Tiberius with a Telephone

by Patrick Mullins

  There was criticism of Labor in the speech, most notably in the sections on foreign affairs and defence. But Vietnam did not rate a mention. Nor did communism. The absence of these issues, and the brief discussion of foreign affairs and defence, was a clear sign of the government’s awareness that these would not work in its favour. Perhaps acknowledging that his age and image might count against him in a debate with Whitlam, McMahon framed the election as ‘a contest between two teams’:

  Judging them man for man and collectively, my team is younger, better qualified and more experienced than the Labor alternative. Half my cabinet is forty-five or under. The Opposition’s Shadow cabinet has only one man of that age … We have the ability to manage your nation responsibly and well, both in calm and in crisis.

  The government, McMahon stated, stood for a balance between the federal, state, and local government spheres, decentralised power, law and order, freedom and liberty. Labor stood for lawlessness, industrial unrest, profligate spending, and was governed by a non-elected machine.

  The speech was not acclaimed. Criticism of McMahon’s manner on television — ‘This was the best we could have expected,’ Howson wrote, after watching — was abundant, as was derision for its production value and staid format. The manner of its delivery was, if anything, evidence of another gulf between McMahon and Whitlam. The latter had delivered his policy speech on 13 November from the Blacktown Civic Centre, before an audience of nearly 1,500 people. Howson thought it something akin to an American-style election speech.10 He was correct. There was buzz, excitement, glitz, and drama in Whitlam’s confident and proud delivery. As Whitlam’s speechwriter was to remark, ‘It was not so much a public meeting as an act of communion and a celebration of hope and love.’11

  But the contents of the two policy speeches were remarkably similar. Their focus — both on domestic policy issues, committing to new spending in new areas — had considerable overlap, a point not lost on the journalists and newspapers reporting on the speeches. It had to be emphasised, argued The Sydney Morning Herald, that ‘there are few of Mr Whitlam’s practical proposals which are not matched by the government’.12

  For McMahon, that was a win — and, indeed, proof of the value of the work that had been pushed through over the year. By the Wednesday, he was boasting about his speech’s reception. When he taped an appearance for A Current Affair with Mike Willesee, McMahon said that he hated praising himself, but that he had to give a direct answer on how his speech had gone. ‘The response has been remarkably good. I don’t think it could have been better … I’m happy about the performance, and if I could take notice of what’s been said to me, there is no doubt that it won votes.’13

  THE autocue was big, boxy, and, for all its state-of-the-art pretension, hopelessly clunky. Taking the place of a lectern, the autocue hid McMahon from his audience at Sydney’s Town Hall. Hired for the campaign in the hope that it would encourage McMahon to stick to a prepared text, the autocue was operated by a staffer seated at a table on the side of the stage, who would speed up, slow, or stop the scrolling text by using a pedal. McMahon thought it wonderful: he boasted of taking to the autocue like a duck to water, and relished being able to speak without wearing his glasses.14 But using the autocue had its drawbacks. For one, it removed McMahon from his audience, distanced him, made him ‘a bald head instead of an animated face’, as Edgar Holt put it.15 The autocue also had the effect of deadening McMahon’s tone and intonation. Although McMahon would never claim to be an orator, the autocue left him without spontaneity. He would read in metered phrases, stilted and slow.

  It was the object of much criticism. ‘Disgraceful,’ Killen said, when he saw it.16 ‘It’ll be government via teleprompt,’ Whitlam joked. Nonetheless, in repeated meetings and town halls across the country, McMahon would continue to use the autocue, reading his speeches dutifully, carefully. He rarely departed from his prepared texts. Protesters and rowdy attendees could not disrupt his progress, and the autocue’s operator would turn up the volume to drown out shouts and yells.

  Town halls and meetings, like that at Sydney’s Town Hall, were reliably rowdy. Hecklers yelled at McMahon, tried to interrupt him. Liberal Party supporters would shout them down, or create human walls between McMahon and protesters. At one stop, protesters threw jelly beans at McMahon; at another, elderly ladies pricked balloons that had been inflated by Labor-supporting students. McMahon was never particularly effective in these situations. He did not have Menzies’ wit and capacity for repartee, and questions and insults could leave him flustered. ‘It was a very difficult ask for McMahon,’ John Howard thought.17

  It was not all his fault. The noise could be staggering, as it was in a meeting at Randwick Town Hall. A young woman who held up her Liberal Party membership card to prove her bona fides demanded to know what McMahon would do about French nuclear-testing in the Pacific. McMahon did not hear her properly. ‘What I can say to you is this — that the whole question of taxation and the scale of taxation, the various methods of taxation …’ He could not continue: scornful laughter rippled over the room as McMahon’s colleagues on the stage hurried to tell him he had misheard.

  Meetings could be hostile, frustrating. Insults were frequent: ‘Hello Big Ears! Come on, Baldy! Let’s watch Billy boil!’ Statements of pure scorn were par for the course: ‘Bullshit! Bullshit, Billy!’ Boos could suffuse applause with a sense of menace. In Adelaide, as McMahon left the town hall with Sonia, someone threw a smoke bomb. ‘I saw it coming and pushed Sonia back,’ McMahon said later. ‘It landed well in front of us. I didn’t even smell the smoke.’18 At the Springvale Town Hall the police turned out in force to prevent any moves for violence. Protesters dominated the audience with ‘It’s time’ signs and chants of ‘We want Gough’, and when McMahon and his party left, they were confronted by a crowd of shoving, screaming youths. The police had to form a barricade around McMahon to force a way through. Coverage of the evening’s events made headlines and prompted the Labor Party to plead with its supporters to restrain themselves.

  Advertising from both sides was caustic. The Liberal Party advertised its budget with an inopportune quote from Arthur Calwell: ‘It was a wonderful budget!’ The government also ran ads showing a man pulling away a mask of Whitlam’s face — to reveal Bob Hawke. ‘When Labor speaks, who’s really talking?’ it asked. Labor made use of television to advertise policy and Whitlam’s biography, and encouraged a sense that the time had come for a change of government. ‘It’s time,’ ran its slogan and song, the latter of which was played over video of well-known entertainers and personalities singing along. Labor’s slogan was not particularly well countered: ‘Not yet,’ was the Liberal Party’s reply. Other players were also getting involved. Promising to spend up to $40,000 to defeat the government, Patrick Sayers, chairman of the so-called Business Executives for a Change of Government, ran advertisements showing enormous pictures of John McEwen and the headlines that had followed his veto of McMahon in 1967. ‘Is McMahon’s leadership good enough for Australia?’

  There were clear signs that McMahon’s ministers had answers to this question — and not answers that he would much like. On 14 November, newspapers in Victoria ran stories suggesting that ministers were shunning McMahon, distancing themselves.19 On 22 November, while speaking on talkback radio in Perth, Billy Snedden was moved to discuss leadership within the Liberal Party. Noting that he had opposed John Gorton when Gorton first became leader, in 1968, and that he had similarly opposed McMahon when McMahon became leader, in 1971, Snedden went on to say:

  I served Mr McMahon and I will continue to serve as best I can. As to whether Mr McMahon will continue to lead the party, [that] is for him to determine. If he should vacate the position I have a willingness to serve and I will offer myself.

  Headlines the next day were blaring: ‘Mr Snedden willing to stand for leadership.’20 McMahon was incensed when he heard of this. He regarded it as a distraction
to the campaign, to say nothing of abundant disloyalty to him. Subsequent clarifying statements from Snedden did nothing to repair the damage, not least because he continued to mention that the Liberal Party was ‘just chockfull of so much talent’.21 Other ministers appeared to have given up on McMahon and the prospect of victory. When Don Chipp fronted a group of Young Liberals in Sydney in the final days of the campaign, he spoke of the need for a new generation of leaders, in tune with the times. ‘He clearly meant he was that leader,’ Bruce MacCarthy recalled. Annoyed by Chipp’s preening and disloyalty, MacCarthy said that there were still four days left in the campaign and a win, though unlikely, was still possible. ‘Do you really think that?’ a disbelieving Chipp asked. ‘Do you really think that?’22

  Anthony also appeared to endorse the idea of deposing McMahon after the election. Already of the opinion that McMahon’s campaigning was ‘pretty poor’, Anthony found himself having to deflect questioners asking why he could not be prime minister.23 He would usually grin and say that it was the last job he could ever want. ‘It’s a most onerous task,’ he would say. Aware that the questions spoke to a deep dissatisfaction with McMahon’s leadership, Anthony subsequently began to speak as if McMahon would not be leader for long, should the government retain office. Speaking in Perth on 28 November, Anthony told radio listeners:

  It is wrong for people to interpret Australian elections as a presidential election. You cannot judge who is going to be the leader of any party, or who will be Prime Minister, until after the election. You elect a whole series of individuals and it is the right of those individuals to determine who is going to be the leader of their party.24

  For McMahon, Sonia, and the staff working around him, the conclusion of all this was clear. The coalition was fracturing. The Liberal Party was giving up. McMahon’s colleagues were running dead. They were all abandoning him. He was going to have to fight the election alone.25

  CRISES continued to rile McMahon and to set the campaign off course. On 12 November, Whitlam announced that, should he win the election, Nugget Coombs would advise him on the economy. ‘I shall personally be seeking the advice of Dr H.C. Coombs who, on high economic matters and more recently on Aboriginal affairs and the universities and the arts, has rendered such service to the nation.’26 Whitlam took no small pleasure when reporters pointed out that Coombs was supposedly McMahon’s ‘guiding philosopher’. Playing on their disagreements over Aboriginal policy, Whitlam said that the difference between Coombs’s advice to McMahon and his potential advice to Whitlam was that Whitlam would accept it. The press saw the development for what it was: a clear sign of confidence in Whitlam and of no confidence in McMahon. ‘The news will be a severe blow to the government in this early stage of the campaign,’ Sydney Morning Herald journalist Brian Johns wrote.27

  The apparent switch of allegiance prompted criticism from McMahon, his ministers, and his staff. But Coombs subsequently argued that he had accepted Whitlam’s offer largely out of what he believed was an even-handed approach to politics. In Coombs’s view, McMahon’s public discussion of his role had suggested a ‘close political-style association’ between them, one that implied partiality and bias. To refute that, to establish his political impartiality, Coombs decided he should agree to overtures from Whitlam to advise him — but only under the same conditions that he already advised McMahon.28 The reasoning was sound, but it would never convince Coombs’s critics. ‘This now shows up Coombs in his true colours,’ Howson wrote in his diary.29

  Another story, on the same day that Whitlam announced Coombs would advise him, was small, but would grow in prominence and significance: that of a speech by the senior auxiliary bishop in the Catholic archdiocese of Sydney, Archbishop James Carroll. Speaking at the opening of a library at St Augustine’s College, Brookvale, the archbishop noted that now both the Liberal and Labor parties supported the dual system of education — private and public schools. What differences remained, Carroll said, were variously ‘relatively unimportant’, ‘secondary’, and ‘of a passing phase’. Carroll’s note of these small disagreements and the general consensus was not unimportant: indeed, it was one of the first times that this had been noted. Moreover, it led to the crucial section of his speech:

  The conscientious Christian in a free democratic society should cast his vote thoughtfully, unselfishly and patriotically. In earlier times, such a Christian has given his support to this or that Party, this or that candidate, not without some reluctance, because all Parties and all candidates seemed to be ignoring the question of the just claims of parents who wished education for their children in non-government schools. At this stage of our history, that reason for reluctance has been removed.30

  Coming amid statements from other Catholic bishops that were critical of Labor, Carroll’s remarks represented a significant break in the wall of opposition to the ALP’s policies on state aid. In effect, Carroll was dismissing any suggestion that the ALP’s policy should be a barrier preventing Catholics from voting for Whitlam and the Labor Party. As journalists Laurie Oakes and David Solomon would subsequently write, Carroll’s remarks shattered the illusion that the Catholic hierarchy was united in wanting a Liberal victory.31 Notwithstanding that right-wing bishops and Catholic-affiliated spokespeople continued to criticise the ALP policy, it was clear that Carroll’s intervention was a blow to McMahon’s campaign. A plank that had helped to support Menzies and Holt and Gorton was now gone, right when McMahon needed it.

  Another blow landed on 23 November. A letter signed by sixteen prominent Australians was published in many of the country’s daily newspapers: ‘We, the undersigned, who are not members of any political party, believe that Australia’s interests will be best served by a change of Government as a result of this election,’ it began.32 The identity of the sixteen who signed the letter — historians Manning Clark and Keith Hancock, academics MacMahon Ball and Hedley Bull, scientists Frank Fenner and Macfarlane Burnet, writers Judith Wright and Patrick White — would not have surprised the government. Nor was its provenance much of a surprise: it had been drafted by Age columnist Bruce Grant, who was widely acknowledged to be sympathetic to the ALP.33 The letter would not have been such a blow, had it not been for the presence of the name of Kenneth Myer, chairman of Myer Emporium Ltd. The only businessman of note to have signed, Myer’s support for a change of government gave the letter an aura of bipartisanship; moreover, it lent Labor a respectability that was important in Victoria, where the antics of the left-wing ALP executive had long tarnished the party’s name. McMahon attempted to negate the value of Myer’s signature by circulating a telegram from Dame Merlyn Myer, Kenneth’s mother, who wrote to assure him of her own support for McMahon’s government. Other ministers circulated similarly dissenting letters from the Myer family, but the damage was done.34 Just as with Coombs’s apparent defection to the ALP, and just as with Archbishop Carroll’s endorsement of the ALP’s policy on state aid, the letter fed into a consensus that it was finally time for a change.

  DIVISIONS within the Liberal Party and McMahon’s own office hampered the effectiveness of the campaign. Sonia was scathing of the quality of speeches that were prepared for her husband, and would rewrite them herself. ‘He had some terrible speechwriters,’ she said later. ‘The language was so convoluted and full of jargon.’35 She was bitter about the conduct of the Victorian division of the Liberal Party, and thought darkly of John Howard’s participation: she thought him a spy for the New South Wales division.36 Senator John Carrick, the former general secretary of that division of the party, joined Howard to try to instill some stability in the campaign. But it was chaotic. As Carrick said later:

  We travelled all over Australia with the Prime Minister in that last month of the campaign, mostly sleeping on the floors of aircraft, trying to write things on the floor of an aircraft, with the feeling that the Party was facing defeat.37

  In mid-November, McMahon’s press secretary, Jonathan Gaul, con
tracted chickenpox and was forced to return home. McMahon had to have a Varicella vaccine, in an enormous needle, to protect him against getting sick. ‘He probably didn’t thank me for that,’ Gaul said later.38 Edgar Holt did not aid morale. ‘The feel I get is that it will be a landslide,’ he said to journalists on the campaign plane. ‘The tragedy is that everyone knows it except the little fellow.’39

  In Gaul’s absence, relations between the press and McMahon’s office went steadily downhill. Journalists were frustrated by the lack of understanding and know-how from McMahon’s office. Advance copies of speeches were non-existent. Statements were rarely issued. The campaign’s itinerary was tightly held. McMahon would not do press conferences, would not talk on the record. It was partly a fault of personnel: Keith Sinclair did not think much of issuing statements, and Reg MacDonald, McMahon’s erstwhile press secretary, had been forced into a job at which he was not adept. It made for a terrible time.

  Back in Canberra, Phil Davis, a former police-rounds reporter who now worked as press secretary to Phillip Lynch, was horrified by what he heard from journalists with the campaign. Although a member of the ALP, Davis took little pleasure in what was going on. ‘You bastards are mad,’ he told Lynch. ‘Look at what’s happened out there.’ Lynch passed on Davis’s criticism, and within days Davis had been brought on board to work with McMahon, in what Gaul would later say was fortuitous timing.

  ‘Billy was very difficult to work with,’ Davis later wrote, ‘although no more difficult than any PM would be under siege. At the stage I worked for him, he didn’t trust anybody, rightly or wrongly, [and] he was a hard man to work for. He would switch allegiances at the drop of a hat.’40 Davis thought the situation was dire. He persuaded McMahon that he should take responsibility for liaising with the press, and had McMahon agree the campaign should give out press releases for the morning and evening papers, so that reporters had material to work with. Most of all, he advised McMahon to stop viewing reporters as the enemy.