Mackie Vs. Mullens
When it became obvious that the strike was not a genuine industrial dispute, Brian Mullins went to Mount Isa for an extended period to galvanise into action the considerable number of unionists opposed to Mackie.
As he later commented to a colleague, "It was Mackie versus Mullins" until the strike collapsed. Brian stated later that violence of one sort or another plagued Mount Isa during the strike, and one of his associates was killed in a motor vehicle accident which occurred during a car chase through the streets.
When Pat Mackie later attempted to agitate in the sugar-cane industry, Brian assisted cane-growers to resist him, and Mackie's efforts to mobilise workers in this industry came to nothing.
In the 1960s, universities across Australia became battlegrounds as the radical left sought to transform these institutions from centres of learning into centres of radical action and political confrontation.
Brian was in this struggle right from the start, and Queensland students were encouraged and trained to become active in the Australian Union of Students, the national student organisation which the extreme left had captured in pursuit of its own ideological agenda.
Brian Mullins brought together academics such as Dr Rupert Goodman and Professor Peter Lawrence and NCC-trained students in the common cause of defending the integrity of the nation's universities.
Read more about this topic: 1964 Mount Isa Mines Strike