Lazarus Rising. John Howard

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СКАЧАТЬ of about 3 per cent, which was contrary to a state-wide movement to the Liberals elsewhere, and held Drummoyne by 839 votes. Given the general result, it was a remarkable performance and a tribute to his hard work and popularity as a local member. It was a grim night for me and my supporters. When the first tally came in from a booth in Haberfield, then a pro-Liberal area, the sign was ominous. Malcolm Mackay, the federal member for the area, was with me that night and flinched at that first result. He lived in Haberfield, and would himself face the voters within a year or 18 months.

      I was devastated by the outcome. In a climate which had been favourable to the Liberal Party, there had been a swing against me. There could be no excuses; I had been beaten by a much better man in a seat to which he had become deeply attached. Certainly I was young, not inexperienced in a political sense, but still very raw when it came to community activism, particularly when pitted against a sitting member who knew his electorate intimately. Coady had tentacles which reached into every organisation of any moment in the area.

      The outcome was an early and hard lesson for me about the maturity of the voting public in Australia. Despite the condescending attitude of many commentators, the voters are very deliberate, and know what they are doing. In Drummoyne, on 28 February 1968, sufficient numbers of them knew that they could hang onto their well-loved Reg Coady and still keep the Askin Government, and as for that young fellow Howard, he was a bit of a blow-in anyway and could wait his turn.

      When the result was known on the night, and quite on impulse, I went to the Labor campaign headquarters to congratulate Coady. The civic centre in Great North Road, Five Dock, was jam-packed with people celebrating a stunning victory. I made a short speech, paying tribute to him and the decency of his campaign. Not surprisingly, they liked that, and the mayor of Drummoyne, a Labor stalwart, Peg Armitage, who still possessed the rich brogue of her native Belfast, pulled me aside and said, ‘I hope you get a safe Liberal seat.’ It was the sort of generous remark, no doubt well meant, which the luxury of a political triumph encourages. Several years later, and after I had entered parliament as the member for Bennelong, which at that stage was a fairly safe Liberal electorate, I ran into Peg and reminded her of that comment. She seemed pleased for me; by that time she had become very disillusioned with the Labor Party.

      The range of people who had come to the civic centre that night bore testament to the pull of a very popular local member. Many were staunch Labor people, proud of what they had brought off, but quite a lot were there because of Reg Coady, and would, in other circumstances, have voted Liberal. Local sporting and community leaders were thick on the ground.

      It had been a big mistake going for Drummoyne, but I didn’t think so when I nominated. Even more importantly, it was a blessing that I had lost — I certainly didn’t think that then! I thought that I had let down the party and had blown a golden opportunity to get into parliament at the age of only 28. Moreover, I felt the loss had put paid to my future prospects of preselection, federal or state. I went through the miseries for quite a while. Amongst other things, I had failed all those family and friends who had toiled for me. My mother had upended her life by moving house with me to Drummoyne, and had then worked incredibly hard in the campaign.

      That was the jumble of thoughts that consumed me in the wake of the Drummoyne defeat. It became crystal clear later, after I had won preselection for Bennelong, that my loss in Drummoyne had been a huge stroke of good fortune. If I had won Drummoyne it would have only been by the narrowest of margins, the demographics of the area were to move for some years against the Liberals, and with the natural swing of the pendulum I might have had no more than two terms and then lost.

      Perfect field evidence for this piece of ex post facto rationalisation was, ironically, provided by my marginal-seat candidate in arms from 1968, Peter Coleman. He succeeded in Fuller where I had failed in Drummoyne. Sir John Cramer, the member for Bennelong, which enveloped Fuller, announced in 1973 that he would not fight the next federal election, and predictably Peter Coleman sought Liberal endorsement for Bennelong. So did I, and I was successful, beating him in the final ballot. So the 1968 state election failure had defeated a 1968 success, for a much greater prize than either had been aiming for in 1968. Apart from again demonstrating the vagaries of politics, it illustrated the difficulty of transferring from state to federal politics, particularly when any degree of marginality is involved.

      Drummoyne had one marvellous human interest story which was a reminder of the often conflicting loyalties in politics. For many years Bill Brown had been the superintendent of the Sunday school at Earlwood Methodist Church, which I attended from early childhood. He was a Geordie, having come from Newcastle-on-Tyne as a young man to work with Dorman Long, the company that built the Sydney Harbour Bridge. He was a staunch unionist and Labor supporter. Bill typified the strong link there had always been between the organised labour movement and the Methodist Church in Great Britain. One wouldn’t meet a finer practical Christian. For a number of years I had helped him in running the Sunday school at Earlwood.

      Bill and his wife had moved to Drummoyne to live, and I caught up with them when I began attending the Drummoyne Methodist Church. As the election approached, he sought me out to discuss the voting intentions of him and his wife. He said that in other circumstances both of them would have followed their normal loyalty and voted Labor. My being the Liberal candidate had complicated things. Bill told me that, after a lot of soul-searching, they had decided that one of them would vote for me and the other, as usual, vote Labor. I didn’t ask which would be which. I was pleased to know that I would receive at least one vote from the Brown household. I was quite touched by their gesture.

       4 REGROUPING AND REBUILDING

      I stayed in Drummoyne after my 1968 loss, even though I knew that I would never run for the seat again. It was a question of regrouping, and working out where I went next in politics. Besides, I had more or less agreed to be Malcolm Mackay’s campaign director, in the federal seat of Evans, at the election due at the end of 1969. It was going to be a tough fight for him; Gough Whitlam had given the Labor Party a new edge, and at least some movement back to Labor from the devastating loss of 1966 seemed likely. Evans would need a lot of work to hold. Mackay was a good local member. He listened well to people’s concerns, and both he and his wife, Ruth, had established close links with key organisations.

      We had become good friends. The Mackays welcomed me into their home and we swapped thoughts on all political issues. I was in constant touch with Malcolm through the drama-packed days which followed Harold Holt’s drowning on 17 December 1967. In fact I had been at his home in Haberfield when news that Holt was missing came through. It was such an Australian tragedy. The Prime Minister had apparently drowned after plunging into a rough surf at Cheviot Beach near Portsea in Victoria. His body was never found.

      John McEwen, Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the Country Party, announced that the Country Party would not serve in a government led by Holt’s Liberal Party deputy and Treasurer, Bill McMahon. That complicated the imminent leadership stoush within the party. Due to the McEwen veto, McMahon ruled himself out of contention. Mackay started out as a supporter of 64-year-old Paul Hasluck, but over time, I watched him shift to John Gorton, who was energetic in pursuit of his leadership ambitions. This contrasted with Hasluck’s ‘merit unheralded’ approach, which shunned overt convassing for support.

      The real clincher for Gorton, however, was his appearances on television in the lead-up to the leadership vote. His relaxed laconic manner, coupled with his crumpled war-hero face, really appealed to viewers. He was new. Most Australians had not previously noticed him. On first blush they liked him a lot; he gave direct answers and clearly wanted the job. He was the first person to win the leadership of a major political party in Australia largely through the force of his television appearances.

      I remained on the party’s state executive and, therefore, heavily involved in the СКАЧАТЬ