WORKPLACE REVIEW   

 Tiberius with a Telephone the life and stories of William McMahon

by Patrick Mullins

 Scribe Melbourne London 2018

“McMahon to me is a contemptable little squirt”

“A dreadful little man”

Sir Robert Menzies provided this character assessment to the journalist, David McNicoll.

Despite this opinion, McMahon was not destined to spend his time as a backbencher observing political power from the foothills.  Instead, Menzies made McMahon a Minister within two years of his entering Parliament.  He went on to become Australia’s longest serving Minister (22 years) and then Prime Minister.

Patrick Mullins’ magisterial biography of over 665 pages explains this paradox.

William McMahon was born in 1908; his father was a solicitor.  In 1913 his father stood for the New South Wales State seat of Camperdown.  He was soundly beaten by the brother of his article clerk.  This ended his father’s political career.

McMahon’s mother died when he was nine.  He was then raised by relatives.  As Mullins notes, it was lonely childhood, isolated from his siblings, kept from his father, moving from school to school. He learned to rely on himself and to follow his own desires.  This would explain much of his behaviour in later life.

After graduating in Law from Sydney University, he joined the legal firm Allen Allen & Hemsley.  There he was mentored by the legendary Norman Cowper.  He had hoped to go to the Bar, but having suffered from hearing loss he gave up that ambition.

He was well regarded as a solicitor and he was made a partner of that firm.

During WW II he rose to the rank of Major, but was not posted overseas as a result of his hearing disability.

In 1947 he bumped into an old friend in Phillip Street, Jack Cassidy QC, a leading senior barrister.  Cassidy was seeking Liberal pre-selection for the Federal Seat of Lowe.  He was supposed to be speaking at a Liberal function but was due in court and could McMahon speak on his behalf at the meeting.

McMahon made such an impression that he was talked into standing for pre-selection.  He won the pre-selection, stood and won the seat (please check whether he stood against Cassidy in the pre-selection).

Cassidy let bygones be bygones and was knighted by Prime Minister John Gorton in 1968 as one of the great advocates of his generation.

McMahon was elected to Federal Parliament in 1949.  In 1951 he was made Minister for the Navy and Minister for Air.  Later he held the position of Minister for Social Security.

During this time he had formed a friendship with Country Party Parliamentarian, John McEwen to the point of them both going to the theatre and dining together.  However, when McMahon became Minister for Primary Industries their friendship came to an abrupt end.  McEwen believed that McMahon butted into areas sensitive to the Country Party without deferring to McEwen.

Readers will be particularly interested in McMahon’s period as Minister for Labour and National Service. His permanent head was Henry (Harry) Bland who had dominated the Department even before his appointment as Head in 1952.  Although Bland thought McMahon had ‘absolutely no feel for industrial relations and never understood them’, this was not the public perception.

He successfully took on the Waterside Workers’ Federation which impressed his colleagues.

On Menzies’ retirement,  Harold Holt became Prime Minister, and McMahon defeated Paul Hasluck for the Deputy Leadership of the Liberal Party.

As Deputy Liberal Leader, McMahon could choose his own portfolio.  He chose to become Treasurer.

McEwen was  leader of the Country Party and Minister for Trade.  He was a protectionist.  McMahon inclined towards free trade.  Their enmity deepened.

On Holt’s disappearance whilst surfing at Cheviot Beach, McMahon as Deputy Leader, was assumed to be the natural successor.  However, McEwen announced that the Country Party would not serve under McMahon.

McMahon did not stand for the leadership which allowed John Gorton to win the ballot against Paul Hasluck.  The relationship between Gorton and McMahon was poisonous.  McMahon ultimately became Prime Minister as a result of Malcolm Fraser’s dramatic resignation as Defence Minister and his attack on Gorton.  As Prime Minister, McMahon was facing a revitalised opposition led by Gough Whitlam.  McMahon was short, Whitlam tall;  McMahon had a faint voice, whereas Whitlam’s was confident and sure; McMahon was bald, whereas Whitlam had a full head of hair.

Mullins details the forces lined up against McMahon and his efforts to respond.  When McMahon announced the election date as 2 December 1972, Whitlam responded that it was the anniversary of the Battle of Austerlitz, when Napoleon defeated a significant combination of nation states.

In the 1972 election, the Labor candidate in the seat of Lowe standing against McMahon was Bill Fisher QC.  One of the co-editors of this journal was later thanked by Fisher for helping William McMahon win the election who won it on preferences flowing from the Democratic Labor Party candidate Emily Bannon. Fisher went to be counsel assisting in Woodward Royal Commission into drugs, a Supreme Court judge and then President of the Industrial Commission of New South Wales.

After his defeat by Whitlam, McMahon remained in Parliament until 1982.  He was on hand when Whitlam at the 1975 election met his Waterloo eleven days after the 170^th anniversary of the Battle of Austerlitz.

The end of 23 years of Coalition government was not inglorious.  It was not a landslide.  Whitlam’s majority was only eight.  An additional 1,917 votes spread across five seats would have seen the McMahon government retain office.

When McMahon retired in 1982 he backed the then Bulletin journalist, Malcolm Turnbull, to replace him as Liberal candidate; however, Turnbull never nominated.   A university contemporary of McMahon, Sir Richard Kirby, President of the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, had watched McMahon’s advancement.  He recognised qualities in the man of persistence, a readiness to fight, discipline and a capacity for hard work.  Others may not have seen that. Kirby said:

“People used to say Billy’s far too well dressed to be able to pass exams.  Billy will never go into politics, his manners are too good.”

Later they said:

“Billy will stay on the backbench, he’s too much a dilettante ever to make the ministry.  Billy was a magnificent fighter – literally.  He could box like a thrashing machine and was as game as hell.  But people seemed to overlook that.”

Mullins has shown a deep understanding of the period and the important players in that significant era in Australian history.Like a good novelist Mullins  captures the mood of the era well.  McMahon followed the old lawyers’ habit of safeguarding papers.  There were 27 filing cabinets of papers and files in his office in the Westfield Towers. Mullins’ labours were Herculean and more challenging than cleaning the Augean stables.

By Malcom Kerr, who was the Liberal Member for Cronulla from 1984 to 2011 and practised at the NSW Bar.