federation history

NOT SUCH A BAD LOT

John Button

Michelle Grattan (ed)
Australian Prime Ministers
New Holland, $44.95hb, 512pp
1864366710

THIS COULD BE A USEFUL guidebook to the Avenue of Prime Ministers in the Ballarat Botanical Gardens. There the sculptured heads of all our Prime Ministers are displayed in sequential order, on identical pedestals, cold, passionless, all the same size, victims it would seem of the same guillotine. Only a small plaque on each pedestal tells you anything about them; the years, months and sometimes days during which they held office.
      From a childhood in Ballarat I remember that someone painted a red tie on the pedestal of Ben Chifley. This act aroused some controversy. The city's conservative burghers argued amongst themselves whether or not this was justifiable vandalism. Nowadays the only colour comes form the handsome rhododendrons nearby.
      Armed with this volume of Australian Prime Ministers one could begin to construct a more fulsome identikit of each of the incumbents of high office. Barton was plump and liked a drink, Fisher well-built and handsome, Reid, fat and 'loveable', Hughes small and uncouth, Bruce, Whitlam and Fraser, tall and imposing.
      In this book every picture tells a story and the excellent selection of photographs is a powerful record of the earthly passions which engulfed our Prime Ministers. There can be few better examples of body language captured by still photographs that those of Churchill, Curtin, McMahon and Gorton, Hawke and Keating, in times of trouble.
      The text is, of course, far more informative, if less dramatic. It is a valuable record of what our Prime Ministers did in office, their backgrounds, their political strengths and weaknesses. In some cases (Fisher, Curtin, Chifley, Menzies and Howard) it comes close to telling us what they actually believed.
      There are, however, twenty-one contributors; journalists, historians, political scientists and a former prime minister, and, like most anthologies, the book suffers from unevenness in methodology and quality. Even the comprehensive introduction by the editor, Michelle Grattan, summarising the lives and times of the twenty-five prime ministers, cannot remedy this inherent defect.
      Courageously Grattan attempts an explanation of motivation, 'the common drive for power' which takes these politicians to the top job. She identifies, for example, childhood hardship as a factor with a number of them. This is interesting but a less than comprehensive explanation. Perhaps it's just ambition, which for a variety of reasons, is made of sterner stuff than that of the many other hopefuls who embark on political careers. Politics also has an element of luck, of being in the right place at the right time. Stanley Melbourne Bruce is the best example of this, Malcolm Fraser perhaps another.
      The twenty-five men seem to fall neatly into two groups, BM and AM (before and after Menzies). Menzies, the longest serving Prime Minister, and perhaps most dominant, bestrode the middle years of the century and Allan Martin (a biographer of Menzies) in an excellent chapter tells us why.
      Like most Australians I knew too little about the before Menzies Prime Ministers and, like some, too much about those who succeeded him. Perhaps this is why the biographies of the early Prime Ministers interested me most. But there is another reason. The longer historical perspective provides an assessment free from contemporary emotions and partisan sentiment. With political biography distance lends detachment to the view. Stuart Macintyre's chapter on Deakin, for example, succinctly captures his idealism, powerful intellect, mysticism and quirky erraticism which made him an enigma to his contemporaries and a headache for historians. And Judith Brett provides a compelling explanation (long overdue) of why Bruce became and remained Prime Minister for nearly seven years.
      The problem of absence of distance between author and subject is well illustrated in Clem Lloyd's chapter on Gough Whitlam. Here even longevity, and in particular parliamentary longevity, is claimed as a unique virtue. Early in the chapter Lloyd refers to the 'Flourishing Whitlam Industry'. Two paragraphs later it becomes clear that Lloyd is an essential part of it. Noting that Whitlam's father had a long and distinguished career in the public service which overlapped with Gough's parliamentary career, Lloyd writes that their joint contribution to public life 'constitutes a dynastic achievement without peer in the Australian experience'. The only analogy he finds is in fifteenth century England with the Earl of Chatham (Pitt the Elder) and William Pitt (Pitt the Younger). One wonders whose fertile mind thought of that, and who imagines that this sort of thing adds lustre to Whitlam's considerable achievements.
      Dynasties in Australian political life in fact belong to the Conservatives with the Anthony and Downer families, each having chalked up three generations of prominent parliamentarians. If Gough Whitlam's capable son, Tony, had (after a short parliamentary career) survived the Labor Party's disastrous election defeat of 1977, dynastic ambition may have become a reality. Neal Blewett rates Bob Hawke as the greatest Prime Minister since Menzies 'because of the achievement of his government and his central role in that achievement'. Partisan as I might be, I think I agree with that assessment, I would do so with greater conviction if one could separate out Hawke's first six outstanding years as Prime Minister, from the last two years of internal conflict and indecision.
      Menzies handled the succession problem by disposing of his potential rival like Casey. Hawke had a more difficult problem with Keating and his mishandling of it culminated in the ridiculous Kirribilli agreement, subsequently dishonoured. This, together with Hawke's declining electoral appeal and the lapse in economic management in the face of an oncoming recession tarnished the last couple of years of Hawke's Prime Ministership.
      Neal Blewett, as a former Hawke Minister, is the only inside dopester amongst the contributors to this book. This is perhaps more of an inhibition than a benefit, something which he largely overcomes in a fairly comprehensive and nicely written analysis. Insiders, however, seldom agree on everything and as a sensitive soul I found Blewett's analogy of my playing 'Brutus to HaydenÕs Caesar' at the time of the leadership change distinctly sloppy. If Hayden was stabbed by me it was in the front, not the back. And Hayden was no Caesar. Hawke was, and Blewett, who in his own political career always teetered on the periphery at times of difficult decisions, became a minister for ten years and subsequently a deft picker of plums from the platter of political patronage. Distance will no doubt lend detachment to this view.
      Paul Kelly's chapter on Malcolm Fraser is perhaps the best of the post-Menzies contributions. Though a journalist by profession he has the instincts of a historian and a rare understanding of the tides in the affairs of men in which Fraser swam and ultimately sank.

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