‘A KIND OF LOVE’: Supergirls, Scapegoats and Sexual Liberation The response to Junie Morosi, Jim Cairns, and the scandal that rocked the Australian Government, 1975.

Abstract

The ‘Morosi affair’ captured the fascination of the public in 1975 during the turbulent political atmosphere of the Whitlam government. The Treasurer of the government, Dr Jim Cairns, hired the beautiful and controversial Junie Morosi to work in his office, causing an unprecedented media scandal. This thesis will use the scandal to look at the wider societal anxieties and cultural assumptions of the time, and analyze the responses from three different perspectives: the media, Morosi and Cairns themselves, and the Australian Labor Party (ALP).