November 11 is a date which lives in Australia’s history for three events: on November 11, 1880, Ned Kelly was hanged; in 1918, at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, the guns fell silent in France; and in 1975, on the same date, John Kerr dismissed the legally elected government of Australia.
These are significant events in the story of Australia, but do they have specific Tasmanian connections? Ned Kelly wasn’t from Tasmania (though his father had done time at Port Arthur); the Armistice was hardly a Tasmanian phenomenon (though many Tasmanians on the Western front and in Egypt rejoiced) and Gough Whitlam was sacked in Canberra. So how do these events connect with this state? Let me tell you three stories over the next three weeks, in reverse chronological order.
By 1972, the social revolution of the swinging ‘60s had reached Australia, if somewhat late. But our politics were still those of the ‘50s. The conservative Liberal Party, with its even more conservative Country Party coalition partner, had been in power for 23 years, sturdily defending a “white picket fence” vision of Australia.
By 1972, the social revolution of the swinging ‘60s had reached Australia – if somewhat late. But the politics were still those of the ‘50s. The conservative Liberal Party, with its even more conservative Country Party coalition partner, had been in power for 23 years, sturdily defending their “white picket fence” vision of Australia. But then, late in the year, there was a Federal Election. When Gough Whitlam’s Labor Party decisively won that election, Whitlam was invited on December 5 to form a government. The invitation came from the Governor-General, his old political adversary Sir Paul Hasluck. Whitlam had thrown a glass of water over Hasluck in the House when Hasluck was a minister, but when Whitlam went to Yarralumla that day with his plan for an interim government of the Commonwealth of Australia, he had no thought that Hasluck would oppose him, despite the radical nature of his plan.
The government was to consist of two people: Gough Whitlam and Lance Barnard. The Executive Council was to be just three (three being necessary to pass regulations) Whitlam, Barnard and Hasluck. Whitlam was to hold 13 ministries, and, in an uncharacteristic display of humility on his part, Barnard was to hold 14. And they meant it. Even their colleagues were alarmed at this extraordinary and unprecedented arrangement.
However, after consulting with judicial and administrative advisors, Hasluck agreed to the arrangement. One of his advisors must have been the Chief Justice of the High Court, Garfield Barwick. More of him later. So, on December 5, 1972, mild-mannered Lance Barnard (to borrow a phrase) an extremely effective, but little known, politician from Tasmania, became the person who held the greatest executive power in Australian history since the early colonial governors – 14 ministries!
And didn’t he and Whitlam use that power. They embarked on a systematic revision and reversal of Australian government policy – on their own – and by executive order. Parliament didn’t come into it. It couldn’t, because although Labor had won a decisive victory, some seats were still in doubt, and the Labor caucus couldn’t be called to elect members to the ministry. Conscription to the armed forces was out the window on the first day of the “duumvirate”, and conscientious objectors to the Vietnam War released from jail the next. The Arbitration Commission was required to re-open the case about equal pay for women and the (communist) government of China was recognised.
Everything was on the table, and anything, seemingly, could be changed. Conservatives were alarmed, of course, but most of us were elated: it was like a marvellous, fresh sea-breeze blowing across the land, dispersing the stale political air that had been stifling us for years.
Lance Barnard compared the duumvirate to the first 100 days of Franklin Roosevelt’s administration in its scope and for its achievements. I am tempted to quote Wordsworth: “Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven!” Not quite, but it was exhilarating.
They were an “odd couple”, the arrogant intellectual and the quiet fixer, but they got on well, and they were very effective. In the 14 days of their “duumvirate”, Whitlam and Barnard promulgated an enormous 40 regulations of varying effect, which redirected the thrust of Australian policy – both at home and abroad – from conservative to liberal; in some areas (like China) policy becoming quite radical. And it did frighten the horses. It set the tone for conservative unease about the reckless “crash through or crash” attitude of the Whitlam government which eventually led to “The Dismissal”.
. . .
It wasn’t just conservative politicians who were alarmed by this brash, assertive and unorthodox approach to government – the mandarins of the public service were appalled. And it is in his approach to them, and his appointment to replace Hasluck as Governor-General, where Whitlam’s ingenuous judgement of people is revealed. Barnard thought Whitlam “somewhat naïve about the machinery of the party”, and he proved equally naïve about the public service.
Whitlam kept on all the really important heads of public service departments – the mandarins – and they were Menzies loyalists to their bootstraps. In particular, he repeatedly refused to move the head of Treasury, Fred Wheeler, despite Wheeler consistently opposing government policy and proposing very conservative fiscal policies which had grave electoral consequences for the government. This was possibly because Whitlam, often hailed as a polymath, had an intellectual Achilles heel – he had not a clue about economics. In an exchange about the credit squeeze of 1974, which was causing grief to workers and electoral damage, Clyde Cameron was railing against the policy. Whitlam asked, “What would a fucking ex-shearer know about economics?” Cameron responded, “About as much as a classical Greek scholar.” Touché.
But in his most egregious misjudging of character, Whitlam appointed John Kerr to be Governor-General. This was again remonstrated against by Barnard and others. Kerr was a brilliant lawyer, but not in sympathy with Whitlam’s ideology – more with the Catholic right of the labour movement. Not at all a sympathiser with Whitlam’s leftist programme. Kerr had only recently been made Chief Justice of NSW and knighted by the Premier, Robin Askin. Kerr’s wife, Peggy (a friend of Whitlam’s wife, Margaret) was very ill, which makes one ponder why he would take on such a big job, but perhaps he thought it would be easier for her than being a Chief Justice’s wife. Margaret Whitlam didn’t think so – she thought Kerr was being selfish and not paying due care to his ill wife. Kerr demanded considerably increased pay and a long tenure. His arrogant demands should have rung alarm bells with Whitlam – they certainly did with people like Barnard. But Whitlam prevailed, and Kerr became Governor-General.
Some, including Lance Barnard, saw the potential for disaster.
. . .
After 23 years of Liberal Party government, the conservative forces of Australia were, basically, not prepared to accept that the properly elected Labor government was actually the legitimate government of Australia. The leader of the Liberals in the Senate, Reg Withers, vowed to bring the government down at the first opportunity: he had the numbers to block legislation and he did so frequently. In response to this, and in possibly the most astute political move made by the Whitlam government, Whitlam called a double dissolution election in 1974. The Labor Party (just) won the election and in the subsequent dual sitting of parliament passed some of the most important Australian legislation of the 20th century, such as Medibank – which morphed into Medicare.
But the extreme conservative opposition to the Whitlam government was not abated, and the government did not help itself. There was a huge scandal when a fundamentalist old-school Labor minister, Rex Connor, tried to “buy back the farm” – re-nationalise some industries – using the services of a sensationally shonky dealer, Tirath Kemlahni. And then Jim Cairns, who had taken over from Barnard as deputy leader (just), survived a sex scandal about his entanglement with a staffer, Junie Morosi, but had to resign as a result of bad management of foreign borrowing.
The Liberals, now led by Malcolm Fraser again “blocked supply” – refused to pass the government’s budget – and after a stand-off of some weeks, Whitlam was dismissed by Kerr. Ironically, Whitlam’s old adversary, Hasluck, almost certainly would not have taken the same course.
. . .
“The Dismissal” was at once a complete denial of basic principles of the Westminster system of government and a personal betrayal of the Prime Minister. But it was also a shambolic political performance by the Labor side. Barnard had noted as early as 1967 that Whitlam did not work the party machine well, and it certainly did not work on November 11, 1975. “The left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing” is not the half of it.
But Barnard had resigned early in the year and been appointed to several Scandinavian countries as ambassador. Could events had gone better if the “quiet fixer’ had still been at Whitlam’s elbow in November 1975? Obviously, we’ll never know – but Barnard had been a moderating influence on Whitlam through some extremely tempestuous times.
So Lance Barnard, secure in his Scandinavian sinecure, didn’t have to suffer the anguish of those events in Canberra, and his place in history as part of the smallest, shortest-lived but most reforming and most effective government ever in Australian politically history was completely secure.
Was Whitlam’s dismissal deserved? In my opinion, no. To me it seems a contrivance of conservative forces manipulating the aforesaid narcissistic Governor-General with the assistance of the partisan Chief Justice, Barwick. There had been radical moves by Whitlam’s government, like recognising China, but only one really bad scandal – the Kemlahni affair. By November 1975, the government was fiscally rather conservative, and the country was on a pretty even keel. When the Whitlam government was finally dismissed on November 11, its budget, crafted by Bill Hayden, was passed without amendment the same day in just four minutes. Which shows up the whole “budget crisis” – the excuse for blocking supply – as the hypocrisy it had been all along.
On a deeper societal level, though, something else was going on. Young people like me had become somewhat radicalised by the Vietnam War and were agitating for things like Aboriginal land rights. There were also vague stirrings of worries about the environment and gender issues. These, somewhat incoherent, but serious social movements were brilliantly, satirically summarised in the phrase “Land Rights for Gay Whales”. But they were serious. Over the next 20 years, whaling did stop, homosexuality was de-criminalised and Aboriginal land rights were recognised.
Whitlam’s mad fortnight in December 1972, during which he and Lance Barnard re-calibrated Australia, should be seen in that light. Such a head of steam had built up for social change – for Australia to join the modern world – that a release valve had to be opened. That is what happened, and Tasmania’s part in it was through the quiet fixer, the very effective politician, Lance Barnard. We could use more of his ilk today, at all levels and on both sides of politics.
James Parker is a Tasmanian historian (but with deep connections to Sydney), who writes and talks on mainly colonial subjects – especially convicts, women and the Tasmanian Aboriginal people.
The author wishes to acknowledge Jenny Hocking's two-volume Gough Whitlam: His Time, (Melbourne University Press, 2012), from which most of the basic research for this piece came.
