History

REFLECTIONS ON GOUGH AND GOOD OLD SMITHY

It is interesting to reflect on two momentous Remembrance Days that still provoke thought and comment.

In February 2006 I took a group of Politics and History students to listen to Gough Whitlam (1916-2014) speak, at a Dymocks' literary luncheon at Fraser’s restaurant, of all places, in beautiful Kings Park, Perth.

Whitlam, then 89, accompanied by his wife Margaret, was in good form and quickly told the audience that “the restaurant was not named after Malcolm but rather a distinguished WA colonial public servant, Simon Fraser.”

He even knew that the school I was teaching at was an Adventist college. His knowledge of minutiae, always superb, was thus clearly evident that day.

At question time I commenced by asking the former Labor PM to reflect on Remembrance Day 1965. An interjector in the audience incorrectly said “you mean 1975.” I replied: “no I don’t, I mean 1965.”

I then proceeded to ask the former Labor PM whether he had ever contemplated “doing an Ian Smith.” Exactly 10 years prior to when Whitlam was sacked (11 November 1975) by Sir John Kerr, the same thing was tried on the Rhodesian PM, Ian Smith. It failed as spectacularly as it succeeded in Australia, a decade later.

Smith refused to be dismissed by Governor Sir Humphrey Gibbs and instead placed the Queen’s man under house arrest and then proceeded to govern for another 14 years!

Gibbs had moved to sack Smith because UDI (Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain) had been declared on that Remembrance Day of 1965.

Ironies abound: Whitlam, a republican, accepted his dismissal by Australia’s ceremonial head of state, the Governor General, while Smith, a staunch royalist, effectively decapitated the Rhodesian governor. 

The reason I framed the question like that, (‘doing a Smith’) was because in Canberra on that fateful November day Whitlam returned to The Lodge and told a few henchman, that “the bastard (Kerr) has done a Game on us.” Whitlam was referring to the 1932 sacking of NSW Premier Jack Lang by the State Governor Sir Philip Game, after a series of written warnings. (Ironically, Lang died in October 1975, only a few weeks before Whitlam was sacked, aged 98. Whitlam also died at the same age last year.)

Thus, Whitlam was wrong to equate Game with Kerr. Game did act honorably, unlike Kerr over 43 years later.

However, Whitlam’s reply to my question was that he did not think of emulating Smith.  As a QC,he was at heart a great constitutionalist. At the ensuing election, on 13^th December, he was trounced by Malcolm Fraser, the ‘Kerrtaker PM’ who had been the Opposition leader, until appointed by Kerr. Whitlam instantly dubbed him “Kerr’s cur.”

Malcolm Turnbull has never before earned applause from this writer but he deserves credit for his comments, past and present, on Whitlam.

Turnbull was recently taken to task by conservative Hal Colebatch, a capable writer, whose article What’s left if Malcolm is in the middle? (News Weekly 5/12/15) reveals Turnbull for the opportunist he has always been.

However, Colebatch is wrong in attacking Turnbull over his support of the sacked Labor PM.

The current Liberal PM, correctly, said that Kerr had not explored enough options with Whitlam. Turnbull argued that “the dictates of common courtesy alone would have made it proper.”

Colebatch argues that if Whitlam was so warned he could have had Kerr replaced (true), “a prescription for, in the worse case, civil war.” Oh, really? If the sacking of the elected PM was not enough to do that then the dismissal of an essentially bunyip aristocrat with delusions of grandeur and a white pompadoured mane, would not even come close to provoking that response.

In contrast, Sir Philip Game did accept the fact that he needed to formally counsel and warn Jack Lang before dismissing the NSW Premier on 13 May 1932. Lang, like Whitlam later, accepted the dismissal and also lost the subsequent election. Both Labor leaders have nothing to answer for at the bar of history for their behaviour in relation to the King and Queen’s men respectively. Colebatch’s speculation as to what Whitlam might have done is just that- speculation.
Colebatch should also be aware that the Queen's private secretary, Sir William Heseltine 'the boy from Wyalkatchem', who worked in various roles in Buckingham Palace, for 27 years, is also on the public record that Kerr acted too hastily in dismissing Gough. He said  that Kerr should have held the line for a bit longer because a political solution would probably have been reached (See 'No wake up call for Queen over dismissal,' The West Australian 12.04 11, article by Malcolm Quekett). 
Sir William also said as much, in his 2005 visit, to my Politics students. 

Colebatch is also wrong when he said, “Turnbull in what must be one of the most embarrassing passages in political writing ever” (said), ‘When Game (sic) sacked Lang he did so after public opinion had swung almost entirely against the Lang Government . Consequently Game’s (sic) action was vindicated in political terms by the landslide victory of the anti-Labor forces at the resulting election. Kerr(sic) is an entirely different situation to Game. Here public opinion has been moving steadily in favour the Labor Party……’

Given the electoral thrashing that Whitlam received it may appear, superficially, that Colebatch was right about Turnbull’s judgment, at the time.

In fact Gough as PM was winning the high stakes struggle over the struggle for supply (finance) and was only a day or two away from a stunning victory. The public, as measured by polls, were sick of the Opposition tactics of deferring supply and just wanted Labor to be allowed to govern for another 18 months. Tasmanian Liberal senator, Eric Bessell, had made it clear he would not vote to reject the Budget –at the time the Senate Opposition was ‘playing games’ by deferring a vote. At least another two Liberals were also likely not to toe their Leader’s line in the deadlocked Senate.

 However, after the dismissal Gough no longer spoke as PM, the Budget had passed the Senate, after Fraser had been installed as caretaker PM, and concern over the tactics of the Coalition in Opposition were then replaced with concern at the record of the sacked Labor Government.

As for the principled Bessell, thanks to Fraser, he was placed in the hopeless sixth position on the Liberal Tasmanian senate ticket. However, he received the fourth highest vote for his side, falling just short of winning his way back to Canberra.

Finally, Colebatch also has the irritating habit of putting the term (sic) after Turnbull ascribes only surnames to Game and Kerr instead of using their titles of Sir. However, he gives no courtesy prefix to either Lang or Whitlam.

Put bluntly Kerr deserves little respect for the way he mislead the PM who had arranged for his appointment as Governor General; for the contempt he showed the House and Speaker, Gordon Scholes in his hasty dissolution of the Parliament; for the secret advice he took from the Chief Justice (Barwick) and another Justice (Mason) against the advice of his PM.

Kerr’s drunken and debauched behaviour demeaned the office of Australia’s ceremonial Head of State. Being ‘sloshed’ at the Melbourne Cup, made him look more like Barry Humphries character Sir Les Patterson while making unwelcome and   “obsessive” overtures to Liz Reid (Whitlam’s advisor on Women’s Interests) were hardly actions that have endeared his memory to Australians-or her. Whitlam deserves criticism for recommending the appointment of such a man but not to be compared, unfavourably, to Kerr as an individual.

Apart from that caveat the rest of Colebatch’s criticism against Turnbull is valid.

Ian Smith

Ian Smith (1919-2007), like Whitlam, served in the Air Force during World War II and he was even more controversial.

I found Smith to be highly prescient because on 6th January 1998, while working in a political office, I had a long telephone conversation with him regarding human rights abuses by Mugabe. This came about because of the concerns of two fine citizens, Edward Preston (WA) and Wanda Teakle (Qld).

 Smith made the point then that there was already plenty of land to distribute, under existing willing seller-buyer arrangements, and that Mugabe was about to use land seizures as a political tool to divide people –precisely what happened in 2000 and the murder of white farmers and black farm hands is Mugabe’s legacy. In fact Mugabe had simply returned to his role in the Rhodesian Bush War as a terrorist but one operating from the president’s office instead of from the bush.

As for Smith, his prescient words were echoed five years later by noted author Peter Godwin. Writing in National Geograhic (August 2003) Godwin said that in the decade, by 1990, the Mugabe Government, had purchased 21 per cent of white holdings, lawfully. This right of first refusal began in 1985, some five years after independence and was funded by Britain.

However, instead of being given to landless peasants the land was used to enrich Mugabe and his ZANU party cronies. When the extent of this racket was revealed funding  was frozen.

The destruction of the commercial farming sector of Zimbabwe has followed the murderous assault of its farmers. The Zimbabwe economy is now  a basket case with, at one stage, hyper-inflation making Germany’s Weimar Republic, in 1923, look like a model economy by comparison. After all not many countries have a $50 billion note that is utterly worthless, as Griff Rhys Jones again reminded this viewer last night (14/12) in the excellent series, A Slow Train through Africa (episode 3).

 In 2008 the Zimbabwe inflation rate was 200 million percent, before the local currency was abandoned in favour of a multi currency approach. In contrast when Smith left office, mid 1979, the Rhodesian dollar was on par with the British pound.

Britain helped sell out Rhodesia and lacked the courage to ensure free and fair elections.

Mugabe should have been disqualified from the 1980 elections because of the intimidation that was going on under British auspices.

The short lived government from the internal settlement, that Smith had brokered, leading to Bishop Abel Muzorewa becoming the first black PM of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, was dissolved. Margaret Thatcher’s Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington, and the British Governor, Lord Soames, presided over the electoral arrangements for a new government.

When Smith, and others, protested over the massive intimidation going on, Soames replied that Carrington advised that disqualifying Mugabe would be unacceptable to the OAU (Organisation of African Unity). Soames further said to Smith, “the principles that you and I were brought up with are no longer part of this world.”

Probably because craven snake-oil politicians, like Carrington and Soames, were not prepared to stand up for those principles!

Smith’s Rhodesia was a land of milk and honey compared to the vicious thug, now 91, who has destroyed Zimbabwe over the last 36 years.