He fired a shot at point-blank range through a car window, but Calwell escaped with only minor facial injuries from broken glass.

[2] Kocan left school at the age of 14, and according to his mother gave up sport and spent most of his time reading.

[1] He wrote a letter to the headquarters of the Australian National Socialist Party in which he stated that he "admired Hitler because he had killed himself at the right time".

[3] According to Sydney Rowe, a psychiatrist who examined him, Kocan became fixated on death and suicide, and had fantasies about imitating Lee Harvey Oswald.

[3] On the evening of 21 June 1966, while campaigning for the 1966 federal election, Arthur Calwell addressed an anti-conscription rally at Mosman Town Hall in Sydney.

During his years in prison and hospital, Kocan immersed himself in history, literature and poetry after a chance remark by another inmate led him to discover the writing of Rupert Brooke.

His other works include the poetry volumes Freedom to Breathe (1985), Standing with Friends (1992) and Fighting in the Shade (2000), the joint collection Primary Loyalties (1999), and the science-fiction novel Flies of a Summer (1988).

[6] Kocan lived for many years at Tuggerawong on the Central Coast of New South Wales, teaching and writing one act plays, poetry and fiction.