Australia’s Top 12 Treasurers

The Hon Chris Bowen MP is the Member for McMahon and shadow Treasurer. He is one of the federal opposition’s most experienced shadow front benchers and effective parliamentary operators. After serving in a number of portfolios in the Rudd-Gillard governments, in June 2013, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd appointed Chris Bowen as Treasurer. In 2015, Chris Bowen published The Money Men – his take on Australia’s 12 most interesting federal treasurers. The Hon Chris Bowen MP addressed The Sydney Institute on Wednesday 5 August 2015 to discuss The Money Men.

AUSTRALIA’S TOP 12 TREASURERS

CHRIS BOWEN

Thanks very much Gerard and thanks Sydney Institute for hosting tonight. This is the first event we’ve done on the book and it’s very kind of you to have offered tonight.

To get us going tonight I might just share a few thoughts. People have asked me along the way about The Money Men The most frequent question is “Why? Why have you written this book?” But it is the book I wanted to write. I always thought there was a gap in our history if you walk through a book store, or a library, you’ll find scores of books on Australian prime ministers, but you’ll find none on Australian treasurers. It was a gap which needed to be filled.

When I transitioned from being treasurer to shadow treasurer, it was my opportunity to fill the gap, to write the book. Having been treasurer, and aspiring to be treasurer again, I might have some value to add in assessing the history of our treasurers. I thought of writing about all of them, but that would have been too long, given that there’s been 39 of them. I considered writing about the best ones or the Labor ones but, in the end, decided to write about the most notable ones as I saw it.

This has been done elsewhere. There have been three books on UK chancellors of the exchequer, two of them by serving politicians. One is by a former chancellor, the late Roy Jenkins. Another is by a former treasury minister and who was often touted as a potential chancellor, namely Edmond Dell. And there is a third book, as well. I considered calling the book “A Treasurer on Treasurers” in the tradition of Harold Wilson’s book A Prime Minister on Prime Ministers but reconsidered that as a touch arrogant given that I was only treasurer for four months. So we settled on The Money Men.

This is a book of those I believe are Australia’s most notable treasurers. That was a hard task to determine. I have twelve. There were some whom I couldn’t include because MUP was concerned about the word count and the book would be too thick, so I had to draw the line somewhere. Some treasurers who could have been justified like John Wilkins or Richard Casey, unfortunately I just couldn’t fit in. Perhaps someone else might fill that gap at some point in the future.

I chose these twelve because I thought there were some lessons to be learned in their tenure in the Treasury portfolio. It’s not necessarily the twelve best. It’s certainly not the twelve worst. But the twelve most interesting. Each of them, I thought, had something to teach us. And, certainly, as I researched their tenures I learnt more and I found more lessons.

Some of the twelve were treasurers for a long time. Some of them were treasures only very briefly. Bill Hayden and Jim Cairns had six months each. But in such a tumultuous time that I thought they justified their inclusion. Some were treasurers during a period of particular challenge. World War II or the end of World War I, the Great Depression or the global financial crisis. Some were treasurers who were enormous successes and some were failures. Some had very great difficulties.

I knew when I wrote my book that most of the attention and the aftermath of printing the book and publishing the book would fall on what I wrote about the most recent treasurers – Peter Costello, Wayne Swan and, to a lesser degree, Paul Keating and John Howard. That has been the case.

It has been a pleasure writing about each of our recent treasurers and I’d like to think there’s some interesting history there and some interesting perspectives. Others will judge. Some have already told me that I’m too harsh on Peter Costello and too soft on Wayne Swan. Others tell me I’m far too soft on Costello. That’s just the nature of publishing a book with views in it. I have tried to be objective and fair in the book as a partisan political operative. That is not always the way. But I reach my own conclusions.

I am critical of some elements of Labor history even though I’m very proud of Labor’s achievements. What I really did enjoy was writing about some of those treasurers who have been forgotten by history. And that is where, perhaps, we’ve added the most in this book.

Broadly speaking, most people interested in politics and economics do understand the Keating period and the Costello period albeit with varying perspectives. But some of our treasurers have been lost to history.

Every so often there’s an opinion poll where we are asked to name Australia’s first Prime Minister. Many fail the test and can’t name Edmund Barton. I query how a poll would go if we were asked to name Australia’s first treasurer. I am sure the results would be pretty disappointing. But Sir George Turner was a fascinating character. He actually played an important role in Federation. He was a taciturn, uncharismatic former mayor of St Kilda who happened to become Treasurer and Premier of Victoria at the time of Federation. He played an unsung role in our history. As you know, our first Governor General committed a monumental blunder in choosing NSW Premier Sir William Lyne as first prime minister. This caused a constitutional crisis before Federation had even occurred as Lyne was opposed to federation until the last minute. He was unable, as it turned out, to form a ministry.

George Turner was integral in this. As Premier of the second largest colony, he went to see the Governor General and the Prime Minister designate and said, “I will not serve”. The failure of the Premier of Victoria to serve in the first cabinet was lethal and fateful. Thus, he helped fix Australia’s first constitutional crisis. And as Premier of Victoria, it was automatic that he would be chosen to serve in the first cabinet, every premier was invited to serve in the Cabinet.

As treasurer of Victoria, Turner was chosen as federal treasurer. And he was a seminal figure in the history of the Treasury portfolio. He established the Treasury. It had seven employees to start with and was purely a body of accountants. It was the role of the Treasury to keep tabs on the transfer of funds between the States and the Commonwealth. That was the entire role of the Treasury. Of course it evolved over the years under successive treasurers, under Spender and Fadden and Chifley. The Treasury brought in economists and was professionalised.

Then there was William Watt, another who has been lost to history. I have to confess I didn’t know of Watt before I started writing this book.  But, as I was researching, I came across references to Watt. I went down a burrow and started exploring. I found a fascinating story. And, of all the chapters I wrote, I have to confess that Watt was probably my favourite. He was also a former treasurer and Premier of Victoria. He was a serious, taciturn, a good administrator, a solid performer and he worked as treasurer for Billy Hughes who was a hot head and difficult to work for. You could tell that because Hughes was Prime Minister for seven years and had six treasurers.

A month after Watt became treasurer, Hughes left Australia and went to London and Versailles to represent Australia at the peace talks for World War I. I found the cables between Watt and Hughes. At that time, there was no formal role of deputy Prime Minister, and the treasurer automatically become acting Prime Minister in the Prime Minister’s absence. Watt, after having been treasurer for a month, became acting Prime Minister for 17 months. He was prime minister in effect for longer than many who have served in the office officially.

It is quite clear, in looking at the history, that Hughes and Watt had no discussion about how things were going to work while Hughes was away. Watt, as the competent administrator he was, thought that the cabinet should operate. He called the cabinet together, which was came as a relief to cabinet members who weren’t used to being consulted by the Prime Minister, and started making decisions. Cabinet government started functioning, much to Hughes’ anger and disgust. Hughes sent cables back to Watt, in Melbourne of course which was the capital, expressing his dismay that the cabinet was functioning. I have reproduced some of those cables and, a century later, they bristle down the page at you. You can feel the anger between the two men, prime minister and treasurer, as they express their frustration that each is trying to run the government. Hughes from Versailles and Watt from Melbourne. You’ll be your own judge as to who was in the right and who was in the wrong.

It’s a fascinating story of how the relationship between a prime minister and a treasurer can break down. And, of course, then Watt went into London on Hughes’ return to negotiate the wool contract, because the British government had not paid for the wool for the uniforms Australia had sold them during World War I. Hughes then proceeded, having instructed Watt when acting Prime Minister, to send him cables in London to instruct him as to how to conduct negotiations. I’ll just share one of the cables with you.

Watt arrived in London and opened The Times to find that Hughes has announced from Melbourne, the negotiating strategy for the Australian government. So he sent his Prime Minister a cable:

Astonished that you should have expounded a scheme to outsiders, portion of which vitally affects my mission, without prior consultation with me. Times today publishes telegram from Sydney outlining whole scheme. Which has caused consternation in wool circles. This publicity is a gravely embarrassing fact. You must see that it is impossible to run a business on these lines.

And they go on, and on. Eventually, without spoiling it for you, it ends in tears. With the most spectacular resignation of any treasurer in history when Watt has had enough.

As I said, there are debates about our contemporary treasurers and people will have their views about those. All the living treasurers whom I write about were very generous with their time, Bill Hayden, John Howard, Peter Costello, Wayne Swan and Paul Keating. They will agree with some of the conclusions and not others.

Some people have questioned why Jim Cairns has been included. As I said, this is not a book of the twelve best treasurers in history. It is a book of who I think are the twelve most interesting. In the three iconic scandals of the Whitlam Government, Cairns was in the middle of two of them. The most interesting thing about Cairns is, and I’m not kind to his legacy, he was, on paper, our most prepared – three degrees: a bachelor, a Masters in Commerce and a Doctorate of Philosophy on Economic History. Our most academically qualified treasurer in history. You would think he started with a pretty good pedigree. But I conclude that he was a fiercely intelligent man, but lacking judgement.

And there is a compelling story which underlines why Cairns failed. He was at the Lodge for a meeting of the National Executive of the Labor Party one night. And he wandered off into the Prime Minister’s dining room, a room I’ve spent many a night having dinner in so I understand the geography of the Lodge. He wandered in to find the Prime Minister, the Minister for Resources and the Attorney General having an executive council meeting. Cairns, the treasurer, said, “What’s happening here?” The Prime Minister replied that they were planning to borrow a lot of money from a Pakistani. The Treasurer of Australia said, “Oh, okay then,” and wandered off. I can’t think of any other treasurer who would have put up with that.