Hon. W.M. Hughes, P.C., M.P. (1946)The Public Be Damned! (1947)Some of It Was Cricket'' (1965)