Launch Of Anne Henderson’s Book Menzies at War

On Friday 18 July 2014, The Sydney Institute held a Melbourne launch of Anne Henderson’s Menzies at War. The function was hosted by law firm Arnold Bloch Liebler and the speakers were introduced by Mark Liebler AC. The Hon Josh Frydenberg MP, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister launched the book and Professor Geoffrey Blainey AC offered concluding remarks. The papers which follow are edited transcripts of speeches given on the day.

LAUNCH OF ANNE HENDERSON’S BOOK MENZIES AT WAR

JOSH FRYDENBERG

Thank you very much Mark for those very kind words and I acknowledge you and your fellow partners at Arnold Bloch Leibler and the wonderful support you give to events like this and also to me, at a personal level. It’s greatly appreciated. Can I also acknowledge Professor Geoffrey Blainey who’s also been a very great friend and somebody who’s chronicled the history of our country to the great benefit of many, many people.

I must say that when I thought about an excuse not to be there today, this was about the best I could get – being tied up in Canberra among divisions of the parliament on what is quite a sombre day here in Canberra given the terrible news of the Malaysian flight being shot down. So I really apologise for not being there but maybe I can’t see or hear the hecklers so maybe that’ll be a benefit to me. I’d also like to thank Gerard and Anne Henderson for this great honour, to help launch the book here in Melbourne.

Gerard and Anne may not be the elected political equivalents of Bill and Hillary Clinton but maybe they’re the Australian literary, political equivalents to Bill and Hillary because they are a very prominent couple on the Australian political stage. Gerard, with his book Menzies’ Child, andwhat Anne has done with her books on Joe Lyons and Enid Lyons and of course she’s also written extensively on Mary MacKillop’s family and many other topics. The Sydney Institute, founded in 1989, has been a great forum for political ideas, with the many diverse people that have spoken at that forum from the Tom Friedmans and Clive Jameses to the Quentin Bryces and, of course, the roll call of Prime Ministers, former Prime Ministers and Opposition Leaders. So, while it may be a Sydney institute in name and housed on Phillip Street, it certainly has a national impact and it’s a great pleasure to be here and to be there with you, at least virtually.

In terms of what Anne has written on the past, in terms of Enid Lyons and Joe Lyons, this book is very much in that genre, in giving us some wonderful insights into that period of Menzies’ first government. Menzies at War is very timely. It is the 70^th anniversary of the founding of the Liberal Party and also the 75^th anniversary of Menzies’ first term as Prime Minister when he became Prime Minister in 1939, as Australia’s 12^th Prime Minister. Often our political opponents try to rewrite history as time passes and often they do that in a way to denigrate the history of our greats, namely Sir Robert Menzies and others. So it’s left to people like Gerard and Anne and many people in the room today to defend the history of the Liberal Party and to very much shine the light on the great successors of Liberal leaders like Sir Robert Menzies.

Menzies at War does focus on the first term of Sir Robert Menzies’ time as Prime Minister, 1939-1941. At a period that has often been overshadowed by his much longer period that Mark Liebler alluded to between 1949 and 1966 as Prime Minister, a period where he won seven elections and put in place a number of policies that have stood the test of time. Like the ANZUS alliance. Like the Colombo plan, which helped bring to the end of the White Australia Policy under Harold Holt. Like the record investment and support for universities and like the attempt to bring some of the sectarian divides at play in Australia with funding to non-government schools. Sir Robert Menzies’ second term was extremely successful and the great focus has been on that.

What Anne Henderson does in this book is show the success of Sir Robert Menzies’ first term. When I read this book, for me, for the first time, I was learning about that success and about what Sir Robert Menzies did to prepare Australia for war but also to lead Australia through those early stages of World War II.

Three key periods are covered for me in Menzies at War.The first period is where Anne goes into some lengths about the great intellectual and individual prowess of Robert Menzies and traces his roots from very humble beginnings.

Born at the turn of the nineteenth century in a little Victorian town of Jeparit, he was educated at a one teacher government school and quickly showed his intellectual prowess, winning scholarships. He went on to a school in Ballarat, won a state scholarship examination, and made his way to Wesley College before attending Melbourne University where he excelled at Law. Menzies’ great record in the law is often forgotten – at age 26 in 1920, Robert Menzies appeared successfully before the High Court in the famous Engineers Case. And with the support of his friend, Wilfred Kent-Hughes, he subsequently made his way into state politics, becoming first a member of Legislative Council and then Legislative Assembly. As Mark has mentioned, Menzies became the federal member for Kooyong in 1934 and was quickly appointed by Joe Lyons to become Attorney General and also Minister for Industry.

It was apparent to most of his colleagues, with his skills, his talents, that he was a natural successor to Lyons, even though others like Billy Hughes had coveted that role. In April 1939, when Joe Lyons dies suddenly, Menzies won the party ballot to become the leader of the United Australia Party.

And that is where we come into the second major theme in this book. And it’s most important. It’s the importance of Menzies’ prime ministership in that first term between 1939 and 1941. What Anne does so skilfully and in such a well-researched way is to paint the picture of the challenges Menzies faced both domestically as well as internationally. When I say domestically, because even after Germany invaded Poland in late August 1939, the Australian Labor Party was not aware of the real significance of the global Nazi threat, nor were they aware of or prepared to play the role that Australia was to play under Sir Robert Menzies when Britain, France and ultimately Australia went to war with Hitler. Menzies faced domestic opposition from Curtin and, subsequently, after his election to parliament in 1941, Doc Evatt. It was in that environment that Menzies tried to forge Australia’s preparedness to participate, in a significant manner, in the World War II.

In those early war years of the first Menzies Government, when Australia went to war, the United States military was very much on the sidelines. The Lend-Lease legislation which allowed the USA to support the war with materiel only come into effect in March 1941. Britain feared invasion rom mid 1940 until the Nazi-Soviet pact was ripped up and the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union after June 1941. And it was only with the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941 that the Americans became fully involved in a military sense in the World War II.

So for those early months and years, after September 1939, when Australia was at war and Menzies was encountering much domestic opposition, we were also participating in an international theatre.  Britain was extremely focused on its own domestic survival, with significant interests in the Middle East, the Mediterranean and across the Atlantic. Australia’s security and that of our neighbours in the Pacific were of a secondary priority for the people in Whitehall and particularly Winston Churchill. Anne goes to some length, in this book, to examine the attempts by Robert Menzies in his visit to Britain between February and May 1941 where he lobbied the British authorities hard – particularly Churchill. This included half a dozen dinners for Robert Menzies with Churchill had at Chequers with. Menzies had actually stopped at Singapore on his way to Britain in early 1941 and was very much aware of how vulnerable the base was.

The other thing that Menzies did, in addition to making the domestic case for Australia to be involved in this conflict as well as the international case, he also returned to Australia via Canada and the USA as well, hoping to persuade a more concerted effort on the part of the north Americans in the war.  Back in Australia, the Menzies Government set up the legislative and logistical framework that would underpin Australia’s involvement in World War II – raising the Second AIF with more than 20,000 soldiers, implementing compulsory military training and setting up the Munitions Department. Essington Lewis, who headed that department, was very successful in ensuring that the Munitions Department became an integrated part of Australia’s war effort.

The other point that Anne makes very effectively is that Robert Menzies at no time coveted or sought Churchill’s role as leader of the United Kingdom. Other authors like David Day have speculated about Menzies’ intentions while in britain and tried to paint the picture that Menzies manipulated the situation to become Churchill’s successor. Anne rightfully points out that Menzies was very much focused on the domestic challenges in Australia and his obligations at home. While he had supporters in the United Kingdom like Lord Beaverbrook and some of the media barons there is no suggestion he was at any stage foolish enough to imagine he could succeed Churchill.

For the period 1939-41, Anne does us all a great favour by laying out the significant contribution Menzies made. There are also get glimpses of a private man in that period. There are dramatic moments such as the tragic air crash of 13 August 1940, when Menzies lost three senior ministers, Henry Gullett, Jim Fairbairn and Geoffrey Street as well as his Chief of Military Staff. Menzies wrote, much later, “I felt that, for me, the end of the world had come”.

Menzies at War offers an insightful understanding of the significant achievements of that first Menzies Government against strong domestic resistance and in the context of an international environment where the United Kingdom and the United States were not focussed on the Pacific.

The third period that Anne very effectively covers in this book is Menzies’ return from Britain and his toppling as Prime Minister by his own side. From this come his subsequent and deep periods of introspection and reflection before being rehabilitated, establishing the Liberal Party and winning the federal election against Chifley in 1949.

Anne points out that when Menzies came back to Australia, a number of his earlier supporters had left him. People like Holt and Spender had now joined Hughes and wanted to see Menzies resign. What Menzies did not do was to out those individuals and call for them to resign. He effectively fell on his own sword, a decision he took saying Australia was at war and his continued leadership would only lead to more division and turmoil at a time when Australia didn’t need it.

So it was a very interesting decision – personal decision by Menzies. It absolutely devastated him because he didn’t expect it. Dame Patty Menzies had warned her husband before he left for London that he would last six weeks as leader on his return – she was only weeks out in her estimation. Country Party leader Arthur Fadden replaced Menzies as prime minister and Billy Hughes took the leadership of the United Australia Party.

Menzies underwent a deep period of introspection and reflection during which his brother Frank advised him to cultivate is “political fellows”. As Anne shows, Menzies was seen as aloof, as removed from his colleagues and, with his erudite reputation, he really needed to make a better effort at understanding his professional relationships. In fact there was a point, as Anne reveals in the book, when Menzies thought about leaving federal politics all together to become Chief Justice of Victoria.

Today, we are very grateful that Menzies did not become Chief Justice of Victoria. In his series of radio broadcasts, The Forgotten People, he clarified his own political thinking and his own political philosophy. Then, in 1944, he and others in the remnant UAP established a very broad based organisation they named the Liberal Party of Australia – giving equal representation to men and women in the organisational wing. Labor helped deliver the victory over the next few years – divisions over organised Communist Party influence on Labor ranks, consequent strikes that crippled industry and finally Prime Minister Ben Chifley’s very bad mistake of pursuing bank nationalisation after mid 1947. All this led to the Liberal victory at the December 1949 election.

This book is full of wonderful anecdotes, quotes, witticisms but also it gives you a glimpse of Robert Menzies, a private man. Robert Menzies is as relevant today as he ever was, his concepts of freedom of the individual, free enterprise, international partnerships – particularly with the United States – are still very much at the epicentre of the Liberal Party’s thinking.

So, Anne, you’ve done us all a great service with this wonderful book. You’ve shone a light on the successes of Sir Robert Menzies’ first government and you have provided us with a road map for the future as well, as we continue to defend and promote Sir Robert Menzies’ legacy. Thank you very much.