The campaign was marked by two events, neither of which was to Labor’s advantage: the death of Archbishop Mannix on 6 November, and the assassination of US president John F. Kennedy on 22 November. ALP federal secretary Cyril Wyndham was in no doubt about the effect. ‘That’s us, we’re finished,’ he thought when he heard news of the latter. ‘No way, no way, can we win the election.’78
On polling day, the government was returned with a majority of twenty-two, including its Speaker. The uncertainty of 1961 vanished. In Lowe, a seven-point swing back to the Liberal Party saw McMahon return to his comfortable majority.79
INITIALLY, the National Service component of McMahon’s portfolio did not occupy much of his time. But in 1963, concerned about the potential of conflict in Australia’s immediate region, and conscious that full employment was dampening recruitment for the armed services, options to increase military manpower were openly canvassed in the defence committee of cabinet.80 The army tried to resist any mention of conscription, objecting to the part-time nature of previous schemes and the inability to enforce an obligation for service outside Australia, but pressure for its reintroduction mounted nonetheless. Cabinet’s concern at the gap between the army’s targeted strength of 33,000 men and existing strength of 22,500 did not dissipate, especially as the visibility of Australian, British, and American involvement in South-East Asia continued.81
After the 1963 election, that involvement grew increasingly urgent. The United States was escalating its military presence in Vietnam to support the anti-communist government of South Vietnam against the threat posed by the communist North Vietnamese government of Ho Chi Minh. There was pressure from the US about military capability and requests for assistance; the new US president, Lyndon Johnson, spoke of his hope that ‘some other flags’ would soon appear alongside America’s in South Vietnam.82 The government’s attitude hardened, prompted by concern among its backbenchers and criticism by the DLP. The Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964, persistent tensions with Indonesia over the newly-formed Malaysian Federation, and the detonation of China’s first atomic bomb in October nudged matters further. Early in November 1964, the defence minister, senator Shane Paltridge, submitted to cabinet the army’s grudging proposal for a selective national service scheme that could make up for a shortfall in voluntary recruitment. Paltridge, however, noted that responsibility for a national service scheme would be the responsibility of McMahon’s Department of Labour and National Service — and that it was hostile to the idea, complaining of the political and administrative problems such a scheme would pose.83
Cabinet ignored the objections. It directed that a compulsory, selective national service scheme for the army be established immediately, to be legislated before the half-Senate election, pencilled in for the end of the year. To be composed of twenty-year-old males selected via ballot for two years’ full-time service, with liability for overseas service ‘as required’ and three years’ reserve service afterward, the aim of the scheme was to increase the army’s strength to 33,000 by the end of 1966.84
It was a sudden, clumsy, and very public about-face. As late as 26 October, the minister for the army, the member for Barker, Dr Jim Forbes, had disavowed any intention of introducing conscription,85 yet on 10 November Menzies had announced it, and the next day — ironically, Remembrance Day — McMahon was at the despatch box, presenting the legislation.86
The hurry was apparent. The poor preparation was obvious.87 Questions about its scope, its exemptions, its reasons, and its injustices failed to receive satisfactory answers. Twenty-year-olds could not vote — yet they would be conscripted. There were suggestions that university students would be exempt, yet McMahon stated that students who ‘failed to be diligent with their studies’ could be forced to join.88 Whether migrants would be subject to the call-up caused confusion even between McMahon and Menzies. ‘We were at cross-purposes here,’ the prime minister admitted in the House.89
The ALP’s response was immediate. Calwell accused the government of ‘torpor and smugness’ in defence policy. He called the government hasty, confused, and inconsistent. He was scathing about the macabre lottery system that would select conscripts, and declared Labor’s total opposition to the National Service Act.90
The government’s move and Labor’s bluster amounted to a stalemate at the half-Senate election held on 5 December 1964. Though the Coalition attracted a 4 per cent swing, both parties won fourteen seats, with two going to the DLP.91 As a result, the government would lose its majority in the Senate after 1 July 1965. It would take time for the opposition to conscription to find its voice.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Exposure
1984
Nothing delighted McMahon more in retirement than receiving attention. He was at his happiest when he could say something, and see it that evening on the news or the next day in the newspaper. He was always ready to comment, deride, or make a prediction — as he accurately did in March, saying that New South Wales premier Neville Wran would enjoy a comfortable win over Nick Greiner at the pending election. He was especially delighted with the reception to his remarks that Bob Hawke was the ‘one who can do best in ensuring the foundations of the economic and financial system of Australia’.1
Exposure seemed to renew him, give him another burst of energy. Even the promise of it was enough for him to say yes. When, in March, a man with a video camera came to the office and asked him to tape a video for his father’s sixtieth birthday, McMahon beggared his staff by agreeing. He smiled and waved into the camera, saying, ‘Happy birthday, George.’ Joyce Cawthorn sniffed at this silliness: McMahon didn’t know the man from Adam, she told Bowman.2
At other times, McMahon’s willingness to say yes led him to odd encounters. In May, while a royal commission studied the Menzies government’s decision to allow British nuclear tests in Australia between 1958 and 1963, a television crew came to the office to quiz McMahon about Maralinga. McMahon allowed himself to be questioned on camera for an hour, but afterwards he had so little idea of the details that he had to ask Cawthorn when the programme would be shown. ‘He didn’t know which programme or who had interviewed him,’ an astonished Bowman wrote in his diary.
Cawthorn was little help: despite the fact that the crew had come carrying video cameras, she had thought the interview was for radio. So did George Campbell. Bowman, perturbed but proactive, looked at the weekly television guide. Then he suggested that they check if the interview was intended for Terry Willesee’s programme on Channel 7. Still marveling at the obliviousness of Cawthorn and Campbell, and worried by McMahon’s tenuous grip on reality, he at least had the satisfaction of writing in his diary: ‘Struck it in one.’3
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Preparing the Way
1964–1966
McMahon was a demanding and difficult man to work for. For his staff, long days were routine. Being bothered at home by him was ordinary. His whims were frequent. Pat Wheatley, who joined McMahon as an assistant private secretary in 1964, could recall being sacked and then reinstated within a matter of hours.1 Unreasonable demands were par for the course. Overnighting in Orbost once, McMahon found himself without a toothbrush. He called his private secretary, Margaret McLean, and told her to obtain one for him. Somehow, she managed to convince a local chemist to come into town at nine-thirty on a Sunday night, open his store, and allow her to buy a toothbrush. McMahon’s response? Discovering that the toothbrush was red, McMahon told her that he used yellow.2
Sir Richard Kirby observed that McMahon simply never let up about work, that he did not allow for much difference between work and relaxation. ‘You’d be at some social gathering,’ he said later, ‘having a drink with Bill and he’d get you off in a corner and let you know the government’s case backwards and sideways and why this should happen, why that shouldn’t … He just couldn’t restrain himself.’3 Kirby spoke from experience. In 1963, when he deliberately negl
ected to inform McMahon ahead of time of that year’s basic wage decision, Kirby was pestered all night by incessant phone calls from a minister unwilling to take a hint.4
Harry Bland found much the same thing. ‘Daily, nightly, weekends and holiday; he would even follow me around the world!’ he said later.5 Evasions were necessary. Bland’s secretary and wife were enlisted to relay excuses when McMahon telephoned: ‘My wife became quite professional at telling him I was under the house repairing something or on the roof repairing something.’6 Calculated rudeness could temper McMahon’s demands, but inevitably the phone would ring again and his wavering voice could be heard down the line with fresh demands.
On one occasion, Bland was so pestered by repeated phone calls that he exacted revenge. McMahon had asked him to reconsider some advice, and Bland promised to do so. He said he would call back — late, probably, but he would definitely call:
So I went on doing what I was engaged in and around about 11, 11.30, went to bed and set the alarm clock for 4 o’clock. I slept soundly until the alarm clock went off, whereupon I rang him in Sydney and said to him, ‘Well, Bill, I’ve been thinking about this all night, and the answer is still no.’ Well, it stayed no, and I don’t think I got a call from him for another thirty-six hours.7
Peter Kelly, McMahon’s press secretary from 1963, thought his boss ‘intense’. McMahon did not make light-hearted conversation, and he was an inexhaustible worker. He had many acquaintances, but few close friends.8 He rarely lightened up. In his regular games of squash, McMahon was combative, competitive. Kelly worked out that it was easier for all concerned if McMahon won the game: ‘He just hated getting beaten,’ Kelly said.9 The hatred was such that it prompted Tom Hughes, a member of the House of Representatives from 1963 and an occasional squash partner for McMahon, to go to Kelly with a query. No matter how well he played himself, Hughes said, McMahon always seemed to win.
‘I know what he does,’ Kelly replied. ‘He keeps the score.’
‘Yes, he does,’ said Hughes.
‘Well,’ Kelly said, ‘he calls it wrongly, sometimes, so that you can never win. He cheats.’10
McMahon’s competitiveness and intensity, his drive and discipline, never waned. His decision to employ Kelly was a part of that. Press secretaries were rare birds in ministers’ offices. Many did without. Not McMahon. ‘I do need one,’ he said.11
A former journalist for The Bulletin specialising in industrial relations, Kelly became a political adviser as much as a press secretary. He was on hand to point out opportunities and options. Knowing McMahon’s desire to be treasurer, Kelly encouraged him to canvass votes for the deputy leadership of the Liberal Party — a position that would become vacant when Menzies resigned and Holt took over, as was widely expected, before the next election.
Initially, McMahon did not understand. He asked about the leadership. Why could he not stand for that? Kelly pointed out that Holt had it sewn up. But no one would be thinking about the deputy leadership, he said. And why would becoming deputy leader make him treasurer, McMahon wanted to know?
‘It wouldn’t, not automatically,’ said Kelly. ‘But you’d have enough support within the party to suggest that you choose your portfolio — that is, Treasury. Especially with your background.’
Together, they began working through a plan. McMahon obtained a whip’s sheet that contained the names of all Liberal members and senators. He altered it to have three categories — yes, no, and doubtful — and recorded the results of his canvassing of colleagues. Said Kelly: ‘He’d go around approaching people, saying, “I’d like to stand eventually …”’
There were promises, intimations, bargains. William ‘Bill’ Aston, a former colonel in the army, the government whip from mid-1964, and member for the Sydney seat of Phillip, came to Kelly to tell him about an approach from McMahon. ‘I asked him to make sure he gave me a ministry if I voted for him,’ Aston told Kelly. ‘He said yes to that. So, would you tell him from me that I’ll cut his fucking balls off if he doesn’t?’12
Kelly also suggested that McMahon speak with Maxwell Newton, the hotheaded, gap-toothed, and brilliant economics graduate of Cambridge University who had, on the strength of his letter writing, been made political correspondent with the Herald and Australian Financial Review.13 A Hackett scholar, Newton believed that economics and politics were indivisible and that the protectionist policies pursued by McEwen were damaging Australia’s economy. During his rise to managing editor of the AFR, he had repeatedly criticised McEwen’s Department of Trade and the Tariff Board. Upon resigning from Fairfax in the wake of the 1963 election, Newton was snapped up by Rupert Murdoch and appointed editor of his new national broadsheet, The Australian. Newton would be sacked from The Australian in March 1965, but a proliferating stable of newsletters ensured that he remained a key figure. Newton had contacts in the government and the bureaucracy, and his main newsletter, Incentive, was widely read. Kelly told McMahon that getting ‘friendly’ with Newton was in his interests. McMahon agreed, but it took some time for the relationship to warm up. Newton initially complained that McMahon did not really talk for long.
‘Look, the best time to ring him is when he’s got nothing on,’ Kelly said. ‘And that usually is on Saturday morning. Ring him then, and make it a regular arrangement.’
Kelly checked out that doing so was fine with McMahon — and it was. The relationship went from there.14
There were other actions required if McMahon’s ambitions for elevation were to be realised. His hearing was one. His deafness caused problems in the House, where responding to interjections and colleagues was often necessary to winning debates. In the office, it could make the most casual discussion fraught. According to Bland, McMahon ‘never heard intonations, so that when someone made a jocular remark about him, he often took umbrage. He just hadn’t heard the nuance in the speaker’s voice.’15 At Bland’s urging, McMahon went twice to the United States for operations. They resulted in a marked improvement, one that delighted his staff as much as him. ‘I think anyone could understand it,’ he said later, of the difference the operations had made. ‘It brings you back into life and takes away the tension and irritation of not knowing what has been said.’ The success was ‘a god-send and a relief,’ he added.16
It did prompt some adjustments. McMahon later said that after the operations he was woken by the noise of his Commonwealth car driver ‘belting on his front door and shouting’. When McMahon demanded to know what on earth he was doing, the chauffeur said, apparently nonplussed, that it was how he always knocked on the door.17
Interviewing McMahon later, the journalist John Edwards wondered if it was fair to say that these operations had ‘prepared the way’ for his marriage. McMahon was curt: ‘No.’18
Rumours about McMahon’s personal life had long abounded. His liking for fashion, the regular proclamations that he had been a ‘balletomane’, his light step, and his long-running bachelorhood, were all fodder for gossip. Stories that began with a nugget of fact were wound with scurrilous whispers. That he got on especially well with women was apparently suspicious. The women’s groups in Lowe thought him charming, caring, a good local member — even though he did not live in the electorate.19 Harry Bland’s wife would receive deliveries of flowers from McMahon, as if to apologise for his arguments with her husband.20
Canberra ‘is the Mediterranean of gossip,’ wrote Jim Killen,21 and McMahon, disliked by so many, attracted his own share. He was aware of it. After the end of one parliamentary session, McMahon asked Kelly into his office and asked what members of the Press Gallery thought of him. ‘Hesitantly,’ Kelly recalled, ‘I told him that they regarded him as indefatigable, that he always appeared well-briefed, that he marshalled his facts well and was most persistent.’ It was not enough. McMahon wanted more. He pushed Kelly, pressed him; eventually, Kelly told him that there were rumours and jokes of homosexuality. ‘Oh. That again!’ said M
cMahon. He was not fazed.22
His staff saw no evidence that could give the rumour a foundation. ‘In seven years of working with him … I never saw one incident or example of homosexual behaviour,’ said Kelly. ‘Never. Not once.’23 Observing that McMahon frequently went out with women, Pat Wheatley concurred.24 ‘I did not think he was gay,’ said journalist Alan Ramsey later, but he understood how the rumour could arise.25
But McMahon told a much later staff member of an affair with a ballerina when he had been young, and both Kelly and Wheatley attested to McMahon’s romantic involvement with a female member of his staff while minister for labour and national service.26 ‘She was his girlfriend, in a way,’ Kelly said later. ‘He used to occasionally have dinner with her, especially when we were away from Sydney. I was invited along, usually as a cover.’27
For whatever reason, that relationship was over by the time McMahon attended a charity function at the Argyle, a Sydney restaurant in the Rocks owned by Sam McMahon, who had lately moved into hospitality and the liquor trade.28 There, McMahon met Sonia Hopkins.
Sonia was Lowe and Liberal. The daughter of a prominent textile merchant and grazier, she had been born on 1 August 1932 and raised in Strathfield and Killara. Educated at Methodist Ladies’ College, Burwood, and then Ravenswood College, Gordon, she had joined the Liberal Party as a matter of course. ‘There wasn’t much going on in that area in those days,’ she remarked later. ‘You went to dancing class and joined the Young Liberals.’29 Engaged at twenty, a marriage to her teenage sweetheart was called off close to the last minute. The benefits of a booming economy and full employment were evident in the course of her twenties: she had trained and practised as an occupational therapist at St Vincent’s Hospital and in private practice, and then changed careers entirely in 1956. Three years as a colour consultant with the paint company Taubmans was followed by work as a travel consultant for cruises with P&O. Then, in 1963, a three-week holiday to New York became semi-permanent when she took a job in a news bureau attached to the Australian consulate. Another holiday, to Jamaica in the following year, resulted in a job as a film production assistant with 20th Century Fox. That work was brief: the film slated for production fell through, and Sonia returned to Australia early in 1965.
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