The meeting began at ten o’clock. Les Irwin, a tried-and-true Gorton critic, told the prime minister he should stand down and avoid an acrimonious debate. Gorton, neither out of character nor unreasonably, refused the request of a man he regarded as a treacherous leak.81 Then, in a move that appeared unplanned and was certainly mistaken, the Victorian backbencher Alan Jarman moved a vote of confidence in Gorton’s leadership. Another backbencher, Len Reid, seconded the motion. They may have been acting with the best of intentions, but as junior members they were not the best advocates to lead the debate. Nor was the motion itself wise. In addition to throwing the onus on Gorton’s supporters to prove that they were in the majority, it removed the need for Gorton’s critics to prove their possession of a quality they had long been shown to be wanting: courage.
Fairbairn followed Jarman and Reid, and said he would cross the floor to vote against Gorton in the House, should it come to that. Malcolm Mackay said much the same. John Cramer was less forthright, but no less critical. And though Bert Kelly — acting in the belief that putting everything out would hardly help — suggested stopping the deluge of criticism, the anti-Gortonites refused. ‘I felt we needed to make it clear to the Ministry that the rift was in the party room and so encourage some of the swingers to veer towards us,’ Howson wrote.82
The cause was helped by a question from avowed Gorton critic, Kevin Cairns. He asked Gorton whether, if he were defeated in a vote of confidence, he would recommend that the governor-general dissolve the House, or recommend that he send for a successor. Gorton was honest enough to answer. No, he would not recommend that there be a dissolution. He would recommend that the governor-general send for whoever was elected to replace him as Liberal Party leader.
The answer was a pivot point: like the motion of confidence, it gave some security to those undecided members that they could vote against Gorton’s leadership without an immediate cost.
What followed from that was a procession of Gorton’s critics. John Jess, Jeff Bate, Alexander Buchanan, Harry Turner, and Peter Howson — among others — spoke, berating Gorton and his leadership, and stressing that he needed to go. Their number was such that Ian Wood, the senator who had attempted to topple Gorton five weeks before, could not himself speak this time, Gorton telling him that his colleagues probably had the case covered.83
Gorton’s defenders were not lining up to support him. Two ministers, Nigel Bowen and Bob Cotton, spoke, as did senator Marriott and Bob Solomon, but Gorton twice refused to allow Killen to do so. ‘I do not want you to speak,’ he said.84
‘It went on and on,’ Bert Kelly recalled. ‘I must admit that Gorton behaved magnificently in the chair and gave all his detractors free rein.’85 It was almost midday before the party decided to take a vote. Again, the Gorton camp made a tactical mistake by allowing it to be a secret ballot. Members could vote for whomever they chose, free of any obligation but to that of their conscience.
The votes were tallied at the front, before everyone. Papers were sorted into two piles — ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ — that grew evenly as each vote was sorted. It was tense. Chipp thought that there was a distinct smell of blood in the air. Nervous smiles from Gorton supporters and critics faltered as the piles grew at the same rate and the number of votes remaining to be counted dwindled.86 Hughes, sitting next to Gorton, was not certain what would happen. ‘I don’t think I’d addressed my mind to the outcome,’ he said later. ‘It was obviously going to be a close-run thing.’87
McMahon had spent the entire time in one of the large green armchairs at the front of the room, hand capping his eyes, trying to look uninterested in what was happening. He could not have been anything but apprehensive, especially once Gorton’s scrutineer for the vote, the member for North Sydney, Bruce Graham, withdrew the final ballot paper and allocated it to its proper pile.
‘Prime Minister,’ he said, ‘the vote is thirty-three all.’
It took a moment to digest the news and work out that, of the sixty-seven people in the room, one had cast an informal vote. What were they to do? Western Australian senator George Branson suggested holding another ballot, in the hope that the informal voter might make up his mind. Gorton scotched the idea immediately. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that is not a vote of confidence, so the party will have to elect a new leader.’
To some, Gorton’s pronouncement was mistaken, the product of haste. ‘It all happened in a rush,’ Hughes said later.88 Chipp had visions of adjourning the meeting for half an hour so Gorton could think and decide on tactics.89 But the party, as Howson saw, was in no mood for prevarication.90 By the time that Gorton might have had second thoughts, it was too late. He was finished as leader of the Liberal Party, and had agreed to go.
In only a few moments, the Liberal Party’s leader had been deposed, and the party was moving on to choose his replacement.
John Cramer sought to nominate McMahon, but was argued down. Gorton turned to McMahon. ‘Will you stand, Billy?’ Upon McMahon’s confirmation, and Snedden’s decision to nominate, too, the party went to a ballot. Now, as ever, was the choice. McMahon was one of the last of the Menzies men. He had the most ministerial experience of all the parliamentarians assembled. He had proved himself competent in his portfolios. He had been there for a long time. Who else could it be? Why would they not vote for him?
‘I voted against Gorton and of course McMahon for leader,’ wrote Bert Kelly that night, ‘as I am certain Snedden hasn’t got the ability.’91 Neil Brown, regarding Snedden a ‘much more pleasant person’, decided that he would vote for him. But then Malcolm Fraser, striking a match to light his pipe, sat down next to him. When Brown mentioned that he did not really know who to vote for, Fraser was dismissive. ‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’ he asked. ‘It’s blindingly obvious that McMahon is the only choice.’92
Much of the party seemed to agree. The count of the ballot papers did not take long. Within minutes, McMahon was declared the victor, with Snedden later claiming that it was by a margin of three to two.93 Finally, McMahon was leader of the Liberal Party.
His triumph was immediately scarred by an act of political madness. Alan Hulme, calling for a round of applause for Gorton’s now finished leadership, suggested that Gorton nominate for the vacant deputy leadership. Gorton went along with it. He agreed to stand. The sympathy and respect he had gained — in his conduct of the meeting and his loss of the leadership — gave him an overwhelming sympathy vote. With Fairbairn and Fraser standing against him, Gorton won easily.
There were immediate signs it was not going to work. McMahon told Gorton he would vote for him, but Gorton watched him fill out the ballot and spied that his name was not written there. Nothing less than what Gorton expected, the deceit hardly augured a fresh start or an attempt to heal wounds.94
Gorton critics thought that it had been planned all along, just in case the confidence vote went against them. Others saw it as a snap decision. ‘That was Gorton acting ex improviso,’ said Tom Hughes.95 Nobody saw it working out. ‘It’s a pity,’ wrote Howson, ‘as it will make it so much more difficult for us in the weeks ahead.’96 Hughes was dismissive of the whole idea. ‘I voted for Gorton, but it wasn’t going to work. Nothing was going to work once McMahon took over.’97 ‘It is going to be terribly awkward to work a Cabinet with an unwillingly deposed Prime Minister in it,’ Bert Kelly wrote.98
Outside the party room, Tony Eggleton had been given news of the leadership change to McMahon. His reaction, and that of the parliamentary staff and Liberal Party officials, was ‘surprise and dismay’.99 Nonetheless, he announced it to the waiting press and went back to the government lobby for further news. Then he heard that Gorton had been elected as McMahon’s deputy. His earlier reaction was echoed when he announced it to the press. ‘You must be joking,’ said Allan Barnes, of The Age, in the circle of reporters.
‘I don’t joke on such matters,’ replied Eggleton.100
The party-room meeting broke up. MPs left, went into the lobbies and offices to talk to press, to commiserate, and to celebrate. Scrums of reporters waited for McMahon, prepared for the inevitable press conference that had to follow.
Soon enough, it did. McMahon sat at a hastily prepared table festooned with fifteen microphones. Sonia was by his side, calm and, for the most part, unsmiling. In every way, McMahon gave off the image of the professional he claimed to be. His suit was dark, conservative. His red tie was simple. His arms were folded. He made eye contact, spoke clearly. He restrained his smiles. He tried not to allow the scale of the moment to overwhelm him.
‘I don’t want to say a great deal to you today other than this,’ he said.101 ‘I am a party man. I believe in the Liberal Party and I believe the Liberal Party is the organ by which the national will and consciousness can be put into effect. I am a very great believer in the system of cabinet government, in full discussion in cabinet, with every member having the opportunity to express his views, and only when political matters of the highest moment are involved, should the prime minister feel that he should intervene …’
He told the press that his aim would be to ensure cohesion, so that by the time the government went to an election it had enough of the public’s confidence to warrant a bigger majority. To questions, he said little. He was not sure of the procedure, but the House would meet at half-past two and likely be adjourned while he and Gorton went to see the governor-general. He was sure that he and Gorton would work together in the interests of the Liberal Party and the interests of the country, despite their antipathy. His ministry would be announced in due course. No, the press could not ask a question of Mrs McMahon. Asked if he would be prime minister and treasurer both, McMahon said he would consider it, but it was unlikely.
‘What do you see as the main problems confronting the government today?’ one journalist asked.
‘Don’t ask me that at this moment,’ McMahon replied. ‘As soon as I have had time to settle into the leadership of the Liberal Party, then of course I will have another conference and you can ask me all the questions you want then.’
There were some small moments of levity. When asked if he would send a telegram to John McEwen, McMahon said he would. But, he added, ‘I haven’t thought out the contents yet.’
At another point, a journalist asked if McMahon had thought he might finally win the leadership that morning. ‘Sir, the prime ministership has been your goal for a long time … Were you surprised and how do you feel personally now that you have attained it?’
‘It is a strange thing, but everyone seems to think I am a person of tremendous ambition,’ McMahon replied. ‘I don’t think I am … I don’t feel the slightest bit excited or emotional … I have taken it in a composed way because I have been here a long time.’
WATCHING McMahon’s press conference in Whitlam’s office was a host of Labor parliamentarians and staffers. Some were nervous about seeing Labor’s best asset — Gorton — gone. Some wondered about McMahon, whether Whitlam would be able to grapple with a third Liberal Party leader, whether his rise would engender a public desire to give him a fair go. ‘He has to be given a fair chance,’ Clem Lloyd later explained.102 Others were completely unruffled by the idea. Seeing the new Liberal Party leader in his first televised outing, Graham Freudenberg thought he was doing well. ‘It was a competent performance,’ he wrote later, ‘during which only a slight tremor of the upper lip and later, to an observant journalist, a wet patch on the table where his hands had rested, betrayed his nervousness.’
Fred Daly, the Labor frontbencher, told Whitlam, also watching, not to underestimate McMahon. The caution was unnecessary. Like his colleagues Tom Burns and Mick Young, soon to shout celebratory drinks in the Non-Members Bar until it closed for the night, the Labor leader believed he had McMahon’s measure. He was confident. Seeking to reassure his colleagues, he was blunt.
‘Now listen,’ Whitlam said. ‘If there had been an open contest after Holt went, who would we have wanted? Not Gorton, certainly not Hasluck. We would have wanted them to choose Bill McMahon …’103
THAT night, television viewers saw their new prime minister and his predecessor — the new leader and deputy — making their way through spectators and press at Parliament House to the prime minister’s black Bentley. They saw footage of McMahon, Gorton, Anthony, and Hasluck standing on the portico of Government House, smiling and shaking hands.
It was, as ever, a façade. Gorton, sworn in as minister for defence, had no respect for his successor. Anthony did not trust his new coalition partner. Hasluck did not esteem his new prime minister: ‘He was an awful little tick,’ he said later.104
But McMahon, throughout it all, appeared untroubled. He smiled, chuckled. Made small talk. Laughed with unfeigned delight. Savoured the moment of triumph, of realising an ambition that had been years in the making. As one of his staff would later say, McMahon walked into the job as though it was a natural development, the next inevitable step.105
Twenty-one years of experience lay behind him. Twenty-one months in which to use it lay ahead.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Activity and Responsibility
1984
Even thirteen years after Gorton’s downfall, there were questions to be asked. How had it happened? Why had it happened? Bowman, swimming through the files and poring over the documents in the autumn of 1984, could not have failed to wonder about how Gorton had come to such an inglorious end. McMahon’s becoming prime minister was a pivotal moment in his life. It would be in the autobiography, too. How to explain it, though? How to understand it?
In 1971, it did not take long for the finger of blame to be pointed at the Packer press.1 Within days of Gorton’s deposal, theories about a ‘Packer plot’ to unseat him were rife. Most were based on the high visibility of the Packer-owned Australian Consolidated Press in the days preceding Gorton’s fall. Certainly, the involvement of the Packer-employed journalists Robert Baudino, Peter Samuel, and Alan Reid — the latter notoriously anti-Gorton — gave those theories credibility. The Daily Telegraph’s editorial calling on Gorton to go lent them the veneer of possibility. Reid’s pronouncement on Meet the Press about Fraser’s position lent the theories solidity. Finally, that McMahon, the most evident beneficiary of it all, was known to have been close to Packer, made it inevitable that the theory — for some people — would become fact. ‘The Prime Minister is Prime Minister as the result of a co-ordinated campaign mounted originally by Sir Frank Packer,’ the Labor member for Fremantle, Kim Beazley Snr, said within a few days.2
In the months that followed Gorton’s fall, there were many who saw proof of it everywhere. Labor, most pointedly, made much of Packer’s involvement. It dug up evidence of McMahon’s long relationship with the press tycoon, noting their association through Sydney Newspapers Ltd. Labor accused McMahon of leading a government subservient to Packer’s outside influence, of allowing the prime ministership to be but a bauble.3 ‘To Sir Frank Packer,’ Beazley said, ‘the Government of the Commonwealth is another one of his personally owned projects, like the yachts Gretel or Dame Pattie in the fight for the Americas Cup.’4
For those ‘inside’ Canberra, the theory that Packer had been the principal cause of Gorton’s fall became even more interesting when, in June 1971, The Australian Quarterly, a political science journal run from Sydney, published an anonymously authored article that betrayed an insider’s knowledge of Packer’s ACP and canvassed Packer’s involvement.5 ‘Mr Y’, as the author was called, was generous to the suggestions, noting that the idea of a ‘Packer plot’ had some plausibility. There was highly centralised editorial power within the Consolidated Press, he wrote; there was considerable co-operation between its publications; and there was Packer’s love for exercising political power. These were reasonable grounds for thinking that Gorton had been felled by the machinations of the Packer press and Packer himself.
The only point that Mr Y would concede warranted consideration of Packer’s influence was The Daily Telegraph article written by Robert Baudino. Everything beyond that was either out of the hands of the Packer press or exploited by the Packer press, just as any press organisation would. The Baudino article was the important point. According to Mr Y, Alan Reid’s recommendation that Baudino check his story with Gorton — not with Fraser — was key. ‘Reid must have known that to “check” the [Peter] Samuel story properly the person to go to was Fraser not Gorton,’ wrote Mr Y.
But apparently on Reid’s suggestion, Baudino went to Gorton. Reid must have realised that Gorton was likely to act impetuously and fall into serious political error. He knew Gorton loved a fight and was in a mood to fight Fraser, so it seems likely he encouraged that process by sending Baudino to Gorton. Even if he did not foresee precisely Gorton’s reaction, it turned out to be the first of two fatal false steps. In his impetuous anger Gorton called the Chief of the General Staff, Sir Thomas Daly, and sided with him, making only the most perfunctory effort to contact his responsible minister. Reid had led Gorton into his first error. He had provided the first opportunity for the Prime Minister to demonstrate ‘significant disloyalty’ to his colleague, Mr Fraser.6
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