Men Who Killed Qantas - Matthew Benns [47]
It was on his way to his new job at Nabalco’s mine in the Northern Territory, on the tarmac of Alice Springs airport, that he met Dawn Lowe, who was ten years his junior. She had been Miss Wagga 1969 and was also going to join the mine in the information technology department. They married at Sydney’s Wayside Chapel in 1971 and have two children together, Ben and Jessica. Like Strong, Dawn has been a key figure in Dixon’s life. She was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease several years ago and her care has been intrinsic to Dixon’s life during and after Qantas. ‘One thing I am committed to is going on the board of the Garvan Foundation. Medical research resonates with me because my wife’s got Parkinson’s and that’s how we got engaged with the Garvan because of their research into Parkinson’s, among other diseases,’ he told the Sunday Telegraph in 2008.11
Dixon also keeps in contact with his friends back in Wagga, who still know him as Dicko. When his old mate Col Turvey was in trouble Dixon offered to bail him out and set him up in business. ‘I hit some hard times and I was on a disability pension a while back. Geoff wanted to lend me money, but I wouldn’t take a loan – so he bought the pub and said: “We’ll give you a share of the profits”, said Col, from the Turvey Tavern.’12 Even when they were young Col knew his mate was headed for the big time. ‘He always had exceptional ability. My father said to me, “They’ll be shining the big chair up for that bloke”. That was 40 years ago,’ he said.13 Dixon also sponsors the Ronald McDonald House in Wagga and has worked on a number of Indigenous causes after his father pointed out the inequality and unfairness of the lives of Aboriginal Australians when Dixon was growing up.
After leaving the mine Dixon joined the diplomatic corps in Canberra and was posted to the Australian consulate in New York in 1976. Liberal MP Bruce Baird was there as a trade commissioner at the same time and has been regularly quoted in profiles on Dixon, talking about sharing Bloody Marys and hamburgers together behind the Rockefeller Centre. ‘I always found him very personable. He has a strong social conscience and strong political views and was concerned about Aboriginal reconciliation and apartheid and so on. He also had a great sense of humour and was quite funny. Grease, the movie, had just come out and so we [Australians] were pretty fashionable then,’ he said.14
In later life Baird would find himself at odds with Dixon because of the large number of Qantas employees living close to the airport in his Sutherland Shire electorate who feared for their jobs. He still gave his old drinking buddy the benefit of the doubt. ‘I’ve spoken to Geoff about it many times because I’ve got more Qantas employees down in my area than anywhere else. But Geoff believes those issues will be looked after and I’ve found him to be a man of his word in the past,’ he said in 2007.15
It was diplomat Richard Woolcott who told Dixon his strengths lay elsewhere, prompting him to write to his old workmate James Strong and congratulate him on taking over at the Australian Mining Industry Council. Nine months later Dixon was on his way there too. And when Strong was given the top job at Australian Airlines he took Dixon with him to run commercial operations. They were joined by Gary Toomey as chief financial officer and Doug Gillies as operations manager. It was the birth of the team that would ultimately end up running Qantas. But before that Strong took at job at law firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth, and the others went their separate ways, with Dixon going to Ansett. There he honed his skill at developing compelling advertising, including the airline’s memorable Enya campaign. Naturally, when Strong joined Qantas he put his old Australian Airlines team back together, with Dixon at the top of the list.
The arrival of the