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 13th 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 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.
Vicious thug, now that's an under statement. Good one JE, GPB esq.
ReplyDeleteYes. I remember a comparison piece I read in grad school over 30 years ago: Rhodesia v. South Africa. Neither had a favorable long-term prognosis, but Rhodesia's future was seen as very bleak very soon. It was one of those "demography is destiny" things.
ReplyDeleteAs things turned out, South Africa (maybe through blind fortune, maybe through "leadership," after a fashion) appears to have stumbled through enormous challenges to reach an apparently successful conclusion, and perhaps long-term workability, in a way that I believe no one would have foreseen in 1983. Rhodesia, alas, just didn't have the demographic infrastructure to make a go of it. And it was cursed with world-class thugs like Mugabe to boot.
Rod Adair