Launching Menzies at War

On Tuesday 1 July 2014, The Hon Barry O’Farrell launched Anne Henderson’s Menzies at War (NewSouth 2014). In response to Barry O’Farrell’s comments on the book, Anne Henderson responded to outline the thesis of the book, and its revisionist approach to many of the popular myths about Robert Menzies’ wartime government. Anne Henderson is an author of eight books and Deputy Director of The Sydney Institute.

 LAUNCHING MENZIES AT WAR

 ANNE HENDERSON

Thank you very much Barry – how refreshing it is to have a politician who reads and loves books.

For the Liberal Party of Australia, it’s the big anniversary year – 70 years since the party was founded by Robert Menzies and other figures within the remnant United Australia Party. But 2014 marks an even bigger anniversary for Robert Menzies himself – 75 years ago, this year, Robert Menzies became Australia’s prime minister. 

Now, you won’t hear much talk of this latter anniversary for the most successful figure in non-Labor politics in Australia’s history. The reason is that most historians – and Liberal Party faithful – have not been all that interested in the achievements of Bob Menzies Mark 1.

That is, the Robert Menzies of the United Australia Party, who assumed the prime ministerial office after the sudden death of his colleague Joe Lyons in April 1939, and who resigned just over two years later in what was seen at the time as the demise of a greatly talented political figure who had failed at the helm all too soon.

That dramatic demise has coloured history’s view of Robert Menzies Mark 1. And failure does not sit well with the image of Australia’s longest serving and most successful prime minister – the erudite, prize-winning lawyer from Melbourne’s Selborne Chambers with his smart rejoinders and cutting wit and a broad shouldered approach to politics both at home and abroad.

Yet, it was this early demise of Robert Menzies Mark 1 that helped, more than anything, to mould the man who became Robert Menzies Mark 2 – and set in place a leader who outlived his political opponents and gave Australia a healthy dose of even handed prosperity, along with an abhorrence of the politics of extremes.

Robert Menzies came to politics on a dream run – a successful albeit self made lawyer and barrister who moved quickly through Victorian state politics to the federal seat of Kooyong to become Australia’s Attorney General at the age of 39.

But the Menzies style of being a little too clever, and well connected in Melbourne business circles, alongside his tendency to quick-wittedly backhand opponents, and even colleagues he disagreed with, left Menzies with a reputation for being aloof and unpopular with ordinary voters.

A story former Liberal Party foreign minister Percy Spender relates in Politics and a Man captures this well.

At dinner with colleagues in Canberra, some time during his first prime ministership, Menzies had been in top form. A senator colleague present, who warmed to Menzies on the night, asked Menzies why he was not more like this all the time. Menzies’ problem, said the senator, was that he didn’t suffer fools gladly. To which Menzies had replied, without drawing breath, “And pray, what do you think I am doing now?” Spender goes on to write that this senator (probably Senator Harry Foll) was at the forefront of moves to force Menzies to resign in August 1941.

For all that, Menzies Mark 1 was a standout as a successor to Lyons – if only for his mastery of political debate and leadership gravitas. He was also ahead of his time in being Australia’s first truly internationalist PM.

What Labor leaning critics have all too often tagged as Menzies’ Anglophile leanings – almost at times accusing him of not really being a true Australian – were nothing more than an Australian leader walking the global stage as it was in his era. In the 1940s, Britain ruled the waves and Australia lived happily with its dominion status.

Robert Menzies’ accession as Australia’s twelfth prime minister in April 1939 came with a great deal of public drama – Lyons’ death as Australia’s first PM to die in office (a popular PM) was sudden, and shocked a nation. Added to this, rivalries and tensions within the United Australia Party meant the election of a new UAP leader was fraught with petty division – Menzies won only narrowly against the aging Billy Hughes.

Then there was the animosity of acting PM and Country Party leader Earle Page with personal axes to grind and who believed Menzies’ resignation from Cabinet was disloyal to Lyons in his last months. It would be some time before the Country Party accepted Menzies’ terms to return to a coalition government.

Technically, in April 1939, Menzies took the reins of a minority government. Governor General Lord Gowrie asked the new PM how long he thought his administration would last. Menzies replied – tongue-in-cheek – “six weeks”.

For all that, the first Menzies governments, from April 1939-August 1941, performed well. In spite of his difficulties and facing a fractious Labor opposition, Menzies pushed on to lay the foundations for a war government that would underpin the serious challenges his successor John Curtin faced as the Pacific war became real after December 1941.

The National Register, the embarkation of Australian troops in their thousands beginning in January 1940 for the Middle East, troop commitments to theatres of war from the Middle East and Europe to Malaya, the reorganisation of industry and the revamp of federal departments for a war government all took place in the years Menzies led his war administration.

They were years of frustration. Britain stood alone, with only the support of its dominions, against both Hitler and Stalin in the wake of the Nazi Soviet Pact of August 1939. In Britain’s hour of need, there was little time for concern at Whitehall over the need to strengthen British defences at Singapore. And, understandably, Australians had very mixed feelings about another world war.

While loyalty to the Empire and support for the troops were without question, debate continued about how best to support the war effort and about Australia’s self interest. In January 1940, AIF troops marched through Sydney’s streets to their embarkation with none of the excitement that saw troops leave in 1914. In 1940, regret and misgiving haunted our diggers’ departure.

Menzies would live out his first years as PM surrounded on all sides – a disunited team behind him, an opposition opposed to any proposal for a government of national unity, and apparent indifference to Australia’s plight at the Empire’s heart. Menzies’ four months trip to the UK, through East Asia, the Middle East and Africa, in the first half of 1941 did little to shake Churchill’s dogmatic view that Australia owed its primary allegiance to the fight against Hitler.

The moves in August 1941 that led Robert Menzies to resign as party leader and prime minister were dramatic. Some of this is captured in a personal account written by Menzies a few days after he left office. It has been published for the first time as an appendix to my book. It is a cool recollection and a revealing one. Yet it does not convey the anguish Menzies was feeling at the time – an anguish he recorded only much later.

As he left Parliament House, following his resignation in the party room, Menzies had tears in his eyes and walked away with his arm around the shoulder of his private secretary Cecil Looker as he quoted from an old Scottish ballad: “Ile lay me downe and bleed a while/ And then Ile rise and fight againe”. This was a broken heart, but not a broken man.

That Menzies did go on to “fight againe” owed much to chance. Some in high places, such as the UK High Commissioner in Canberra Sir Ronald Cross and Governor General Lord Gowrie made attempts to find Menzies a place in the British war effort – even a seat at Westminster. Nothing came of it.

In early 1942, Churchill suggested that Menzies take the Australian mission post in Washington after Richard Casey took up a British posting in Cairo. The Labor Government stopped that move. Menzies was left to practise at the bar and bide his time – during which he made a series of radio talks now know as “The Forgotten People” talks which became the bones of a political platform for a revived non-Labor party dedicate to the interests of the forgotten “middle” Australians.

Menzies resumed the leadership of the UAP following the Labor landslide in the 1943 election but soon began to doubt his political trajectory. In early 1944, he allowed his name to go forward to the Victorian Government as a candidate for the position of Chief Justice. Had the Country Party’s Albert Dunstan not been Victorian premier at the time, Australian history might well have turned out quite differently. But Dunstan had no good feelings for Menzies and he would be denied the job.

Life for Menzies in the wartime wilderness was indeed a baptism of fire. At the root of this was his thirst for politics and its intensities – the law just could not match it. Within months of missing the position of Chief Justice of Victoria, Menzies was once more re-energised around political strategies and deep into moves to revitalise the non-Labor side of politics. The Liberal Party of Australia would be the outcome of these moves.

It was, however, no easy ride back to the Lodge. At the 1946 federal election, the Chifley Government was easily returned. Menzies had a long fight ahead.

The story of how the political climate was to change sharply following Chifley’s decision to nationalise Australia’s banks in 1947 is that of a quixotic PM against a tide of outrage at such a socialisation of Australia’s financial system. It was a tide that Menzies and the Liberal Party of Australia used to ride in to government in December 1949.

In the process, the Liberal Party of Australia took shape and gained focus – and overcame the NSW/Victorian rivalry that had so dogged the UAP and overshadowed Menzies’ first term as PM.

The full Menzies story is way overdue for assessment. Mark Aarons, from a CPA family, has contributed greatly to countering the Stuart Macintyre (among others’) thesis that the Menzies’ opposition to Communism was fear of a “bogey” man.

Sir Robert Menzies’ daughter Heather Henderson has allowed light to shine on her famous father through her publication of the letters her father wrote to her between 1955 and 1975 and, more recently, her memoir of her parents.

And I hope this book will fill in many more gaps in the life of a great Australian – one who has much to offer those who seek the political arena not just for his many successes, but from those important forgotten years which made him the giant he became.

In the making of this book, my especial thanks go to Philippa McGuinness of New South Press whose calm management and guidance were invaluable. Along with the NewSouth team for their professionalism, as always.