Sir Paul Hasluck And The Menzies Era

Nicholas Hasluck AM QC studied law at the University of Western Australia, then Oxford, before practising law in Perth. He served as a part-time President of the Equal Opportunity Tribunal (WA) and later as a Judge of the Supreme Court of Western Australia. He has served also as Chair of the Literature Board of the Australia Council, Chair of the Commonwealth Writers Prize and as Chair of the Art Gallery of Western Australia. His many books include Legal Limits on the relationship between law and literature and fifteen works of fiction. In his latest novel The Bradshaw Case a native title claim in the Kimberley turns on findings about the origin of ancient rock art. To reflect on his father Paul Hasluck’s legacy from the Menzies era, Nicholas Hasluck addressed The Sydney Institute on Wednesday 9 November 2016

SIR PAUL HASLUCK AND THE MENZIES ERA

NICHOLAS HASLUCK

The former Prime Minister, John Howard, has added to his list of achievements by revisiting the life and times of Sir Robert Menzies. He has done so by hosting a television series and by writing a book called The Menzies Era. The author is quick to remind us that, having served briefly as Prime Minister in the war years, Menzies went on to serve as Prime Minister for a further period of sixteen years, from the election of the Liberal/Country Party coalition in 1949 to retirement at a time of his choosing in January 1966. The era in question is defined to include the next seven years so as to end with the Coalition’s defeat at the polls in 1972: 23 years of continuous rule which are described in the book’s sub-title as “the years that shaped modern Australia”.

I seek to cast further light on the Menzies era by reviewing the book from the vantage point of my late father, Sir Paul Hasluck, who was not only a long-standing Cabinet colleague of Menzies and his successors but also a former journalist and a shrewd observer of the political scene. In doing so, I will draw upon Geoffrey Bolton’s recently-published biography – Paul Hasluck: A Life – and some of Hasluck’s own works such as The Chance of Politics, a collection of pieces about his political contemporaries that I edited some years ago.

Howard’s book is a fine account of the era. He mentions improved standards of living, rising home ownership, national development, the opening up of trading opportunities in Asia, progress in education, the SEATO and ANZUS treaties, and he provides also a judicious account of Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War. He sets the record straight as to various political myths. For example, Gough Whitlam’s historic victory in 1972 which ended the Menzies era was not a landslide of epic proportions as commonly supposed by Whitlam’s many admirers – some parts of Australia actually saw a swing to the Coalition parties.

However, having acknowledged the strengths of Howard’s magisterial survey, it seems to me that much more could have been said about the first phase of the era and about two areas of governmental activity which were of particular interest to Paul Hasluck, namely, Aboriginal affairs and the development of Papua and New Guinea.

Let me begin with a brief overview of Paul Hasluck’s career. He was born in Fremantle in 1905. Having won a scholarship to Perth Modern School, he worked as a journalist on The West Australian newspaper between the wars. This included a period in the Kimberley region while he covered the Moseley Commission’s inquiry into the treatment of Aboriginals, a secondment that led to the writing of his first book Black Australians published in 1940. A chance encounter with a fellow journalist John Curtin (who was about to succeed Menzies as Prime Minister) led to Hasluck joining the Department of External Affairs in Canberra. After the war, as a member of the Australian Mission to the United Nations, he worked closely with Dr Evatt, but felt obliged to resign when the Labor Minister’s practice of favouring certain subordinates became intolerable.

Hasluck was then commissioned to write what became two volumes in the official war history, The Government and the People. It was in this role that he interviewed Robert Menzies, now Leader of the Opposition, and founder of the newly-formed Liberal Party. Years later Hasluck recalled that, “Menzies was singular among all those I interviewed …. Unlike all the others he had not prepared a long type-written screed of self-justification. He was ready to talk, answer questions and discuss past events and the way in which he was singular was that he stood off and talked about the events and himself as though he was observing them from outside.”

It seemed to Hasluck that this quality was the mark of a sound education and of a superior mind. In writing the war history Hasluck could see that the results obtained by Curtin after the Japanese attack at the end of 1941 were the direct outcome of the work done by Menzies in the two previous years, as Curtin himself acknowledged. He could see also that it was largely due to Menzies that the Liberal Party was produced out of a confused medley of political groupings in parliament.

Not surprisingly, Hasluck was soon persuaded to join the Liberal Party and this led to him entering the federal parliament, and the Menzies ministry in due course, as a consequence of the Coalition’s success in the 1949 election. Still affronted by Evatt’s questionable habits Hasluck was impressed by the new Prime Minister’s reformative approach to the institutions of government upon taking office.

Hasluck said of this period:

After he came to office in 1949 one of the lesser but nevertheless important achievements of Menzies was in restoring some of the dignity of parliament and respect for it as an institution …. Similarly Menzies knew, respected and used the public service. … It was Menzies who was largely responsible for seeing that the Commonwealth Public Service was re-established after the war as an efficient, non-partisan and self-respecting institution. This was among his major achievements.

In making these and other comments about the structure of government Hasluck spoke as an informed observer. He served as Minister for Territories in the Menzies government from 1951 to 1963, as Minister for External Affairs under Menzies, Holt and Gorton from 1964 to 1969 and as Governor-General from 1969 to 1974, working with Gorton, McMahon and Whitlam in that role. Hasluck had been looking at government in Australia for over 50 years from a number of different levels – as a member of the press gallery, as an academic historian, and from successive posts within the citadel as a public servant, parliamentarian, cabinet minister and eventually as President of the Executive Council. He had worked with leaders from further afield at the United Nations and as Foreign Minister. This background of experience adds weight to his assessment of the scene.

By the time John Howard reached the highest office in the 1990s, the nature of the public service had changed, principally due to “reforms” initiated during the Whitlam, Fraser and Hawke/Keating eras. It is not quite clear to what extent Howard sees merit in the traditional view reinstated by Menzies in the post-war period that public servants should be capable of serving successive governments and of tendering advice without fear or favour regardless of which party had gained power.

In an article contributed to Quadrant in March 1986, prior to John Howard’s accession, Hasluck said this:

Gradually, in the succession of Holt, Gorton and McMahon, the Prime Ministerial staff began to sprout more shoots and then under Whitlam it came to full bloom with the construction of a presidential bureau with advisers, consultants, research assistants, speech writers and persons with special duties over a wide range of public affairs. A large number of these came from outside the public service. Fraser’s only flattery of Whitlam was imitation of his presidential bureau. At the coming of Hawke the new pattern of presidential bureau was already laid down, although structure, numbers and working methods might change to suit the style of each incumbent. This seems to me where “politicisation” has already begun.

One has only to look at Recollections of a Bleeding Heart written by Keating’s well-known speechwriter Don Watson to know that the spread of staffers and the process of “politicisation” continued apace. He tells a gripping but deeply disturbing tale. Watson’s feverish protagonists seem to spend most of their mornings looking for whatever their opponents put out before breakfast and most of their afternoons gunning it down in time for the evening news. Adrift in Disneyland, they seem to spend little time looking at what has to be done in the real world.

Howard is well-aware that, unlike the slower-paced Menzies era, confronting the enemy at high noon, nailing the 24-hour news cycle, is now at the centre of modern politics. As to the increase in staffers, many of whom are party political activists, he notes (at p 370) that “this development has played a significant role in entrenching factionalism on both sides of politics”. His appraisal doesn’t sit comfortably with the view he expresses a little later that in many areas the public service continues to be the source of frank and fearless advice to ministers. Factual feuds! Bleeding hearts! There is more than enough in all of this to suggest that for many staffers soundbites and “gotcha” moments at high noon are the real world.

Amidst the mayhem one begins to doubt that much of what happens in ministerial offices is recorded methodically. Historians in times to come may be left with little more than a heap of disjointed emails to draw upon, and the ruminations of transient apparatchiks: minions in the mould of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern who knew that they were in the thick of things at Prince Hamlet’s court, but never quite knew what was actually going on.

There has always been a tendency in the writing of Australian history for the narrative to be shaped by supposedly enlightened scribes on the political left, the creators of myths almost always favourable to Labor, particularly with respect to the Whitlam era. This means that the Liberals have let themselves be deprived of credit for various achievements. Haphazard record-keeping will facilitate this tendency. Suffice it to say for the moment that Howard’s book disposes of a number of these myths and is thus a valuable corrective to the general trend.

Nevertheless, as I foreshadowed in opening, certain corners of the Menzies era deserve a closer look. Howard notes (at p373) that policies affecting Aboriginal Australians became an issue of public concern in the 1960s and that “most Australians wanted to see an improvement in Aboriginal people’s conditions”. He deals briefly with the constitutional amendment effected by the 1967 referendum, whereby Aboriginal people were to be included in the census and the federal parliament acquired powers in this field of governance, but apart from saying, somewhat blandly, that “this matter has remained part of the mainstream political debate in Australia”, he says little else about the matter. This inevitably leaves an impression that nothing much was done in the Menzies era.

It is true that prior to 1967 governmental powers concerning Aboriginal peoples were principally vested in the state governments, with the federal government being responsible for the Northern Territory. There was, of course, some resemblance between policies and practices in each state, partly referable to the concept of “assimilation” that had been the subject of discussion at conferences before the war; that is, the notion that Aboriginal people, and especially those of part-Aboriginal descent, should eventually accede to the rights and opportunities available to all Australian citizens. But throughout the country there were in fact many instances of discrimination and deprivation, and thus much to be done.

As a backbencher, soon after his election to the federal parliament in 1949, by drawing upon his earlier experience in the Kimberley and at the United Nations, Paul Hasluck spoke powerfully about the need to improve the status and the treatment of Aboriginal people in this way: “When we enter into international discussion and raise our voice, as we should raise it, in defence of human rights and the protection of human welfare, our very words are mocked by the thousands of degraded and depressed people who crouch on the rubbish heap throughout the whole of this continent”. Gough Whitlam said of this speech in later years that “it was the most thorough speech on Aborigines ever to have been delivered in the national parliament”.

On 8 June 1950 Hasluck moved:

That this House is of the opinion that the Commonwealth Government, exercising a national responsibility for the welfare of the whole Australian people, should cooperate with the State Governments in measures for the social advancement as well as the protection of the Aboriginal race throughout the Australian mainland.

Unfortunately, this motion lapsed upon the double dissolution election of that year.

Upon the return of the Menzies government in 1951 Hasluck was appointed Minister for Territories. He quickly convened a meeting in Canberra of state ministers and senior office-bearers with a view to agreeing the line of thought reflected in the earlier motion on the grounds that due to intermarriage and movement to urban areas assimilation was taking place in practice, save for remote communities. In the absence of the required consensus the new Minister then turned to making various improvements in the Northern Territory. The time available to me does not permit a full review but much was done including an increased emphasis upon housing, health and education.

It was not until 1961 that the Native Welfare Council consisting of Federal and State government ministers for Aboriginal Affairs announced, during Hasluck’s tenure, that in the view of all Australian governments, “all Aborigines and part Aborigines are expected eventually to attain the same manner of living as other Australians and to live as members of a single Australian community enjoying the same rights and privileges, accepting the same responsibilities, observing the same customs and influenced by the same beliefs, hopes and loyalties as other Australians”.

This was generally regarded as a laudable objective. At that time, with the arrival of many European migrants, the term “assimilation” was viewed as a benign description of what seemed to be the norm – a means of living harmoniously in accordance with an Australian, and essentially egalitarian, way of life. It was against this background that, some years later, the 1967 referendum was approved by a large majority of the Australian people.

But attitudes are constantly changing, and this was certainly true of the 1960s. The “winds of change” proclaimed by Harold Macmillan foreshadowed the end of colonial rule in Africa and other parts of the world; the apartheid regime in South Africa dramatised the iniquities of racial discrimination; the civil rights movement in the United States highlighted the importance of remedial legislation; moves were afoot in the United Nations and other international forums to establish a right of self-determination for indigenous peoples.

Again, time does not permit a full review of all the factors that led eventually, by the end of the Menzies era, and more extensively under Gough Whitlam, to the widespread disparagement of assimilation (and those associated with it), although it is still unclear in the Australian context, a country in which many people of Aboriginal descent live in towns and cities in the same way as other Australians, what exactly is meant by “self-determination”. Likewise, the jury is still out as to whether the new policy has actually improved the welfare of people in remote communities, for inevitably they too are subject to the temptations of the modern world, from alcohol to mobile phones and glossy ads on television.

It would be a bold person indeed who claims to have all the answers in this complex field. Progress has been made since the war ended seventy years ago, but incrementally, in fits and starts. An unfortunate aspect of the ongoing debate is the way in which each generation of administrators and commentators feel obliged to disparage, or even demonise, the work of their predecessors. One is reminded of the prescient words of the poet W.B.Yeats in describing those involved in Irish politics before the Great War: “the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity”. The current penchant for disparagement may be why John Howard steered clear of Aboriginal affairs. But to leave a vacuum seems unwise, for the reality is that it will soon be filled by strident voices who are determined to rewrite history to suit their own agendas.

Geoffrey Bolton’s biography of Paul Hasluck puts the true position succinctly, and in a way that could easily be applied to the many other people of goodwill in towns and outback areas, usually working with limited resources, who sought to change the way things were:

Hasluck’s achievements may be simply stated. In 1933, when he first began to take a serious interest in Aboriginal issues, every Australian state and territory excluded Aboriginal people from citizenship and placed them under restrictive and frequently degrading regulations. Thirty years later, when he ended his term as federal Minister for Territories, it was uniformly accepted that the first Australians had an inherent right to citizenship, and if some were still subject to restraints and limitations, official policy should work towards eliminating those arrangements as soon as possible. Race should not be the determinant of citizenship. As activist in the 1930s and as legislator in the 1950s and early 1960s, Hasluck was a leading agent for change. The referendum of 1967 that amended the Commonwealth Constitution to accommodate this change is remembered as a symbolic moment. It could not have taken place, and would not have secured such widespread assent, but for the clearing away of much of the old legislation and the attitudes of mind that supported it. Paul Hasluck played an important and honourable part.

In his memoir Shades of Darkness, written in retirement, Hasluck ended his account of the earlier period and the shift to self-determination as follows:

One immediate change in method was the sudden transference of a number of fully-assimilated persons of part-Aboriginal descent into professional Aborigines who, with the entitlement of having one Aboriginal among four of their grandparents became the confident authorities on “the way of their people”. More seriously, another outcome was the reawakening and at times the active promotion of racial divisions and antipathies. The new policy was avoiding the fact that a return to the past is never a solution to the problems of the future. We Australians – of all cultural backgrounds – have a vast repair job to do in the wreckage of a people, rather than a messianic role of leading them backwards into the wilderness to dwell apart forever.

He added:

Another difference between then and now is revealed in the way the subject is discussed. The conflict has been revived, differences exaggerated and recriminations heightened. Many coloured people seem to have less confidence in the good intentions of those in authority and many white people have less hope for the future of Aborigines …. Fifty years ago we saw the relationship of white and coloured as a social problem …. An earnest effort was made to change Australian neglect and indifference towards Aborigines, to improve their conditions and to raise their hopes for the future. We strove for the full recognition of their entitlements – legally as citizens, socially as fellow Australians.

These observations bring me now to the second area of governmental action in the Menzies era which I feel was not covered sufficiently by John Howard’s book; that is, Australia’s role in Papua and New Guinea. Howard mentions (at p 625) that in January 1970 Whitlam, as Leader of the Opposition, travelled to Port Moresby and committed a future Labor government to the granting of full independence by 1976. He adds, in a cursory way, that under Whitlam’s rule four years later “the Territory received her independence before she was ready”. Howard fails to give any account of the way in which the Territory was administered during the preceding Menzies era, and thus brought to a point where Whitlam could cut the ribbon and be acclaimed for the spade work done by others – District Commissioners, patrol officers, public servants, doctors, nurses, judges, lawyers, teachers, business people: a host of dedicated Australians working in every corner of the country throughout the Menzies era.

It emerges from Geoffrey Bolton’s biography that when Paul Hasluck became Minister for Territories in 1951, and assumed responsibility for the governance of Papua and New Guinea, he inherited a country “extending over 475, 368 square kilometres, of which only two thirds was classified as under effective administrative control. A mountainous country covered with tropical vegetation …. [it] was divided among more than 200 clans with no common sense of nationality and in many cases with only recent contact with the wider world”.

In the early post-war era Papua and New Guinea were combined as a single unit administered by Australia as a trust territory for the United Nations which, from time to time in the years that followed, would send a mission to assess the country’s progress towards eventual self-determination. Again, time does not permit a full account of the steps that were taken during the Menzies era to fulfil this fiduciary obligation. Suffice it to say that the provision of infrastructure, the spread of schooling and the observance of law, the gradual creation of democratic institutions and governmental systems, was a memorable feat, and the more so because it led eventually to a peaceful transfer of power to the indigenous community. It is an Australian achievement which should never be forgotten.

The details of the transformation, most of which had taken place well before Whitlam appeared on the scene, are set out fully in Paul Hasluck’s book A Time for Building. The nature of the task is reflected in this passage:

The year 1962 seemed to me at the time to be a turning point in the history of Papua and New Guinea. Hard work below ground had been done and progress seemed to quicken … In this period I had many occasions of encouragement in the opening of hospitals, schools, roads, bridges and other buildings and in little ceremonies to welcome the first fruits of one activity or another.

Hasluck goes on to describe a visit to a newly-opened patrol post in the mountains at Nomad which consisted of a tiny airstrip (hard to find among the clouds) and two or three native-material huts perched at the edge of a cliff:

Down below, a river ran invisibly but audibly between intertwined jungle growth. A score or so of the pygmies were watching from a distance as we climbed out of our two-seater. One, a sort of spokesman, came close to us, gave a subdued greeting and fingered my clothing in curiosity …. As the two young patrol officers and I made our inspection the men slipped quietly from one obscure place to another and looked at us around the corners of the huts …. They were naked, except for a tough, hard belt of bark around the soft part of the body … Each man carried a bow as tall as himself and a clutch of arrows … The pilot and I had some food and a yarn with the two boys. They were completing the policy of bringing the whole of the Territory under administrative control. As keenly as ever I felt the immensity of the task that had been done over the last ten years and was thrilled with the young Australians who had done it. Less than three years later the Nomad people were voting for the House of Assembly.

Hasluck said this of his final years in Papua and New Guinea:

I had developed a deep affection for the land and its people and had begun to develop some of the characteristics of the “old hands”. We had worked for this country when few others had shown much interest. We had stored up pleasant memories. I had yarned on clear tropical evenings in remote places with those who had taken an earlier part in the exploration of Papua and New Guinea and made first contact with its people. I had talked with the people in their villages. I had responded to the grandeur of its mountains and the whispering warmth of the sea on its coast. My sympathy for the indigenous people and hopes for their future had been kindled. In its own subtle way Papua and New Guinea had taken possession of me. Perhaps this showed. Perhaps some of the newcomers and the one-week journalists thought I had been deluded into thinking I owned the place, when in fact I was the one who was possessed.

Menzies visited Papua and New Guinea on several occasions and it seems that he responded favourably to sentiments of this kind with the result that he and Hasluck formed a closer relationship. This probably contributed to Menzies’ support for Hasluck in the contest for leadership of the Liberal Party in January 1968 when John Gorton succeeded Harold Holt as Prime Minister.

They were certainly of the same view as to how political decisions should be made. Many politicians, according to Hasluck, are inclined to find guidance in their own guesses about how the public might respond to a decision:

Menzies was one of those who worked the other way round. In Cabinet and in the party room, when developing an argument, he looked first for an answer that was right and subsequently faced the question of practicality and the problem of persuading the crowd …. Menzies spoke well because he thought clearly …. He had great skill with a crowd and better than anyone I observed could overcome a rowdy opposition and get them to a point where they were waiting to hear what he would say next instead of trying to stop him from saying anything.

In dealing with matters of this kind, Howard does his best to present a graphic picture of the Menzies style but, as he himself admits, he was handicapped by having met Menzies on one occasion only, and unlike Paul Hasluck did not see him in action at close quarters, across the table in cabinet or in parliament, or in less formal places such as Darwin or Port Moresby. The appraisal of those who were present on such occasions should therefore be brought to account before any final assessment is made.

So let me sum up. When I review the Menzies era from the vantage point of Paul Hasluck, a man close to Menzies and his three successors, and the holder of various public offices throughout the twenty three years of continuous Coalition rule, it strikes me that in certain respects John Howard’s book and related TV series leave more to be said. My observations should not be construed as a critique but simply as an attempt to add further layers to a well-researched narrative that generally manages to set the record straight. The Howard book will certainly serve as a valuable corrective to a number of myths shaped by historians and commentators on the left who are often unwilling to acknowledge any achievements on the other side of politics.

My overview is supported by the matters mentioned earlier. As to the grant of independence in Papua and New Guinea mythmakers on the left show scant respect for those who laid the foundations. They reserve their acclaim for the man who cut the ribbon. As to Aboriginal affairs there are myths aplenty including the notion that nothing of any importance was attempted or accomplished prior to the Whitlam era. Activists in contemporary times, by disparaging, or even demonising, their predecessors have paved the way to widespread political correctness which now makes it almost impossible to have an open discussion about Aboriginal issues and the steps that should be taken.

In recent days, much to his credit, John Howard has voiced his concern about the attack on cartoonist Bill Leak for drawing attention to the disarray in some Aboriginal communities. The former Prime Minister is obviously well-aware of the threat to free speech posed by section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. He himself was shaped by the Menzies era, and his links to that era are reflected in what he said, for Menzies and his successors were firm believers in the rule of law and the right of people in the community to express unusual opinions, or to expose hypocrisy by skilful satire.

Like many others, I hold to the same view. With that in mind I have sought to underline the link between one era and the next, the importance of free speech, by looking at reports written by anthropologists in the Kimberley when Paul Hasluck went there in the 1930s. In my recently-published novel The Bradshaw Case the lawyers involved in a native title claim insist that an elderly anthropologist abandon the opinion he has held for many years that an unusual form of rock art in the Kimberley (known as Bradshaw art or Gwion Gwion) was created not by local people but many thousands of years earlier by visitants from the Indonesian archipelago. The anthropologist refuses to comply and, in doing so, recalls the words of the contrarian Henry Thoreau: “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.”

The tradition of free speech runs through the history of this country from its earliest days to the Menzies era and beyond. It should not be forgotten or lightly abandoned. Stifling debate by political correctness and related threats of legal action is a blind alley. Change for the better is driven by freedom of thought and achievable outcomes. Against the backdrop of my earlier remarks it is timely to note that the first Aboriginal member of the House of Representatives, Ken Wyatt, now a Minister in the Turnbull government, represents the West Australian electorate of Hasluck. This is what Paul Hasluck and others of his generation worked for: that Aboriginal people should take their proper place in the forums of the nation. In his words “We strove for the full recognition of their entitlements – legally as citizens; socially as fellow Australians.”