Prime movers who shaped our nation, part 2Peter Charlton continues his look at the best and the worst of our prime ministers. Part 1 |
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| Edward Gough Whitlam, Labor's next prime minister, has become something
of a national treasure. Although his government was dismissed more than a quarter of a
century ago, Whitlam still evokes such disparate passions, of love and loathing, that
objective analysis is difficult. But Whitlam is entitled to be considered a giant among prime ministers. A deeply flawed giant, to be sure, even a figure of some tragedy. How different would the Whitlam Labor government have been had it been elected in 1969, before the oil shocks of the early 1970s turned economic conventions upside down? However, consider this about Whitlam: he was the first politician to realise the importance, in a policy sense, of the problems thrown up by the post-war urban sprawl. He was a politician with a modern, for the 1960s at least, view of Asia. He was an early economic reformer, slashing tariffs by 25 percent. He took an interest in the arts, too much of an interest, according to some critics. In many ways, his election coincided with — perhaps even symbolised — the emergence of modern Australia. Of course, Whitlam made mistakes. The appointment of Sir John Kerr as governor-general was just one of many. He had a Cabinet characterised by the ordinary and inadequate. But he also faced an opposition that was implacable in its determination not to afford him, and his party, anything like a fair go. Incumbency from 1949 to 1972 had given the conservative forces the view they were the rightful parties of office. No other newly elected prime minister has had to face such ferocious attacks from an opposition that simply could not accept it had lost: Three elections in so many years, and the dismissal of a lawfully elected government with the confidence of the House of Representatives. Elements of tragedy define Malcolm Fraser's period as prime minister, from that turbulent election of 1975 to his tearful departure in 1983. In recent years, Fraser has emerged as a genuine liberal, compassionate and nationalistic, independently minded while still imbued with that noblesse oblige of the old Tory. For all the high standards of personal and ministerial behaviour Fraser imposed, however, his years in The Lodge were a disappointment. Because of the dismissal, he seemed to lack a sense of legitimacy. How much better would his government have been had Fraser waited? Fraser's successor, of course, was the man who won the drover's dog election, Robert James Lee Hawke. It is still far too early to judge Hawke, particularly on the basis of a biography written by the woman who was his lover and is now his wife. Perhaps it is best simply to say Hawke was a leader for the times, for the 1980s when "greed was good", when our temporary heroes included Alan Bond and Christopher Skase and when normally cautious bankers threw money around like Diggers on R&R leave. Proximity, too, makes it similarly difficult to assess Paul Keating and John Howard. It is likely, though, history will be kinder to Keating than his contemporary critics while Howard will be remembered for gun legislation, the goods and service tax and a dogged persistence. Then, there are the pygmies, or perhaps in these days of rampant political correctness, persons of retarded political growth. Leading this undistinguished list easily is William McMahon, perhaps the worst prime minister this nation has ever endured. March 1971, when John Gorton fell on his sword after a Liberal Party meeting, was the high spot of McMahon's period in office. The former Sydney lawyer and man-about-town had coveted the job for years. His colleagues knew it; his vaulting ambition was a standing political joke. But no joke for the hard man of the then Country Party, Sir John "Black Jack" McEwen. When Harold Holt drowned off Portsea in December 1969, showing off to a close lady friend demonstrably not his wife and with a few pre-prandial gins-and-tonic under his belt, the brutal old McEwen blackballed McMahon. In this, he was ably assisted by the then governor-general, Sir Richard Gardiner Casey, with a vice-regal interference in party politics that, repeated today, would see the incumbent out of Yarralumla faster than you could say "God Save the Queen". As external affairs minister, McMahon was never allowed to meet senior diplomats or international politicians without at least two members of the department by his side. His reputation as treasurer owed much to his ability to argue his department's brief and to his own self-promotion as a hard worker. As a bachelor navy minister he was notorious for co-opting handsome young sailors in tight-fitting bell-bottom trousers to caddy for him at golf. His marriage, at the age of 57, to a Sydney socialite, both younger and taller, seemed only to accentuate the sense of the ridiculous that engulfed William McMahon. With his prominent ears, his squeaky high voice, his elevated heels, McMahon was a risible figure. His elevation to the top job was only possible in the wake of the post-Menzies, post-Holt confusion and McMahon's own vigorous plotting. The feline Gough Whitlam dubbed him "Tiberius on the telephone". But Whitlam's criticism of McMahon was nothing to that of his former Cabinet colleague and one-time rival, Paul Hasluck: "Disloyal, devious, dishonest, untrustworthy, petty, cowardly". Harold Holt, too, was a political pygmy. A good-minded pygmy, noble in purpose but a pygmy nevertheless. He was also a worrier, a man consumed by the cares of office. Anointed by Sir Robert Menzies as his successor, Holt was known to boast that he achieved the office without climbing over any political bodies. That was Holt's tragedy. That, and his foreign policy of "All the way with LBJ". Holt's replacement, John Grey Gorton, might have been a great prime minister, had he been more disciplined, less fond of a drink, less susceptible to the charms of young women and less afflicted with backbench critics. Gorton, the World War II fighter pilot with the smashed up face and the cheeky grin, was a larrikin. He was also a nationalist, a centralist, and deeply suspicious of the Americans in Vietnam. The backwoodsmen in his party hated him for it. Stanley Melbourne Bruce was another in the retarded political growth class. A member of one of Australia's great mercantile families, young Stanley was educated at Cambridge where he rowed. Later, he was briefly a barrister in London. During World War I, he was wounded at Gallipoli, but not with the Australian Imperial Force. As befitted the son of an Anglo-Australian family, Bruce was serving with the British Army. As prime minister, he is remembered best for being the only incumbent of that office to lose his seat in a general election. It was 1929 and Bruce had taken on the union movement over the arbitration commission. Bruce ended up in London, as the Australian high commissioner and remained there during World War II, a fact that reflects no credit on Labor leader John Curtin. Joining the spats-wearing S.M. Bruce in the shorter class is Joseph Aloysius Lyons. But Lyons also belongs in another class: that dubbed "rats". He was a former Labor politician who switched to the conservatives, largely under the influence of his wife, the formidable Dame Enid. She was the much better politician, although Lyons had the misfortune to be prime minister during the Depression of the 1930s. That depression would have broken a much better politician than the hapless Lyons, incidentally the only Catholic ever to lead a conservative government. Lyons's ratting, however, was nothing compared to that of William Morris Hughes who managed, through a combination of political ambition, a serious misjudging of the Australian people and his own curious personality, to split the ALP in 1916. Although small — Donald Horne once famously described him as a "little bag of bones done up in gent's natty suiting" — Hughes could never have been regarded as a political pygmy. He once boasted in Parliament that he had been present at the birth of the great Australian political parties, Labor and Liberal. "What about the Country Party, Billy?" came the interjection. "Ah brother," he said, "You have to draw the line somewhere." Welsh-born, with all the slyness occasionally unfairly attributed to those conquered Celts, Hughes was another famous plotter and schemer. Today, Hughes is probably best remembered for two things: splitting the Labor Party over conscription and his longevity in Parliament, dying at the age of 90 while still a member. Australia maintained its contribution to World War I without conscription but Hughes had been duchessed by the Brits early in 1916 and was convinced the carnage of the Somme battle that year left no alternative but compulsory service. The nation disagreed — twice. Of the early prime ministers, Sir Edmund Barton's reputation is being restored, Alfred Deakin has long been acknowledged as a substantial leader at a difficult time while the others, J.C. Watson, Sir George Reid, Andrew Fisher and Sir Joseph Cook remain of little interest except to devoted students of the period. Then, of course, there were the temporary leaders, the stop-gaps like Francis Michael Forde, Sir Arthur Fadden and Sir Earle Page. Forde was an ordinary army minister and an even less distinguished temporary prime minister; Page was a scheming Country Party doctor. As for Fadden, the title of his autobiography, They Called Me Artie, seemed to sum it up. Nice bloke, but a lightweight. shaped our nation through its first 100 years. Peter Charlton looks at the best and the worst of our prime ministers Gorton might have been a great prime minister had he been less fond of a drink and less susceptible to the charms of young women. Elements of tragedy define Malcolm Fraser's period as prime minister, from that turbulent election of 1975 to his tearful departure in 1983. In recent years, Fraser has emerged as a genuine liberal, compassionate and nationalistic, independently minded while still imbued with that noblesse oblige of the old Tory. For all the high standards of personal and ministerial behaviour Fraser imposed, however, his years in The Lodge were a disappointment. Because of the dismissal, he seemed to lack a sense of legitimacy. How much better would his government have been had Fraser waited? Fraser's successor, of course, was the man who won the drover's dog election, Robert James Lee Hawke. It is still far too early to judge Hawke, particularly on the basis of a biography written by the woman who was his lover and is now his wife. Perhaps it is best simply to say Hawke was a leader for the times, for the 1980s when "greed was good", when our temporary heroes included Alan Bond and Christopher Skase and when normally cautious bankers threw money around like Diggers on R&R leave. Proximity, too, makes it similarly difficult to assess Paul Keating and John Howard. It is likely, though, history will be kinder to Keating than his contemporary critics while Howard will be remembered for gun legislation, the goods and service tax and a dogged persistence. |
William Hughes
Stanley Bruce
James Scullin
Joseph Lyons
Sir Earle Page
Sir Robert Menzies
Arthur Fadden
John Curtin
Francis Forde
Ben Chifley
Harold Holt
John McEwen
Sir John Gorton |
