Reid, for his part, would deny that this was in any way his intention, writing later only that he believed Gorton ‘could have [had] an angle’ that put a ‘different emphasis’ on Baudino’s story.7 Was it merely accident, then? Was it simply a case of a breakdown in communication between Fraser and Gorton? In spite of his point about Reid, Mr Y certainly thought so. Claims of a Machiavellian scheme that was calculated and deliberate were overblown, he reckoned. ‘To depict the fall of Gorton as merely a “Packer plot” is to overlook the extent to which Gorton himself contributed to his own demise.’
On this, Mr Y was correct. Gorton had endured many attacks from the press, some of whom had acted outrageously. As Edward St John would write, Reid had ‘not infrequently played an active political role’. His deliberate building up, with Peter Samuel, of David Fairbairn’s stature as a critic following the 1969 election; his advice to Peter Howson about tactics to weaken Gorton; his gratuitous advice to Whitlam on how best to exacerbate Gorton’s woes — in all of these, Reid had exercised ‘power without responsibility’, as St John argued.8
Gorton had, too, come under a harsh attack from Fraser. And while arguably provoked by Gorton’s refusal to deny a charge of disloyalty, Fraser’s resignation and bitter denunciation in the House of Representatives was founded on sandy grounds of propriety. As one of Fraser’s biographers noted later, Fraser had ‘initiated a campaign against the army through unattributable press leaks, assured his prime minister that he had not made the leaks, denied them when they were published, asked one journalist if he would deny having a briefing at all, and finally misled his Prime Minister about his intentions to resign. This,’ finished the biographer, was ‘a poor basis upon which to demand proper and appropriate procedures in government.’9
Nonetheless, all of these were but secondary factors in Gorton’s fall. Gorton’s battles with the state premiers had alienated parts of the Liberal Party machine, its base, and its parliamentary members. His contravention of Liberal Party shibboleths had turned colleagues against him. And though his critics were almost certainly intractably opposed to him, Gorton had not gone out of his way to convert them into allies. The fault, as Gorton’s biographer was later to note, lay largely with Gorton and the Liberal Party: ‘Elements of the Liberal Party brought John Gorton down, ably assisted by Gorton himself.’10 The latter point had been predicted: the general secretary of the Liberal Party in New South Wales, John Carrick, had told the British high commissioner to Australia in May 1970 that Gorton might, ‘in a blaze of frustration’, decide that he ‘would give the whole bloody thing away’.11
But what of McMahon’s role? Had he been involved? When asked by the press at the time, McMahon had been absolute and unequivocal in his answers: no. ‘I never took any action to do anything else but to treat Mr Gorton as the leader of the government and give him my devoted loyalty,’ he said.12
Almost certainly, however, he had been backgrounding against and undermining Gorton. As the journalist Laurie Oakes later wrote, ‘McMahon waged an unrelenting campaign against Gorton to further his own ambitions. McMahon rang journalists at all hours of the day and night leaking information extraordinarily damaging to the prime minister and the government.’13 Alan Ramsey thought the same: ‘He flattered journalists by telephoning at any time of the day or night, usually at weekends, to chat about some alleged outrage or other committed by McEwen or Gorton in cabinet, then left you with the problem of sorting fact from fantasy.’14 Lenox Hewitt had seen it first hand. ‘As I moved around business circles in Sydney,’ he said later, ‘I’d be asked questions. Wasn’t Gorton financially unsound? Thoughts that had been planted in the business community by Billy.’ McMahon was unscrupulous. ‘He would say anything at all that suited his needs of the moment,’ Hewitt said later. ‘He would say anything that was in his own interest, no matter what else got in the way.’15
Nonetheless, McMahon’s absence from the events that ultimately sparked Gorton’s resignation was unusual. Was it really the case that he had, as Alan Reid later put it, ‘had the office [of prime minister] virtually handed to him without him lifting a finger’?16
There were some who scoffed at this. Robert Southey, the president of the Liberal Party, had suspicions that he could never confirm. ‘I couldn’t describe Bill McMahon’s role in Gorton’s downfall in any coherent, connected, analytical fashion,’ he said later, ‘because that’s not the way Bill McMahon worked. It was rather hole and corner. It was a smile here, a nod there, a wink there.’17 Howson, too, wondered about it. Noting from his diary a prediction from Alan Reid that there could be a change of prime minister in March, he found himself questioning McMahon’s involvement with Packer. ‘I feel that they had been planning, knowing that some crisis would develop, and knowing that there were people in the party room who would be prepared to act along similar lines. It will be interesting if in the history books we can see the full planning that led to the March crisis.’18
Jim Killen thought similarly, but he, too, could only wonder. McMahon’s telephone call to him on 3 March was ‘unusual’, he thought, and his unexpected reference to The Daily Telegraph article authored by Bob Baudino was troubling. It convinced Killen that McMahon had a ‘far greater interest in the reports of conflict between Malcolm Fraser and the Army than he affected to have’.19 But what problem was there in being interested? Was that good cause for some suspicion? The subsequent editorials in The Daily Telegraph, calling on Gorton to go, brought McMahon back to Killen’s mind; then Gorton’s resignation had left a dumbstruck Killen wondering how it had all happened. ‘It had only been a week,’ he reflected, ‘since McMahon had said to me, “There’s nothing in it.”’20
There was one figure who was certain that McMahon was involved. By 1984, when Bowman was working on McMahon’s memoirs, Fraser was a year out of office, dethroned by Bob Hawke in an election that would see the Liberal Party consigned to opposition for thirteen years. Fraser had long intimated his suspicions about McMahon to people, and within the next three years would record them fully.21
In Fraser’s reckoning, like Mr Y’s, Baudino’s story in The Daily Telegraph was the beginning of it all. Fraser regarded it as ‘the most damaging’ piece of reportage to have come out of the whole affair. Unlike Mr Y, however, Fraser did not regard Reid’s advice that Baudino consult Gorton instead of him as the pivotal moment. For Fraser, it came earlier.
Fraser believed that McMahon was the one who had set the wheels in motion. The key detail, and the foundation for Fraser’s belief, was the mention, in Baudino’s article, of the Joint Intelligence Organisation reports. Those reports, Fraser said later, ‘presumably went to John Gorton, [and] they would have to Billy McMahon’. From there, Fraser had no doubt about what happened. McMahon had given word of these reports to The Daily Telegraph’s Baudino, made them sound more sensational than they were, and thereby prompted the story that appeared on 2 March. ‘I have always believed,’ Fraser said, ‘that it was Billy McMahon who provoked the Telegraph into reporting the way it did — which was quite deliberately designed to achieve that … to cause friction between myself and Tom Daly in the army’.22
In Fraser’s telling, the subsequent events were merely guided along to their inevitable, calamitous conclusion: Daly’s accusation, Gorton’s demurral, Fraser’s resignation — and Gorton’s demise.
Was McMahon involved? There was no paper trail to help answer the question. Nor was Bowman ever likely to hear a confession. The trail simply ran cold.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The Crumbling Pillars (I)
1971
The work began immediately. McMahon knew there was no time to be wasted in drawing a line under Gorton’s prime ministership and establishing his own. The distinction needed to be made at once. In the car back from Government House after the swearing-in ceremony, ‘reflecting on the many issues he had to deal with’, McMahon told Tony Eggleton that he would need his help. One of the first tasks he gave
Eggleton was to speak with Lenox Hewitt, the Gorton-appointed secretary of the prime minister’s department. He was to be removed, McMahon said, and replaced by Sir John Bunting, who would be brought in from the cold of the cabinet office.1
Hewitt expected the move, but it came at a wholly inopportune time: his mother-in-law was being buried that day. Asked to wait for McMahon’s call, he eventually left for the funeral, arriving late. Then, after as brief a period as he could afford to be away, he returned to his office, where Tony Eggleton informed him that he was sacked. ‘I accordingly made the changes to my office as quickly as possible,’ Hewitt said later, ‘in order to rejoin the mourners still at my mother-in-law’s house.’2 It was, he would say, the ‘first public execution of a permanent head,’3 and he was not impressed that the news had come from Eggleton rather than the prime minister.4
McMahon’s decision to remove Hewitt and place Bunting back at the prime minister’s department was inevitable. Bunting’s reappointment was a deliberate signal of the restoration of government in a Menzian ideal: party consultation, cabinet process, respect for the public service. Hewitt’s removal would emphasise Gorton’s fall. Policy would alter. Policy-making would change. It was the first of many actions McMahon would take to present himself as an orthodox, professional politician, and it was meant for many audiences: his party, the public service, the states, and the media. But Bunting expressed some indecision about returning. You would be mad, he told himself. It was only after a ‘thoughtful lunch’ and family meeting that Bunting agreed to the move.5
Almost immediately, however, the plan hit an obstacle. As Gorton had found, removing a permanent head is almost impossible. To rid himself of Hewitt, McMahon initially sought to offer him a series of diplomatic posts. ‘I explained that I did not wish to accept an appointment,’ Hewitt recalled. ‘But we went around, one by one, through offers of various posts in this rotation of countries.’ Eventually, Hewitt was offered an appointment as head of another department.6 The way was clear to reappoint Bunting. Though McMahon would later say that he had erred in doing so, the move helped to heal the discontent that had existed within the public service.7 ‘Bunting had reason to be grateful,’ Peter Lawler explained later. ‘McMahon returned him from exile.’8
There were other personnel moves to consider. McMahon needed to fill key positions within the prime minister’s office. According to Kim Jones, who stayed with McMahon for the following six months, there was no help on this from Gorton’s office. ‘They just decamped,’ he said later.9 Val Kentish came with McMahon to serve as his personal secretary. Ian Grigg, an official from the prime minister’s department, became McMahon’s principal private secretary (in modern parlance, his chief of staff). Keith Sinclair, a former editor of The Age who had worked part-time in the prime minister’s department as a speechwriter, would be on hand. Then there was the need for a press secretary. McMahon asked Eggleton — who had recently accepted a job with the Commonwealth Secretariat — if he would stay on, but he demurred, committing to stay only to oversee the transition and recruitment of a replacement. ‘I had already worked for three prime ministers, and it was time for a change,’ Eggleton said later.10 Eventually, journalist Reg MacDonald, from The Advertiser, who had already been interviewed to replace Eggleton, would be appointed to the position.11
McMahon also began turning his attention towards the ministry. Plainly, there was going to be a high turnover. David Fairbairn was likely to be restored to the ministry, potentially even to foreign affairs.12 Peter Howson believed he would return, but denied any hope of it in order to preserve the appearance that he had worked against Gorton for principle’s sake.13 Certainly, there would be change at Treasury: McMahon was not going to leave Les Bury in the portfolio. He also had promises to keep to those who had beat the anti-Gorton drum. How would he keep those promises? Who would go in the ministry? These questions occupied his thoughts all night, McMahon told journalists the morning after he was sworn in. ‘I kept waking up during the night thinking about it,’ he said. ‘I didn’t get much sleep.’14
The press reception to his accession was largely favourable. The Daily Telegraph, now with its favourite politician at the top, was exultant. ‘Salute to the future,’ its front page said. In an editorial, the paper intoned that McMahon would ‘restore dignity and deep thought to the government of Australia and he will undoubtedly have the support and respect of all members of the Coalition … Mr McMahon is the right man to handle the hard tasks that lie ahead.’15 Others were less effusive, more circumspect about what lay ahead. ‘A tough role for a tough pro,’ said the Murdoch-owned Daily Mirror, noting that McMahon could be said to have the support of only half of the Liberal Party room.16
Shying away from controversy was one of McMahon’s goals. The party had turned to him as a professional, someone who could put an end to the instability and division. ‘He seemed to symbolise the old order to those people who didn’t like these ventures into new and unknown territories,’ recalled Edgar Holt, an éminence grise of the Liberal Party. ‘He was a proclaimed federalist, he was careful and cautious, and the emotionally exhausted Liberals weren’t looking any more for a visionary or a romantic. They settled for what they thought was McMahon’s realism and pragmatism.’17 Calming the waters, being seen to be safe and sound, was McMahon’s priority.
He would need all the help he could get. His government was not falling quietly in behind him. Doug Anthony admitted that the crisis had ‘done great harm’ to the government’s cause,18 and Robert Southey, the Liberal Party president, was lashing out at Eric Robinson for his call for Gorton to go.19 Bob Askin was also not about to allow his dispute with the Commonwealth to be forgotten. Though happy that a New South Welshman now held the prime ministership and Liberal Party leadership, Askin was not going to offer his support unduly: ‘My main test will be Mr McMahon’s capacity to work out a solution to the crisis in Commonwealth–state relations,’ he said.20 Nor would Malcolm Fraser’s actions be easily forgiven. Despite Menzies’ commendation of Fraser’s maturity and DLP leader senator Vince Gair’s advice to ‘bring him back’, McMahon had no intention of putting back into cabinet the man widely blamed for sparking Gorton’s downfall. Gorton, no more or less than any other, would not abide it.21
What to do with Gorton was another problem. Restrained when asked how he felt about his removal, Gorton made it plain that he thought his critics were at fault and that his election as deputy leader was demonstration of the party’s preference. ‘Well, Mr Fraser and Mr Fairbairn stood up,’ he said, when asked to explain why he had put his name forward. ‘I had been attacked by both these men. I believed it would be a fair thing to find out what the party thought of me in relation to those two.’22 As deputy leader, Gorton had some latitude in choosing his portfolio. Sworn in as minister for defence to replace Fraser, there was every chance that Gorton would choose to change when McMahon shuffled the ministry. Initially, McMahon was inclined to allow Gorton this option.23 But not for long: when Gorton said he might move to Treasury, McMahon told him that he had been given his first choice, and that defence was where he would stay.24
The problems of the ministry and personnel did not augur well for what would follow. On Friday 12 March, Doug Anthony, the deputy prime minister, and Alan Hulme, vice-president of the Executive Council, came to Government House to present Paul Hasluck with two proposals for his signature.25 One proposal would remove Hewitt and replace him with Bunting; the other would abolish the prime minister’s department and the cabinet office, and establish in their place a unified Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, headed by Bunting, and a new department, that of the Vice-President of the Executive Council, headed by Hewitt, designed to take on various ancillary functions largely from the prime minister’s department.
Hasluck immediately raised objections to the final change. Was it desirable to establish a new department with that name? The Executive Council — the body that, in advising the gov
ernor-general, oversaw cabinet decisions and statutory instruments — had no administrative functions, and the position of vice-president of the council existed in practice only as means to allow the council’s business to go on when the governor-general was unable to attend meetings. Why did it need a department?26 Was the role of the Executive Council about to change? Hasluck also questioned the administrative-arrangements order that had accompanied these proposals. Why — and, just as importantly, how — was the Department of the Vice-President of the Executive Council to be given the secretariat responsibility for the Executive Council? Were these proposals, he asked pointedly, the result of a considered examination of the position?
The two ministers were uncertain, and telephoned McMahon, who came to Government House to find out what the problem was. The prime minister was a ‘little fussed’, but did not comment when Hasluck explained his objections. McMahon took a pen and began making edits to the proposals, then told Hasluck he would not change the name of the new department ‘because it would be embarrassing to do so’.27 Hasluck cottoned on almost immediately: McMahon had already issued a press release on the matter, announcing it.28
Was McMahon becoming overwhelmed? Was there too much to do? Was it happening too quickly? According to Kim Jones, the answer was no. ‘He moved in quite smoothly,’ Jones said later. ‘… He had plenty of things in mind that he wanted. He had a clear agenda in place.’29 Nonetheless, McMahon’s promises to announce the new ministry had to be revised three times. It would be done over the weekend. It would be announced on the Monday. Then McMahon abandoned a date altogether: the ministry would be announced in due course.
During the weekend, McMahon began preparing for Monday’s meeting of Parliament. Labor’s motion of no confidence was going to be the first test of his prime ministership. Intent on meeting it, he worked with Keith Sinclair and Peter Bailey, from the newly restored Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, to prepare a speech rebutting Labor’s inevitable criticisms. But shortly before the debate, McMahon decided that he could not read the speech. He preferred to speak from notes. He tore the speech up, went into the House, and brought the debate on.30
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