Tiberius with a Telephone

by Patrick Mullins

  Mr Gorton agreed with alacrity and spoke of the ‘whole thing’ as contrived by the Telegraph. All the journalist [sic] who had been making up these stories were ‘out of the same stable’. He spoke bitterly of ‘planned attacks’. I suggested that, in the criticism of Fraser, there might be some comfort for him because the opposition to him in the Liberal Party was divided … I ended by saying that if he thought a conversation with me would be helpful I was at his disposal at any time. He thanked me and concluded by saying: ‘I think we will have the usual trouble in the party room.’49

  The editorial that had alarmed Hasluck would have delighted McMahon, especially its headline: ‘Time for a change of leader.’50 McMahon would have been even happier with the article that Alan Reid had written for that day’s front page. Under the headline, ‘Resign call to Fraser,’ Reid reported that there were Liberal members who hoped Fraser would resign and make a statement to Parliament in the coming week about the crisis. The clear hope — that it would precipitate Gorton’s fall from office — was evident throughout the report.51

  The press was now providing the main impetus and fuel for the crisis, a point that Howson picked up on after speaking repeatedly during the weekend with Alan Reid. ‘The important thing is to keep it going as long as possible and to delay any discussions in the party room until the last possible moment,’ he wrote.52

  Clyde Packer, Frank’s son, managing director and chairman of GTV-9, and joint managing director of TCN-9, was aware of the importance of the press to the situation. Like his father, he, too, sensed that the crisis could precipitate action. ‘I said to Alan Reid we should do something to get McMahon into office,’ he said later.53 The opportunity came that night: in what he called ‘riveting television’, a special broadcast of Meet the Press was arranged to discuss the crisis, with the participation of the journalists whose work had brought it on. David McNicoll, besuited and moustachioed, opened the programme, and moderated the discussion with Robert Baudino, Peter Samuel, and Alan Reid.

  Reid was asked whether anything would happen to Gorton’s position as prime minister. Reid was blunt: ‘I replied that this depended on what Fraser did. If Fraser resigned and stated the reasons for his resignation — and I believed there was a strong possibility that Fraser would do this — there could also be a successful revolt against Gorton’s leadership,’ Reid explained later. This straightforward analysis was followed by a description of a choice. Would Fraser be strong and take a stand?

  The test here will come with Mr Fraser. If Mr Fraser accepts this, he becomes henceforward a puppet in the same way as — I don’t say this offensively — the treasurer, Mr Bury, has been reduced to a puppet.54

  The pronouncement was enough to trouble all of the political insiders watching. Gorton telephoned Fraser, concerned by what he had seen and seeking reassurance. Reid’s analysis had been clear, but Gorton told Fraser that the show was vicious and distorted. Privately, the prime minister believed that Meet the Press had done ‘everything possible … to play on Fraser’s vanity and conceit’.55 He wanted to know Fraser’s reaction. Fraser extended the prime minister the same courtesy he believed he had received: with a draft of his resignation on the table, he lied. ‘Don’t worry about it, boss,’ he told Gorton. ‘Just have a good night’s sleep.’56

  In Fraser’s mind, the lie was justified. He feared Gorton would have dismissed him had he been given any further cause for concern. ‘I think that was legitimate,’ he said later.57 The likelihood of this eventuating was not, apparently, considered. ‘The prime minister’s office was taken by surprise by the Fraser strategy,’ Tony Eggleton said later. There was no expectation that Fraser would resign.58 Moreover, Fraser seems not to have considered that any move by Gorton to remove him would surely have precipitated a crisis of its own — possibly one that would have been worse.

  Nonetheless, events were moving in only one direction. Reid’s pronouncement on Meet the Press may not have confirmed or been formative in Fraser’s decision to resign, but it certainly prevented him from retreating from it. The press — almost uniformly, from Fairfax to the Packer stable — was certain that the coming week would bring change.59

  ON Monday, Fraser made his moves to bring about that change. Just before one o’clock, he telephoned Hasluck and told him he wished to hand in his resignation as minister for defence. When Hasluck advised that he should, really, speak with Gorton before doing so, Fraser interrupted to ask whether a prime minister who wished to dismiss a minister would ask for that minister’s resignation. Hasluck said that would be the courteous and customary way of doing things. Then Fraser said he wished to resign. He had discussed it, and had been over it thoroughly with people whom Hasluck would, apparently, respect. He would not be dissuaded from it. But Hasluck was not about to rush matters and, while clearly conscious of Fraser’s future, was also considering the implications of Fraser’s resigning:

  I could only counsel him to consider very carefully the possible consequences of his actions on the government, on the party, and on his personal future. He should not assume that a resignation would advance his own future prospects. Mr Fraser interrupted to say that he was not looking for any personal ‘dividends’. He just felt someone had to do something to bring back a little bit of order and decency into government. I asked if he considered whether his action might only open the way for someone who might have lower standards than the present Prime Minister. Mr Fraser said somewhat ruefully (judging from his voice) that he had thought of that. I asked him if he had thought of the outcome in the party room. He said he could not help that; the trouble was there already.60

  The prospect that McMahon might become prime minister self-evidently horrified Hasluck, but it would not dissuade Fraser. He was not to be moved. He had thought of the consequences and, plainly, he accepted them as the price for his subsequent actions. They were not his responsibility.

  Due to attend a cabinet meeting at half-past two, he did not appear at Parliament House. Gorton tried to reach him by telephone, but Fraser had taken his home phone off the hook. Alan Hulme, the postmaster-general, left to find Fraser and try to reason with him, but it was too late. A letter, hand-delivered to the prime minister’s office, was given to Gorton just after three o’clock. It was short, to the point: Fraser advised that he had considered the recent events ‘carefully and deliberately’, and regarded Gorton’s conduct as indicating ‘significant disloyalty’. He resigned, would deliver a letter to the governor-general to that effect, and, in the House, would seek leave to make a statement.

  Reading this note, Gorton asked his ministers in the cabinet room whether they would support him, support a challenge to his leadership (should one eventuate), or themselves challenge his leadership. It was a political exercise: Gorton wanted to be able to say he had the unanimous support of his ministers. One by one, Gorton went around the room to ask each minister individually. Chipp observed that Gorton sat for a moment in silence after receiving all the assurances but one. Then Gorton turned to his left, where McMahon sat. Eyebrows slightly raised, Gorton asked, ‘Will you be standing against me, Bill?’

  McMahon did not hesitate. He looked up. ‘No, absolutely not.’61

  News of Fraser’s resignation leaked quickly. Just after four o’clock, Fraser telephoned Hasluck to ask if he could come immediately to hand in his resignation. ‘I wrote a letter to the prime minister and said I would call on you tomorrow and that no announcement would be made until I had seen you,’ he said. ‘I now find that already an announcement has been made from the prime minister’s office. He refused to see me.’62 Hasluck said yes. Within ten minutes, Fraser was at Government House, his resignation letter and a copy of the letter he had sent to Gorton in his hand. ‘Well, how do you feel now?’ Hasluck asked him.

  Fraser told him he was relieved, and again Hasluck began to probe why Fraser had resigned. Throughout the conversation, Hasluck sensed that Fraser was thinking much further ahead t
han the present parliamentary term. Was he thinking of the leadership, after 1972? Potentially. But on the whole, Fraser seemed calm, Hasluck thought. Fraser ‘expressed concern at the general deterioration in politics and administration’. The ill-feeling in the party had grown. The methods of working in cabinet had deteriorated. The public service was in confusion, and its morale was low. Standards of behaviour had fallen.

  What, Hasluck asked him, would he do now? Fraser said he would speak in the House: ‘His statement … would be brief and to the point and would deal mainly with his views on the defence structure, and relationships between Defence and the service departments, and his views on the relationship between a Prime Minister and his Cabinet.’

  It was by now almost six o’clock. Fraser left. Hasluck telephoned Gorton and told him that Fraser had resigned. ‘We had a conversation,’ Hasluck told Gorton. ‘He gave me his reasons for resigning and said that those reasons were known to you.’63

  FRASER’S resignation was the blow that left the government teetering — and Alan Reid was determined to keep it that way. In Canberra, he met David Fairbairn and John Jess. They had decided that they and Howson should say publicly that they were willing to cross the floor and vote with the opposition, should it move a vote of no confidence in Gorton in the next day’s sitting of the House. Telling Howson this in a telephone call after midnight, Reid ensured that Howson understood the consequences of such a move: the three of them would give the opposition a victory, should it get so far. The success of that motion could bring down the government and force an election — which the Coalition would, on its present polling, lose. Liberal MPs would be forced towards a choice: to remove Gorton, or to go the country with the likelihood of defeat.64

  A meeting of Liberal Party members was scheduled for 11.30am, but it was delayed as Gorton prevailed on Fraser to meet and discuss his resignation. Gorton wanted him to withdraw it, and offered to apologise in the presence of cabinet ministers should Fraser agree. Bert Kelly, who went to Fraser’s office following this meeting, found the ‘poor beggar’ in a state, apparently agonising over whether to accept. Kelly, and then Tony Street, told Fraser that he should refuse. ‘This papering over the cracks wouldn’t carry conviction,’ Kelly decided.65

  Fraser refused the offer. At 12.30pm, the party meeting began. Gorton spoke about Fraser’s resignation and the events leading up to it — ‘with considerable restraint’, Kelly thought — and admitted he had erred in not defending Fraser. He apologised in front of the whole party room. Then Fraser spoke, giving his view of events, but adding that there were other cases where Gorton had been unwilling to listen and consult cabinet.66

  But there was not to be a resolution that day. Following Fraser’s statement to the party room, the Tasmanian senator John Marriott tried to move a vote of confidence in Gorton’s leadership. The idea was quickly scuttled when the anti-Gortonites said that they wanted to hear Fraser’s statement to the House.67 The meeting broke for lunch. ‘He’s still in,’ MPs told the press.

  At 2.30pm, when the House convened, Whitlam moved a suspension of standing orders to allow Fraser to speak. There were to be no petitions or questions just yet. Fraser stood from his new position on the backbenches and quietly, calmly, proceeded to outline the circumstances that had led to his resignation. Considering the near-labyrinthine circumstances that had provoked it, the account of the press stories about civic aid was persuasive. Gorton’s assurance of support for Daly was ‘an impetuous and a characteristic action’. His refusal to deny that Daly had called Fraser disloyal was, itself, disloyal. ‘One sentence would have killed this report,’ Fraser said. That this might be a gross oversimplification received not a mention: ‘The Prime Minister, by his inaction, made sure it would cover the front page.’

  But this was not the main cause of Fraser’s resignation. According to him, it was merely the latest example in Gorton’s ‘obstinate determination to get his own way’. Fraser now cited an attempted call-out of the Pacific Islands Regiment that had occurred in July 1970. He regarded this as proof of Gorton’s disinclination to accept cabinet governance and of his wilful unilateralism. To those listening in the House, learning of the matter for the first time, it was persuasive. To those who knew, however, it was anything but. Tom Hughes, afterward, would follow Fraser from the House and demand to know how, since Gorton had acquiesced and held a cabinet meeting on the matter, this example could hold water. To this, Fraser said nothing.

  The most damaging part of the speech came at its end. In what Kelly thought ‘unfair’, and Killen ‘unnecessarily brutal’, Fraser declared:

  The Prime Minister, because of his unreasoned drive to get his own way, his obstinancy, impetuous and emotional reactions, has imposed strains upon the Liberal Party, the Government and the Public Service. I do not believe he is fit to hold the great office of Prime Minister and I cannot serve in his Government.68

  Gorton’s response, immediately following this peroration, was another demonstration of his control under pressure. Despite what some observers called a lack of fire, his reply calmly dissected the case that had been made against him. Fraser had not been obstructed in his work as minister for defence. He did not believe Fraser had planted the story on civil aid. Fraser had been a ‘good’ minister, too. It was a ‘tragedy’ that he was resigning. Gorton admitted that he had been wrong not to deny that Daly had called Fraser disloyal, but he observed that ‘an enormous amount [has been] built on that particular point’.

  Whether this would have persuaded his critics would not be known. As Gorton detailed the course of his meeting with Ramsey, the journalist — watching in the Press Gallery — interjected.

  ‘I,’ Gorton was saying, ‘therefore replied to that question: “Had General Daly said what it was claimed he did say?” by saying that I thought it wrong to discuss or comment with Mr Ramsey on what a third party had said and Mr Ramsey replied: “Fair enough.”’

  ‘You liar,’ Ramsey yelled from the Press Gallery, above and behind the Speaker’s chair.69

  To the Speaker’s cry for order, Arthur Calwell could be heard growling that the Speaker should ‘deal with the animal’. Ramsey, embarrassed by his interjection, hurried from the gallery to find Tony Eggleton, Gorton’s press secretary, to apologise. Labor, meanwhile, offered the opportunity to exploit the moment, moved to have Ramsey called to the Bar of the House, where he could be made to testify about what had happened during his meeting with Gorton. After twenty minutes, Gorton intervened to cut off the debate. Reading from a note delivered from Eggleton, he told the House that Ramsey had apologised for losing control of himself, and that was enough for him.

  Faced with the surety that Ramsey would not elaborate further, Whitlam withdrew the motion. The House proceeded to Petitions and Questions.70

  THAT night, supporters and rebels canvassed for votes. Gorton supporters Don Chipp, Andrew Peacock, and Jim Killen did a count, and finished happy. ‘We came back and said, it’s no worry,’ Chipp said later. ‘He’s home and hosed.’71 That confidence spread. When Jim Plimsoll telephoned the prime minister’s office to discuss a matter to do with the National Gallery, he heard Gorton calling out in the background: ‘Tell Jim that it will be alright, I’ve got the numbers.’72 The confidence enjoyed by Gorton’s supporters was such that they told Robert ‘Duke’ Bonnett, a Gorton supporter from Queensland, not to bother leaving his sick bed in Townsville. His vote would not be needed.73

  Those on the other side were likewise inclined to think Gorton had it. ‘I don’t know that McMahon was confident of coming out on top,’ Kim Jones said later.74 ‘I thought that there was no way in which we would win the vote,’ Fairbairn said later.75 Howson thought it was ‘even money’, and, while hosting a pre-arranged dinner for English stockbrokers, was nearly staggered to observe that all McMahon wished to discuss was the economic situation in London.76 The press, staking out Parliament House and its surrounds, were able to catch McMah
on and Sonia leaving for the dinner. Sonia’s dress, black, with a plunging neckline and a split up the left leg, ensured that they were a conspicuous pair.

  At 7.45pm there was another meeting in the party room, to discuss Fraser’s charges about the call-out of the Pacific Islands Regiment. Gorton’s reply was convincing, as even Howson grudgingly admitted.77 It was clear that the day’s events, and those to come, were overshadowing everything else. ‘The real problem is now pretty well obvious that we can’t hope to succeed in the next election under Gorton as presently discredited,’ Bert Kelly recorded that night. But, if not Gorton, who then should lead the party? Would that affect how people voted in the event of a challenge to Gorton? Kelly spoke to fellow South Australian and minister for health, Jim Forbes, and found out:

  He was undecided about what he ought to do about Gorton … Anyhow, after some hesitation wh[ile] Forbes asked for some time to think it over, he eventually came back and told me he is going to vote for Gorton, mainly because he’s certain about the alternative. Anyhow, he is not going to put up with having the government dictated to by the press.78

  All manner of decisions were made overnight. Victorian members Tony Staley and Tony Street decided that they were prepared to vote against Gorton, but not for McMahon, who himself rang Howson early the next morning to say that ministers were starting to shift, that the prospects of success were improving. Alan Reid in turn told Howson that he thought they might just have the numbers, but that he could not be sure.79 Neil Brown, filing into the party room that day and apparently still torn, asked the president of the federal Liberal Party, Robert Southey, what he thought the party should do. After an initial refusal to answer, Southey bluntly echoed Forbes’ arguments. ‘He said that we should remember that if we removed Gorton, the press, which had been baying for Gorton’s scalp for months, would claim it as a victory for the power of the media to remove the elected leader of a political party anytime it wanted to.’80 Had Brown been from Queensland he might have received different advice, and without hesitation: Queensland Liberal Party president Eric Robinson had already declared on radio that the party would be better off with a change in leadership.