Lazarus Rising. John Howard

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СКАЧАТЬ about 8.30 am, and said simply, ‘Kennedy has been shot dead in Dallas.’ What more could be said! When I arrived at the campaign headquarters on the way to the Campsie shopping centre, volunteers had already assembled to help with pamphlet distribution. One of them, Roddy Meagher, a brilliant barrister who went on to become a much-admired judge of the Court of Appeal in New South Wales, speculated about the possibility of the Russians taking advantage of the situation.

      Whatever one’s politics, and whatever one’s opinion of the quality of Kennedy’s presidency at that time, it was impossible to shake the view that a remarkably talented and attractive young president, offering much hope for the future, had been cut down before he really had a chance to prove himself.

      In 1964, as NSW Young Liberal leader, I was a delegate to the federal council meeting of the party in Canberra in April. It was a memorable event for me, as it included my one and only meeting with Sir Robert Menzies. It was at the traditional cocktail party for federal council delegates at the Lodge hosted by the Prime Minister. He was a big man, with a commanding presence, who chatted amiably with the six Young Liberals present. The great man demonstrated his reputed passion for martinis by mixing some for his guests.

      Thirty-two years later, on my first weekend at the Lodge as Prime Minister, Janette and I invited Menzies’ daughter, Heather Henderson, and her husband, Peter, over for a drink. We mixed and drank martinis in memory and honour of her late father. I have not had one since; I don’t like them, shaken or stirred, but proper respect had been paid.

      There was an unhealthy air of smug self-satisfaction at that 1964 Federal Council meeting. Several speeches, including one from Menzies himself, suggested that the Liberal Party would remain in office indefinitely. As things turned out it was to be more than eight years before the party finally lost, but nonetheless the tone seemed wrong. Perhaps I was not sufficiently attuned to the ‘natural party of government’ sentiment amongst Liberals from Victoria. Henry Bolte had been Premier since 1955 and the Liberals would hold office in that state for a further 18 years.

      By contrast, Labor seemed to have an iron grip on power in New South Wales. Moreover, there had been a very heavy swing against the Liberal Party in New South Wales at the 1961 federal election, prior to the 1963 resurgence. By contrast, again despite the recession, the Liberal Party had given no ground to Labor at the 1961 election in Victoria. This had been due, overwhelmingly, to the great bulk of DLP preferences flowing to Menzies.

      The DLP emerged from the great Labor split of the mid-1950s, which played a major role in keeping Labor from office until 1972. The split was caused by a clash between, on the one hand, Labor trade unionists and branch members worried about communist influence in the unions and, on the other hand, the rest of the ALP, who regarded the activities of those worried about communist influence as having ulterior motives, subversive to the true interests of the Labor Party.

      Those concerned about communist influence banded together in what were called industrial groups, in turn strongly supported by a Catholic lay organisation known as the Movement, led by B.A. (Bob) Santamaria, certainly the most influential person in post-World War II politics never to serve in parliament. Possessed of high intelligence and strong Catholic beliefs, he was a compelling and articulate critic of communism within both the ALP and elsewhere. He was a person for whom I developed enormous respect.

      In 1955 the ALP’s National Conference declared membership of the industrial groups as out of bounds for ALP members. Many rank-and-file branch members, especially in Victoria, reacted against this and left the Labor Party. Seven federal Labor MPs resigned to form a new parliamentary Party, later called the DLP. As most Catholics then supported the Labor party, the split caused huge tension within the Church. Senior prelates took different positions: Archbishop Daniel Mannix of Melbourne backed the DLP, whereas his Sydney counterpart, Cardinal Norman Gilroy, urged Catholics to ‘stay in [the ALP] and fight'.

      The new party, at first called the Labor Party (Anti-Communist) made a crucial decision to give its second preferences to the Coalition ahead of the ALP when Menzies called an early election for late in 1955, in part to capitalise on the ALP split. Menzies had already seen the split destroy Victoria’s Cain Labor Government; this catapulted Henry Bolte to office, with the help of Labor Party (Anti-Communist) preferences in May 1955. This preference decision was largely justified by the belief of the new party that the ALP’s foreign policy was not sufficiently anti-communist. Even though all of the seven MPs who had resigned from the ALP lost their seats to the Labor Party in the 1955 poll, that preference decision had far-reaching consequences. It conferred a huge advantage on the Liberal Party in marginal seats, not only in 1955 but also in subsequent elections. Normally 90 per cent of DLP preferences flowed to Liberals.

      Many Liberals hung on in circumstances where they would otherwise have lost. This made the decisive difference in the 1961 election, which saw a huge swing against the Menzies Government, resulting in its majority being reduced from 32 at the 1958 election, to just two. Amazingly, in Victoria, where the DLP presence was greatest, the Liberal Party did not lose a single seat. In other states, Coalition seats tumbled. The DLP had saved Bob Menzies. He and other Liberals, such as Malcolm Fraser, never forgot this.

      In July of 1964 I gave up the leadership of the Young Liberals and went overseas, following the familiar Australian pattern of the time. Go to London, work for a while, then ‘do Europe', return home. Although I added, atypically then, visits to India and Israel on the way across and a period of weeks in Canada and the United States on the way home. In London I worked for solicitors at Ilford, Essex. This frequently took me to the Stratford Magistrates Court, in East London, putting me in touch with a cross-section of Londoners. Representing people charged with all manner of offences was a huge experience, one that I would like to have pursued for longer.

      My time in London coincided with the election of the Labour Government led by Harold Wilson, in October 1964. The Conservatives had been in power for 13 years, having been returned to office under Winston Churchill in 1951. Naturally, I volunteered my services to the Conservative Party, and helped out in a very narrowly held Tory constituency in London, Holborn and St Pancras. Polling day was a cultural shock for an Australian. It was all about getting people out to vote, not handing out how-to-vote tickets at polling booths. Voting in Britain is not compulsory. I spent hours running up and down flights of stairs of council flats in inner London, knocking on the doors of people believed to be Conservative voters, reminding them to vote. I was still on this round at 9.30 pm, and given that the polling booths closed at 10 pm, I developed a diminishing belief that the assurances I would receive that ‘She’ll be right, gov’ meant anything. The Tories lost Holborn and St Pancras.

      Winston Churchill died whilst I was living in London, and I watched his funeral procession from Ludgate Hill with an English girlfriend. Returning to her home, I then, with her family, viewed a marvellous speech by our own Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies, delivered from the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral. Menzies’ eloquence and sense of history deeply impressed this small English gathering, and left an Australian supporter feeling very proud.

      The Britain I experienced was a nation in clear economic decline; worse than that, it had begun to lose that priceless quality of self-belief. I would not return to Britain for another 13 years when, as a junior minister in the Fraser Government, I paid a short visit. The process that I had sensed in 1964 was much further advanced in 1977.

      It was to take that remarkable woman Margaret Thatcher to turn around her nation. I don’t remember her promising any revolutions during her 1979 election campaign. She did, however, deliver one in many areas of British life. The most important one was that of self-belief. She restored Britain’s pride and sense of achievement, as well as her economy.

      My brief visit to the United States, on the way home from Europe, had me staying at Columbia University in New York with my cousin Glenda Felton (later Adams), who years later would win the Miles Franklin award with her book Dancing on Coral. It was well into 1965 by the СКАЧАТЬ