This assessment was too discerning by half for the comfort of one Australian. After a reception given for him Buchman asked this young man whether he knew a certain public figure, who had been present and had been flirting rather outrageously. 'When I said I did,' this Australian writes, 'he asked me whether I prayed for the man and whether I would like to do so now. We did. Then Frank suggested that, although it was quite a late hour, I should go and see this man and bring him an answer to his problem, adding, "If I were him, I would be lying awake hoping somebody would come to help me." While I thought this was an unlikely scenario, I went to see him, on the strength of Frank's faith. I was not much surprised when it turned out to be a stormy session and I was shown the door. Two days later, however, the man invited me to lunch and was completely honest about the flirtation which Frank had noticed. That talk freed him and led to years of happy marriage and effective service to the country. Frank was not in the least surprised at the eventually happy outcome of his suggestion.'

Buchman only stayed ten days in Melbourne. There seems to have been some misunderstanding with those who asked him there as to what he had in mind. 'They had thought they were going to be witnesses to some kind of evangelistic crusade and were quite upset at Buchman's sudden departure for Canberra,' says James Coulter, the man who had planned the invitation. 'Actually he was quite unwell, and Melbourne did not suit him. Buchman just said, "Let's go to Canberra."'

'Buchman did not seek to meet politicians,' according to one Canberra journalist, 'but his door was open. He was not success-orientated in any way. If he had been he'd have lowered the hurdles, made it easier.'9 He in fact saw Dr Evatt, the leader of the Opposition, the Speaker and numerous MPs including Kim Beazley, who had been at Caux in 1953 and was to become a reforming Labour Minister of Education. He was warmly received by the Governor-General, Field Marshal Sir William Slim, who remembered an MRA visit to the Imperial Defence College in Britain. Prime Minister Menzies was not interested to meet him.

Though Buchman was sleeping in a hotel he made his Canberra base with four up-and-coming young men, two journalists and two government employees, who lived together in a quiet suburban bungalow. They attended one of Buchman's first gatherings in the capital and Buchman got them talking. According to one of them, John Farqhuarson, then a reporter with a national news agency, his first question was what they felt about each other. 'Having told him quite honestly, we found we had established a new relationship between each other, and I was deputed to ask him to a meal in our establishment. He replied, "Why, I'd be delighted. Thank you very much."'

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