Tiberius with a Telephone

by Patrick Mullins

  If true, it is likely that McEwen’s favour saved McMahon. For, despite the press reports and rumours, he was not dropped. McMahon was given Athol Townley’s former portfolio of social services. Was it a demotion? Potentially. The new role did not give him any extra seniority, but, as The Sydney Morning Herald noted, the portfolio itself was more fitted to McMahon’s ‘natural bent’.71 Largely an administrative outpost that was heavily influenced by Treasury, the social services portfolio funnelled McMahon’s predilection for economics into a useful outlet and gave him valuable experience.

  His work was aided by a gradual convergence between the Coalition and Labor Party on social-security measures. For although the government had roundly criticised Evatt’s promise to abolish the means test within the next term, its objection was only to the speed of the idea. The Coalition itself had promised the abolition of the means test at the 1949 election; the difficulties and the delay in doing so had not dissuaded it from the goal. ‘We will continue vigorously the work of modifying it, having in mind the majority of hard cases,’ Menzies had said, in the May campaign.72

  In September, now settled into the social services portfolio, McMahon introduced further modifications. The Social Services Act 1954 provided for a 75 per cent increase in the permissible income allowed to pensioners, liberalised the property test to exclude income derived from property, and raised the limits on property tests by £500.73 The first measure was not as generous as it sounded, considering the rise in price levels, but the changes to the tests on property were among the ways that the government would encourage home ownership, work, and thrift. ‘It is an essential element of Liberal policy that people should be given incentives to work and save, and by this means to increase the amount of property owned by them,’ McMahon said. ‘Both work and savings are necessary if we are to ensure full employment and progress, with a reasonable level of stability for the purchasing power of money.’74

  The ALP was keen to criticise the meagre increase to pensions, and McMahon’s circumstances — his personal wealth and his bachelorhood — gave them the opening. Their criticisms were such that Percy Joske, a Liberal backbencher from Victoria, leaped to McMahon’s defence with a curiously convoluted argument. McMahon, he said:

  […] does not need to worry about his own domestic troubles — as he does not have any — and he does not have to engage in the battle for money, because he is sufficiently well furnished with it now. Therefore, he can devote his attention to the work of his department.75

  McMahon was certainly hardworking, but he did have help. Bill Wakeling, a field officer of the Liberal Party who was not on McMahon’s payroll, kept a close eye on the electorate, so much so that some jokingly called him the ‘real member for Lowe’. McMahon’s private secretary, the tall and elegant Val Kentish, took care of his diary and personal affairs, and was the first point of contact for those wanting him to do anything. ‘If you wanted something done,’ said Alan Wright, by now treasurer of the Liberal’s Lowe federal electorate conference, ‘you went to Val, not to McMahon.’76 And although he had a reputation for being a social butterfly, McMahon was hardly much for parties. He ate most of his meals in restaurants, and rarely drank. Undistracted by the needs of a family or a volatile electorate, McMahon would work long hours in his flat in Elizabeth Bay, delving into his portfolio, telephoning officials all through the night, in his efforts to master it completely. In cabinet, he would be well prepared as a matter of routine, able and willing to speak on matters outside his portfolio, occasionally to the annoyance of his colleagues.

  Proving his merit seemed to occupy his mind. McMahon was determined to succeed. Eddie Ward had declared him a ‘hopeless failure’ in the departments of navy and air, and greeted news of his new appointment with a moan: ‘God help the pensioners of this country when they are placed at the mercy of this kind of Government and this type of Minister.’77 Whether or not this stung more than his near dropping from cabinet, McMahon worked to establish himself in the portfolio and make his mark.

  On 21 October, he introduced an amendment to the War Service Homes Act, which had been passed in the aftermath of World War I to help ex-servicemen and their dependents finance and build homes. McMahon’s Bill extended its provisions to eligible ex-servicemen living in Papua New Guinea and Norfolk Island, and increased the size of the maximum loan available. The changes were again aimed at increasing home ownership and emphasising the primacy of the family. ‘Family life is the foundation of a vigorous, contented and healthy community,’ he said. ‘Homes are essential if the family is to live a dignified and full life.’78 Critical of the slow rate of the construction of homes, Labor was forthcoming with support; the colourful Les Haylen even commended McMahon for his ‘great skill’ in handling the Bill.79 Labor was less enamoured, however, with McMahon’s propensity for endless gabbering.

  ‘Will the Honourable member come in and land?’ deputy opposition leader Arthur Calwell interjected, as McMahon offered a nine-minute reply to the congratulations that were extended to him.

  ‘What does that mean?’ asked McMahon.

  ‘Finish quickly,’ Calwell barked.80

  Two weeks later, McMahon introduced the Aged Persons Homes Bill, which allowed the Commonwealth to make grants, on a pound-for-pound basis, to churches, charitable bodies, and institutions that provided homes for the elderly. It was, to some extent, an overdue measure. For years, as McMahon noted, volunteer organisations had been the only ones working in the area, developing, building, and maintaining roughly 200 aged-care institutions throughout the country, almost entirely without aid.81 Menzies had long resisted calls for the Commonwealth to step in, arguing that the federal government’s authority to engage in home building was limited. But during the election, prompted by an offhand comment from his wife, he had announced a pledge to intervene.82 An appropriation of £1.5m was made for 1954–55. ‘A flea-bite, economically speaking,’ Les Haylen commented, but nonetheless ‘a happy beginning to a good scheme’.83

  It was. The Act provided a model for future schemes within Aboriginal housing, aged persons hostels, women’s refuges, and accommodation for the homeless. Within ten years, more than 1,000 grants had been approved through the Act, providing accommodation for more than 18,000 people.84 For a minister attuned to opportunities for publicity and tirelessly able to exploit them, the measure was unalloyed gold. McMahon could — and did, repeatedly — visit a home with press in tow and show to the country, by the presentation of a cheque, that it had a government and a minister that cared. It was McMahon’s biggest triumph as minister for social services, and Labor hated it.85

  But McMahon was not always concerned about the press and public relations, according to Queensland senator Annabelle Rankin. He had a personal investment in the work that went with the social services portfolio, particularly where it related to children. She observed seeing tears in his eyes while they visited one establishment:

  On one occasion a little child was learning to walk again. His father had come for this special occasion and stayed at one end of the room offering words of encouragement. The little child, with all the confidence he could muster, and with hope in his bright little eyes, stepped out bravely one or two steps to take his father’s hands. I can remember as we left Bill McMahon saying, ‘What courage! I must never forget it when the path for me is getting rough!’86

  By this time, the path was getting rough for Labor. Evatt’s failure to win the 1954 election and concern about his ability to lead the ALP, intensified by his decision to appear before the Petrov royal commission on behalf of members of his own staff, saw his authority challenged and his suspicions provoked. In August, the right-wing West Australian MP Tom Burke sought to unseat Evatt from the party’s leadership. The attempt failed, but subsequent publication of Alan Reid’s profile of Bartholomew Augustine Santamaria, the ‘Svengali’ of a shadowy group nicknamed The Movement, gave Evatt’s seething paranoia and frustrations somethi
ng real to latch onto. Early in October, he issued a statement condemning Santamaria, an act that enraged the hardline anti-communists within the federal caucus. On 20 October, the Tasmanian senator George Cole moved a spill of leadership positions. The motion was lost on the voices, but Evatt decided to flush out his enemies. He leaped onto a table, grasping a pencil and paper, red-faced and excited. ‘Get their names, get their names!’87 he demanded.

  Over subsequent months, the ALP fractured and split, with seven MPs expelled from the party, only to reconstitute themselves as the ‘Australian Labor Party (Anti-Communist)’ when Parliament resumed in April the following year. And after the royal commission’s final report into the Petrov matter was tabled in September, Evatt’s conduct caused further alarm. The leader of the opposition announced that he had written to the Soviet foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, to ascertain the veracity of the documents brought over by Petrov. To gales of laughter, Evatt argued that Petrov’s defection had been used as a ‘rabbit out of a hat’ to revive the communist bogey-man, that the royal commission had been a stunt, and that facts had been kept from the public until the 1954 election was over. Evatt accused the prime minister of knowing all about Petrov since as far back as 1953. ‘He did not!’ McMahon yelled, but Evatt remained glued to his narrative of trickery and deceit, of dishonour and conspiracy.88

  Menzies responded by calling an election. As he wrote, ‘it would be flying in the face of Providence not to seize the opportunity’.89 Terminating Evatt’s career would be a bonus to enlarging the government’s majority, which was exactly what happened on 10 December. The Coalition’s hold on government tightened. Its seven-seat majority became twenty-eight. McMahon’s 6 per cent margin in Lowe became 10 per cent.90

  ‘For many years I thought that when Sophocles made Oedipus Rex kill his father and marry his mother it illustrated the inscrutable workings of fate and unpredictability of life,’ McMahon had written to Menzies in August. But this, he went on, was not really the truth. ‘The story is intended to show that life follows certain immutable patterns and works out according to the designs of Apollo. This explanation is an enormous help to me,’ McMahon declared, ‘as I was becoming a little uneasy about destiny.’91

  For the moment, it might have seemed, design was keeping McMahon and the Liberal Party in government.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Undoctored Incident

  1984

  Early in March 1984, Campbell passed Bowman a ‘thought for the week’. Addressed ‘to the editor’, it was a bit of verse of Campbell’s own composition:

  Ah! What avails Sir William’s sense,

  And what the cultured word,

  Against the undoctored incident

  That actually occurred.1

  Lighthearted though it was, that slip of paper summed up one of the most difficult questions that Bowman and Campbell were confronting: the gulf between what McMahon believed had happened and what the documentary record could establish.

  Sometimes the gap was insignificant, and stemmed from the way words were used. On an early draft that described the hardships of McMahon’s service in the militia in the 1920s, for example, Bowman could be cutting: ‘This must surely have been the school cadets.’2 At other times, Bowman had to reason with McMahon. When they discussed the colours controversy, which McMahon wanted to cover in-depth, McMahon told Bowman that the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh had been present for the RAAF presentation at Point Cook. ‘I explained as gently as possible that the ceremony was in September 1952 and they weren’t in Australia,’ Bowman wrote in his diary that night. ‘He kept on and eventually trailed off into incoherencies.’3

  At other times, McMahon could be as adamant and implacable as Bowman had ever seen. While trying to straighten out the chronology of McMahon’s 1952 visit to Korea and Japan, he came up against a wall. McMahon insisted that he had been in Korea at Christmas. Bowman checked McMahon’s passport. It was stamped with a 14 December return to Australia. This did not convince McMahon that he was mistaken: ‘He was certain.’4 McMahon suggested Bowman call Sir Thomas Daly, who had been serving in Korea during McMahon’s visit. Daly backed the ghostwriter. ‘He says he has a distinct memory of that Christmas and you were not there,’ Bowman wrote to McMahon. ‘He recalls your carrying a message from the Army Minister, Jos Francis, for delivery to the troops. However, the men were widely scattered and only a few could be brought together.’5

  When he received the note, McMahon came to Bowman’s office. He denied carrying a message from Francis, and said he would call Daly himself. McMahon cited the Parliamentary Handbook, said he was in Japan and Korea from November to December, and ‘that should be good enough’.

  Angered, frustrated, Bowman threw McMahon’s passport onto the desk. ‘Then what do I do — burn this?’

  McMahon’s eyes widened, and he glared at his ghostwriter. He brandished the Parliamentary Handbook and asked the same question.

  Bowman tried to point out that the Handbook was correct, that McMahon had been in Japan and Korea in November and December — but that it did not mean he was there at Christmas.

  McMahon would not hear it. He left Bowman’s office, arguing as he went, only to return a few minutes later: ‘I don’t want to pursue it further,’ he announced.6

  There were also claims that could not be backed up by documents. McMahon wrote that he had attempted to resign when the House of Representatives jailed the journalists Frank Browne and Raymond Fitzpatrick for offences under parliamentary privilege, in 1955. McMahon had objected to the whole affair on grounds that their criticism of the offended member, Charles Morgan, centred on actions taken before Morgan was elected. The Clerk of the House, McMahon said, had agreed with him, based on a common reading of Erskine May’s Parliamentary Practice, the widely used authority on parliamentary procedure. When Menzies canvassed jailing the two journalists in a cabinet meeting, McMahon had stormed out, saying he would not go along with it. It was only when Eric Harrison confronted him in a lavatory and asked him to talk to Menzies that McMahon stayed his hand. At Menzies’ request, McMahon withdrew the resignation. How could that be proven?7

  At other points, McMahon seemed to wish to overblow minor matters, even if they had the potential to backfire. The Canberra bomber episode was one example that he intended to include in the book. In 1954, The Sunday Telegraph had quoted him suggesting that a new bomber would soon be a necessary addition to the RAAF fleet. Menzies had cabled him immediately: ‘I can find no record of submission of any such proposals to Cabinet and would therefore be glad to have either your denial or your explanation.’8 Touring the country, McMahon had said that the Canberra’s limited capability meant Australia would need a new bomber: ‘We need bigger and faster jet bombers like the Victor Vulcan and Valiant just going into production in England.’9 Nonetheless, from Darwin, McMahon denied all. ‘I have never criticised Canberra bomber in any form … Statement alleged to have been made by me in one paper not made and I understand was subsequently withdrawn by paper,’ he cabled Menzies.10

  The prime minister was not to let him off the hook. ‘That being so you should take steps to have denial issued in Sydney,’ he cabled McMahon. ‘Statement will have been received with glee by our opponents.’11

  What could McMahon say, here? What new light could he shed on this?

  Some points were tantalising. A story McMahon told of the origins of the Aged Persons Homes Bill struck Bowman as possessing some consequence. At McMahon’s request, he called Billy Wentworth to hear more. What he heard surprised him. ‘Wentworth seemed to confirm some of W.M.’s story about origins of Aged Persons Homes Act.’12 Was it different from the explanation that Menzies had given? The prime minister had claimed the measure as his own — did McMahon’s story conflict with that?13 Or was it the same?

  Exposed everyday in the process of writing the autobiography was an abyss: between what the documents could and could not establi
sh; what the individual could recall, forget, and believe; between different ways of reading and understanding the past; between reality and perception; between truth and falsity. Bowman could hardly tell McMahon that his truthfulness, or lack of it, would harm the book: he needed to retain McMahon’s trust and goodwill to get the job done. But, repeatedly, Bowman was asking himself the same question. What actually occurred?

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Control

  1956–1958

  John McEwen was facing a dilemma. By the mid-1950s he could foresee that he would soon become leader of the Country Party. Arthur Fadden was ageing and unlikely to continue for much longer; when he retired, McEwen was sure to take over. But McEwen was aware that the realisation of this ambition would be accompanied by problems. With Fadden gone, the Liberal Party was sure to demand that one of its own become treasurer. Unless he was prepared to take the portfolio himself, and thereby surrender control of the areas that were his party’s chief concern, McEwen had to find a way to counter the influence of a Treasury not controlled by the Country Party.