Prime movers who shaped our nation

A few good men, a few incompetent men and a few who were a bit of both have led Australia  through its first 100 years. Peter Charlton looks at the best and the worst of our prime ministers.

In 100 years of Federation, we have had 25 different prime ministers. Some, like Ben Chifley and John Gorton, have had the position thrust upon them. Some, rather more as it happens, have plotted and schemed for years to get the top job.

Of these, Billy McMahon was the exemplar, but Paul Keating was another who believed the job was rightfully his long before he got to move into the Lodge.

Others have grown into the position. A sad few have been diminished, even overwhelmed, by its stresses.

Three have died in office: Joseph Lyons, his death hastened by the Depression; John Curtin, a casualty of war as surely as any serviceman killed in action; and Harold Holt who, in the felicitous phrase of Tom Hughes QC, "spent too long in the shadow of a very big tree, in (Robert Gordon) Menzies".

Comparing prime ministers of different eras is fraught with peril. Who, for example, would wished to have been John Curtin in the darkest days of World War II? A reformed alcoholic prone to bouts of black depression, Curtin had to make momentous decisions with neither the experience nor the advisers to do so.

What are we to make today of John Scullin, who had to battle both the Depression and his own Caucus? Scullin's government lasted just two years, too short for a serious assessment.

How do we compare the prime ministers immediately after Federation, engaged as they were in building a new nation, with the current incumbent, John Howard, who has led the country into a new millennium with more than a passing glance in the rear-vision mirror?

On balance, though, Australia has been well served by its prime ministers. Even allowing for the difficulty of making comparisons between different leaders of different eras, we can say there have been some towering giants. And, it should be said, some distinct pygmies, of whom more later.

Towering above all is the solid, double-breast suited figure of Robert Gordon Menzies, the shopkeeper's son from rural Victoria.

Thanks to the indefatigable and impeccable scholarship of Professor Allan Martin, the reputation of the man dubbed "Ming" is being resuscitated. Not before time. In his later years, Menzies was something of a figure of fun, gushing "I did but see her passing by" to Queen Elizabeth, accepting British awards such as Knight of the Thistle and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports.

He introduced conscription, committed troops to the Vietnam War and pandered for far too long to the destructive protectionism that was the unity ticket of Australian manufacturers and Black Jack McEwen. But Menzies also expanded the Commonwealth government's role in education, by doing so creating the opportunity for the bright children of working class families to go to university.

This "British to the bootstraps" Edwardian also continued Labor's immigration programmes that contributed greatly to Australia's current cultural diversity. And, whether by good luck or good judgment, or probably both, Menzies presided over the post-war period that might have been dull but was prosperous.

Menzies was prime minister twice: from 1939 to 1941 and from 1949 to 1966, a record that probably never will be beaten. Perhaps he stayed too late. Clearly he did not understand the emerging nationalistic independence movements in the region to our north, preferring to see them as communist forces heading south.

As prime minister, Menzies was the most skilful of politicians, dispatching potential rivals and brushing aside opposition within his party while all the time managing to remain aloof and above the ruck.

But he was also helped by a Labor Party that revelled in self-destructiveness and by the erratic leadership of Dr Herbert Vere Evatt, whose sanity has been seriously questioned.

As well, Menzies left a legacy on display every day in Parliament. He created, from the wreckage of other conservative political groupings, the Liberal Party.

Other giants, of a stature to match Menzies, are difficult to find. In the Australian Labor Party John Curtin is revered and considered a giant by many on the Left. But the reverence owes more to myth than fact.

For most of the war, Curtin was simply out of his depth. He had been a pacifist in World War I and was briefly imprisoned for his opposition to conscription.

After the Japanese entered the war and the 8th Division was lost with the fall of Singapore, Curtin fought with British prime minister Winston Churchill over the return of the 6th and 7th Divisions. For this he has been lauded, but insufficient credit has been given to the Australian generals, such as Sir Vernon Sturdee, who urged him to resist the determined Churchill.

Curtin's war-time leadership was diminished by the extraordinary powers he handed to General Douglas MacArthur, by the lack of interest he took in the men and women doing the fighting and by the far-too-free reign he allowed the Australian commander-in-chief, General Sir Thomas Blamey.

To be fair, Curtin had enemies within his own party, in Arthur Calwell and Eddie Ward. Little wonder, then, that he succumbed to depression from time to time.

After Curtin's death in July 1945, Joseph Benedict Chifley took office. He promptly sacked Blamey but more importantly, he helped lay the foundations for Australia's post-war prosperity. His few years as prime minister, from 1945 to 1949, are now remembered by the way he lost office, in an election that was dominated by Chifley's determination to nationalise the banks.

Different prime ministers, different times, but an objective ranking would put Chifley ahead of Curtin.

... Part 2 – more giants
and some pygmies

Australia's first Prime Minister,
Sir Edmund Barton
1901-1903

Alfred Deakin
1903-1904, 1905-1908,
1909-1910

John Watson
1904-1904

George Reid
1904-1905

Andrew Fisher
1908-1909, 1910-1913,
1914-1915

Joseph Cook
1913-1914