by John Howard
Yet, given the older belief that smoking calmed the nerves, and the horrors which these men had experienced, their nicotine addiction was entirely understandable. With none of the reasons my father had, I smoked from the age of 21 until I was 39, finally kicking the habit while I was Treasurer in the Fraser Government. I didn’t find it easy, and given what Dad had experienced in war, I could understand why he kept smoking until a few months before his death.
1954 was the last year that my father enjoyed reasonably good health. A combination of the chronic bronchitis which afflicted him as well as intense worrying about his business exacted its toll. The following year saw his health collapse dramatically: he suffered in rapid succession from pleurisy and an attack of double pneumonia. Dad spent a large part of 1955 resting at home, away from his business. He would be there when I returned from school. We would often talk politics or play chess. It was, despite Dad’s ill-health, a wonderful conjunction in our lives which drew us much closer together in the space of just a few months. Regrettably it was not to last.
Towards the end of the year he made arrangements to lease the business to a trusted associate who had operated the workshop in the garage for close to a decade. Sadly, on the very day, 30 November, that he was to hand over he died suddenly of a cerebral haemorrhage, at the age of 59. When it happened I was playing cricket for my school at Blick Oval, Canterbury. My brother Wal arrived and told me that Dad had suffered a stroke, and that I should come home. When we were both in his car he put his arm around me and simply said, ‘He’s gone.’
I missed my father intensely. We had really got to know each other so much better during the last two years of his life; we had found a great common point of interest in politics. On many occasions, years later, I would think to myself how much pride Dad would have derived from my political career. Those last months in 1955, when we spent much more time with each other, I recall even to this day.
Understandably, my life changed enormously after the death of my father. My two eldest brothers had both married only months before his death, Bob had left school and gone to teachers’ college and, as a result, I was thrown even more into the company of my mother. We talked endlessly about family history, current events and, of course, the need for me to succeed at school and go on to university.
2
INDULGING THE TASTE
Although undecided until my last year at school, I enrolled at Sydney University for a law degree. There is no doubt that I was influenced by my brother Stan having become a lawyer. He became a partner in one of Sydney’s best-known firms, Stephen Jaques and Stephen (much later Mallesons), aged only 27, and would be a most successful and highly regarded corporate lawyer as the years went by.
Thanks to Stan I had a great experience for eight weeks between school and university. He arranged a job for me as an assistant to a barrister’s clerk in Denman Chambers in Phillip Street, Sydney. In Phillip Street, each floor of barristers was looked after by a clerk; the really good ones were invaluable, such as Jack Craig, with whom Stan had arranged my job. The barristers looked after by Jack Craig were some of the best and most colourful then at the Sydney bar. They included Clive Evatt QC, brother of Bert, then still federal Labor leader. The latter often turned up and used the chambers for some of his meetings. The brothers were a big contrast. Clive was likeable and amusing. Bert was sullen and unfriendly. John Kerr was another cared for by Jack Craig. Kerr was friendly and stylish. Amongst other things, I did his banking. He had a good practice.
Another prominent one in the group was Ken Asprey QC, who became a judge, and who in the 1970s would write a report for the federal government recommending major taxation reform. I was just the office boy but, given the personalities involved and the taste of the legal profession I was able to indulge, it was a heady experience. I was very grateful to Stan for setting it up. It was my first paying job. When I served petrol in my father’s garage I was paid son’s rates!
When aged about nine, I had been identified with a hearing problem, during a routine health check conducted at my school. It was an affliction that I had been born with and, whilst something of a nuisance during my younger days, it was not until I entered my later teens that it became a real hindrance. It worsened quite markedly during my first year at university, and by my second year I had to wear a large and not particularly effective hearing aid.
Deafness made it very difficult for me at lectures. I would sit as close as possible to the lecturer with my hearing aid turned up, but still missed a lot. I owed much to some of my law school friends, who generously lent me their notes. Although I was reluctant to admit it to myself at the time, my bad hearing really meant that I could never become a barrister, something which I had had at the back of my mind for a long time. In 1960, I underwent an operation which gave me back some hearing in my right ear, and in 1963 there was a similar operation on my left ear. These two operations gave me about 60 per cent of normal hearing. This was a huge improvement, and I felt very grateful to the surgeon, the late Sir George Halliday.
Despite a restorative operation on my right ear in 1985, my hearing continued to deteriorate, but fortunately the development of modern and inconspicuous hearing aids meant that I have been able to retain reasonably serviceable hearing.
Directly enrolling for a law degree meant that all of my university time was spent at the law school in Phillip Street, Sydney. I only ever went to the main university campus to sit for exams, or attend Union Night debates, which I did fairly frequently. Lectures in Phillip Street were spread amongst the main law school building, the old Phillip Street Theatre and the Teachers Federation Building.
Some 250 enrolled in the first year, of which fewer than 20 were women. Thirty-five years later, when my daughter, Melanie, enrolled at Sydney University Law School, more than 50 per cent of the first-year intake were women.
Like all academic years the class of ’57 had its share of students who achieved eminence in their chosen profession. It included Terry Cole, later a Supreme Court judge, a Building Industry Royal Commissioner and the man who conducted the Australian Wheat Board Inquiry. There was also Roger Gyles QC, who became a Federal Court judge and had previously been a Special Prosecutor pursuing illegally evaded tax. Murray Gleeson and Michael Kirby, later Chief Justice and a justice, respectively, of the High Court were in the class of ’58.
My first two years were full-time, and then I commenced three years of articles with a solicitor, attending lectures early in the day and late in the afternoon. With the law school in easy walking distance, such a daily schedule worked smoothly.
My lecturers were a mixture of academics and practising lawyers. The doyen of the academics was Professor Julius Stone, Challis Professor of Jurisprudence and International Law. Julius Stone had a formidable intellect. An erudite English Jew, he had written a landmark textbook on international law. He was a lecturer of mine in 1960, the year in which the Israelis snatched Adolf Eichmann from Argentina and flew him to Israel for trial for his alleged major role in the Holocaust. There was much debate about the legality of what the Israelis had done. Stone held a public lecture on the legality of the Israeli action at the old Assembly Hall in Margaret Street, Sydney. I went to the lecture with three of my law school friends, Marcus Einfeld, Peter Strasser and Murray Tobias, all of whom were Jewish.
It was an emotional issue for them, especially for Peter, whose family had been directly touched by the Holocaust. After the lecture, the four of us stood on the steps of the hall, locked in furious argument about what Stone had said. Despite his understandable sympathy with the Jewish cause, Stone had applied his customary juridical objectivity to the issue. I fully agreed with what Israel had done. Eichmann, who played a key role in implementing the Nazis’ ‘Final Solution’ for the extermination of the Jewish people, decided upon in 1942, was convicted and hanged in Israel.
A relatively young Bill Deane tutored me in the subject of succession (probate and death duties). He became a judge of the Hig
h Court, and was appointed Governor-General, on the recommendation of Paul Keating, taking up that position just before the change of government in 1996. Deane’s first major duty as Governor-General was to swear me in as Prime Minister, on 11 March 1996.
I had graduated from the Sydney University Law School in early 1961, and in June 1962, having completed my articles, was admitted to practise as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. My articles were served with one of the most colourful and remarkable people I have ever known, Myer Rosenblum. As a youngster Myer had emigrated from South Africa with his family, who settled in Marrickville, not far from my father’s garage. Myer’s father became a regular customer at the garage. When Myer qualified as a solicitor and commenced his own practice, my father returned the compliment and engaged him as his solicitor.
Myer Rosenblum had very diverse tastes and talents. He had represented Australia at rugby union, having played breakaway (flanker) for the 1928 Waratahs; was a hurdler at the 1932 NSW Championships; represented Australia as a hammer thrower in the 1938 Empire Games in Sydney; and held the NSW hammer throw record for something like 20 years. A cultivated person, he played the bassoon in the Sydney Conservatorium Orchestra, spoke fluent German and Yiddish, and began to teach himself Italian when in his 50s.
My becoming articled to Myer Rosenblum followed the making of close friendships with a number of Jewish students at law school. One of them, Peter Strasser, remains a very close friend. Thus began, for me, a long association with members of the Jewish community in Australia. Those early friendships, and the experience I gained from working with much of the Jewish clientele which Myer’s firm attracted, created within me a deep respect, and in many ways affection, for the Jewish people.
As Prime Minister, I saw to it that Australia remained a staunch ally and friend of Israel. This was more than just a projection onto the international stage of my home-grown regard for Jewish people. I admired the remarkable struggle of the people of Israel against hostile Arab neighbours, and the democratic character of that country.
In 2006, Australia and the United States, almost alone amongst Western democracies, backed Israel in opposing a UN resolution condemning the latter for constructing a wall to protect its people against terrorists. I was staggered at the level of international hostility towards Israel over her action, which seemed to me to be a clear-cut case of self-defence.
Although I had joined the Earlwood branch of the Young Liberals when I was 18, participated in general campaigning for the 1958 federal election in the local area where I lived, and was briefly a member of the Sydney University Liberal Club, it was not until I had left university that I became really active in politics.
Largely due to my hearing problem, I found university quite taxing. I was reluctant to get too heavily involved in other activities until I knew that I would qualify as a lawyer. As a result, my experience was very different from that of many of my colleagues, who cut their teeth on university politics.
Once out of university, I hurled myself into Liberal Party activities, both at a local and NSW level. I took over the presidency of the local Young Liberal branch and became very active in the Youth Council, which comprised delegates from the various Young Liberal branches in the Sydney metropolitan area.
It was easy for cynics to dismiss Young Liberal activities as being entirely social and lacking in political gravitas. That was a superficial judgement. Sure there was plenty of social activity — and of course, why not? — but to those who were so inclined there were ample opportunities for political involvement. The Youth Council was a great forum for debate on contemporary political issues, and the physical participation of young people in local campaigns was especially welcome.
In those days members of parliament (MPs) did not have postal allowances; we were years away from direct-mail campaigns. Hand delivery of pamphlets to individual letterboxes, usually at night, was the staple way of getting the local candidate’s message across.
My first experience of serious organisational politics was my election, in 1962, as the Young Liberal representative on the state executive of the NSW division of the Liberal Party. This body was the power centre of the party in NSW and included the leader and deputy leader of the state parliamentary party as well as the most senior member from New South Wales of the Menzies Government. I was now involved in genuine politics.
It was then that I first really got to know John Carrick, the general secretary of the party in New South Wales, a person who would influence me enormously over the years. He was to become my political mentor. I learned more about politics from John than from any other person I have known.
He had become the party’s general secretary, the chief executive officer, in 1948 at the age of 29. During World War II, when a member of the Sparrow Force in Timor, he was captured by the Japanese and as a prisoner of war spent time working on the infamous Burma–Thailand railway. John would hold the position of general secretary for 23 years, until his election to the Senate in 1971. He became a senior minister in the Fraser Government, and served as Leader of the Government in the Senate, until that government was defeated in 1983.
Possessed of abundant energy, as well as immense organisational skills, John always realised that politics was a battle of ideas — a philosophical contest — and not merely a public relations competition. He drew many people to his orbit through the force of his intellect and his indefatigable commitment to the political cause of the Liberal Party. To him, one of the roles of a general secretary was to act as a constant talent scout for people who might contribute as members of parliament, irrespective of whether they were members of the party.
He formed a close relationship with Menzies, who much admired his tactical and strategic abilities. To my mind, one of John Carrick’s immense contributions to the continuing political success of the Liberal Party was the role he played along with others in persuading the Prime Minister to embrace a policy of direct government assistance to independent (principally Catholic) schools. This change was an important factor in the Liberal victory, federally, in 1963. Thus began the most enduring demographic shift in Australian politics in the past generation, namely the change in allegiance of a whole swag of middle-class Catholic voters, who hitherto had remained loyal to the Labor Party for none other than tribal reasons.
Until the 1960s the ALP was the party of choice for the majority of Australian Catholics. Theology played no part in this; it was driven by socioeconomic factors, with Irish Catholics being predominantly of a working-class background. The sectarianism of earlier generations served to reinforce this alignment. Although the warming of Catholics towards the Liberal Party had begun in earnest with Menzies’ state aid gesture in 1963, the first Fraser cabinet of 1975 still included only one Catholic, Phillip Lynch. Over the coming years the dam would really burst on this old divide. One-half of the final Howard cabinet in 2007 were Catholics. Once again this had nothing to do with religion, it being the inevitable consequence of a socioeconomic realignment.
When education became ‘free, compulsory and secular’ in the 1860s, Australian Catholics resolved to maintain their own school system, at enormous ongoing cost both to parents and the faithful. There was no government help for them. The prevailing view, in a much more sectarian age, was that those who sent their children to Catholic schools should bear the full cost of that choice: the free public system was available to Catholics and Protestants alike. As the decades rolled on, Catholic resentment grew, especially as, there being 20 per cent or so of the school-age population in Catholic schools, the state was relieved of a large financial burden.
By the 1960s attitudes had changed. There was more recognition of the immense sacrifice made by Catholics to keep their education system; sectarianism had begun to crumble and there was a realisation that state schools would not cope if the Catholic system collapsed.
Menzies, the self-styled ‘simple Presbyterian’, became persuaded of the justice of the Catholic argument. In the 1
963 election campaign he promised money for all schools in Australia to construct science blocks. Inspired politics, it was also cultural balm, and aided the decline of sectarianism. This symbolic breakthrough led over time to extensive funding of independent schools in Australia, with the greatest help going to those who were in most need.
The Menzies thrust was not easily accepted throughout the Liberal Party and internal debate continued to rage. Early in 1964 I pushed a pro-state aid motion through the Youth Council, which struck real turbulence. The Liberal leader in New South Wales (later premier), Bob Askin, remained very sensitive about opposition to the policy within the party and was still to summon the courage to assert the merits of it at a state level in the way that Menzies had federally. During a telephone conversation with me, Askin remonstrated about the pro-state aid position of the Young Liberals, even musing that perhaps the Young Liberals might have to be closed down if they continued to cause trouble. That did not change the Youth Council’s view.
Askin was an earthy and instinctive politician who loved horseracing, rugby league and card playing. He won four elections for the NSW Liberals, far ahead of any other Liberal leader in that state.
The 1963 election was a real triumph for Menzies. He called it a year early and increased his slender majority of two to 22. For me, the personal high of that election was the victory of Tom Hughes QC in the electorate of Parkes. I was still living in Earlwood, which was in this electorate, and was Tom’s campaign director. He needed a swing of some 6 to 7 per cent, something he did not believe that he would achieve. It was a classic grassroots campaign, attracting much high-profile attention.