The Dynamic Duo

The Coalition between the Liberals and Nationals has not always been easy, but it has adapted and survived, and Australia is a better country for it, says John Howard.

JOHN HOWARD DELIVERS THE ANNUAL PAGE RESEARCH CENTRE LECTURE IN SYDNEY, NOVEMBER 21.

Placing the names Page and Menzies together was not always de rigueur in Australian politics. In fact, if you understand the history of Earle Christian Grafton Page and Robert Gordon Menzies, there was a time when they didn't get on all that well.

When Joseph Lyons died suddenly on the eve of Easter in 1938, it became apparent that the United Australia Party would have to elect a new leader.  Menzies was, how shall I put it, a fairly vigorous applicant for the job.

As would be the case 27 years later, in 1967, when Harold Holt’s deputy John McEwen was sworn in as prime minister, Earle Page, as deputy prime minister was sworn in his own right as prime minister. Page, who didn't like Menzies, made what many parliamentary observers believe was one of the most vicious personal attacks. He accused Menzies of cowardice in not volunteering for service in World War I. He accused him of disloyalty to his former leader and many other political sins.

In the fullness of time, however, Earle Page would serve briefly in a Coalition government under Menzies before the collapse of his leadership in 1940. And in 1949, when Menzies returned with Arthur Fadden as his deputy prime minister, Earle Page became the minister for health, and served as the member for Cowper until he died on the eve of the 1961.

I also have something of a link through my family with Earle Page. My father was born in Cowper in the Northern Rivers area of New South Wales, and he attended Maclean Superior School, and he worked as an apprentice fitter and turner at the Howard Island Mill of CSR  until he volunteered for service in World War I at the age of 19. Our family folklore has it that my paternal grandmother, who'd been born in Southport in Queensland, was treated for various illnesses by Earle Page and spent a period in the hospital that he established.

The relationship between Page and Menzies started badly, but it ended well. In a sense it is a metaphor for the hugely successful partnership between our two great parties. So much so that when Menzies retired in 1966 he said the two things he was most proud of were what he had done for education and the Coalition he had with the then Country Party, later briefly the National Country Party and then the National Party.

The partnerships between Menzies,  Arthur Fadden and later between Menzies and John McEwen symbolised the very deep links between the two parties. It should be said that it was at a time when some differences had emerged between the two parties on the level of intervention in the economy. But perhaps not as much as later commentators suggest. In the 1950s and '60s, both sides of politics and both of the Coalition parties believed that government should intervene in the economy more than would later be the attitude of those two parties.

This of course was the era when everybody believed in centralised wage fixing. When Bob Menzies retired, he gave a series of lectures at a university in America, and he praised the wisdom of the judges of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. He said they were wise men. They were all men then. Such things as conditions of work, he said, and wages should never be the subject of debate in an election campaign. They're far too important to be caught up in some kind of electoral bargaining.

Everybody believed in high tariffs. They were meant to protect Australian jobs. Everybody believed in a fixed exchange rate. The idea that you would expose the Australian dollar to the vicissitudes of the international market was abhorrent.

Their belief in those things was reinforced by the fact that the 1950s and '60s was a period of extraordinary prosperity and stability for the Australian economy. It all seemed to work. It was understandable, therefore, when governments intervened that they claimed to do so the national interest and to protect the continuity of that economic stability that had been developed.

Australia, in those days, was incredibly fortunate, because history had given us some protected markets. History was yet to see the rise of strong economies in the Asian region. And in that context, one of the really trailblazing things that was done by the Coalition government, inspired by McEwen, but very strongly supported by Menzies, was the commerce agreement signed in 1957 between Australia and Japan. That was only 12 years after the end of World War II. And the Coalition Party room was not full, but it had plenty of men who had served in the war against Japan. A number, including Alexander Downer's father and Reg Schwartz, had been prisoners of war of the Japanese.

But McEwen saw the wisdom of what Menzies did. It is interesting, incidentally,  what tricks history plays with dates. That commerce agreement was signed in 1957, and 1957 was the year of the Treaty of Rome. And the Treaty of Rome was the foundation document of the European Common Market, which would later become the European Union and that organisation from which, God bless them, the British are trying to escape.

The signing of that commerce agreement meant that when Britain did join the Common Market in the early 1970s and abandon the Imperial Preference system that had been erected in Ottawa in the 1930s, we laid the foundation with that agreement for our future trading relationship with Asia. In the 1960s and 1970s, Japan was the iron lung of Australia's export markets. It is only in recent years that Japan has been surpassed by China. The agreement  was an act of foresight. It was the real beginning of Australia's engagement with Asia. The beginning of Australia's engagement in Asia was not 1972. Although I give Gough Whitlam credit for recognizing the need to shift our diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to the mainland Chinese regime, the real foundation of our entry into Asia was that commerce agreement and credit for that is owed more than to any other person to the then McEwan as trade minister. He was strongly supported by Menzies, but McEwen was the driving force behind that agreement.

Their partnership was very strong and the partnership between the two parties continued. It fell apart in when we went into opposition after our defeat in 1972, we operated for a period as separate parties for just 18 months in parliament. It didn't work all that well. When we came back together after the 1974 election, when I was elected a new member for Bennelong, the two parties came back together under Bill Sneddon and Doug Anthony. I don’t claim any credit for that. I was something of an office boy at that stage. When Malcolm Fraser became the leader in 1975, his instincts were even more pro the Coalition than had been Sneddon's.

It wasn’t always easy. As many of you know, the relations between the two parties varied around Australia. The relationship has always been closer in New South Wales than in Victoria and, dare I say, Queensland. But the relationship endured through the Fraser/Anthony years. I saw them work in cooperation. I saw the determination of Malcolm Fraser as leader of the Liberal Party to oppose unnecessary three-cornered contests, particularly involving ministers.

I remember on occasions when the Liberal party in Victoria threatened to run a candidate against Peter Nixon in the seat of Gibson. Fraser said, "If you do that, I'll go down and campaign for Nixon" and of course it had the desired effect.

I think Nixon, frankly, would have survived even without Fraser's assistance. He was a very tough and effective campaigner, but that was a measure of the strength that people had and felt on the issue.

Of course, the Coalition has come under stresses and strains. If I had to decide the worst period, I think in my political life, was the Joh for PM campaign when I was opposition leader in the 1980s. That was very tough. I've reflected on the reasons for it and I feel no anger, I just reflect historically on that it was a significant event.

What is interesting about that campaign and that series of events over a period of six or nine months is that it represented the greatest threat to the Coalition in my political life. Yet it was ended by the very strength of that Coalition.

What in the end meant the Joh for PM campaign could not really get off the ground, although it did have a destructive effect on our electoral prospects, was the determination of the New South Wales National Party to preserve its decades long Coalition with the Liberal Party.

It may surprise some of you who've perhaps not studied this period to know that even though the federal Coalition was broken and we operated for the last few months of that term of parliament as separate parties in and there was no Coalition front bench, even though it was a very difficult time and the Coalition had been broken, it was the resolve of the New South Wales National Party not to allow the civil war to spread to New South Wales.

Ian Sinclair and I with the support of our organisations, and I give particular credit to the late Doug Moffitt, who was then the chairman of the New South Wales nationals, we reaffirmed the coalition arrangement in the Senate for New South Wales.

We ran a joint Senate ticket in New South Wales, and very importantly, the New South Wales National Party said that in any Joh campaign, if any candidates stood against Liberals in New South Wales, they, the New South Wales Nationals would campaign for the Liberal party candidates. And of course it effectively stopped that campaign in its tracks.

I remember vividly the night that I had a meeting in my home in Sydney with Bob Sparks who was the very formidable and very effective president of the Queensland National Party and his state director about what was going to happen. They said to me, the New South Wales Nationals have stopped us.

It's ironic, isn't it? That something that led to the breaking of the federal Coalition was finally stopped by the strength of the Coalition here in New South Wales.

That was a great strain. It was very difficult. Even now I never forgot it. Not in the sense that I bore grudges. I never forgot that having been so close to permanent rupture, it was something that was never going to be allowed to happen again. And I recall several days out for our wonderful victory in 1996, I've calculated and a few people drew my attention to it, but theoretically, the Liberal party could have governed in its own right.

Because we had 76 seats, which is a clear majority, and amongst those on the other side were two independent liberals, who'd been elected in Western Australia.

I said, "Under no circumstances will we ever dream of trying to govern in our own right." We went to the Australian people as a Coalition, Tim Fisher and I went as partners, he leading the National Party and me leading the Liberal Party, and I knew also that that situation, that numerical supremacy we had was not going to last beyond that parliament. And of course it didn't.

More importantly I knew that it would be a breach of faith with our supporters and it would betray those people in both parties who had worked so very hard. So that idea never got off the ground. And of course, in government we faced a lot of stresses and difficulties. None couldn't be surmounted.

The greatest challenge was that of gun control regulation. The gun control issue was very difficult for the National Party. It was very difficult for the National Party government in Queensland and I continue to give in that context, enormous credit to Rob Borbidge for the way in which he supported the overall National interest.

But to my own colleagues at the time, the late Tim Fisher and John Anderson, they bore the full brunt of the sense of frustration and disillusion that many decent rural people felt about the imposition of laws that they believed were made necessary by the behaviour of madmen and were an unfair imposition on country people.

It was very easy to talk gun control in the cities. I had people who came up to me in Pitt Street and say, "I've never voted for you in my life and I never will, but you're absolutely right in what you're doing with gun control."

I mean, they probably all lived in Annandale or Balmain or something like that, but be that as it may, although I have to say that there was a polling booth in Balmain at the last election that was very, very close to recording a Liberal majority, so it seems that maybe for years to come, but I doubt it though.

It was a very difficult issue and it put a lot of strain on the National party members and rural Liberals and of course it led in no small measure to the formation of One Nation. I think One Nation was partly not, not wholly, but partly inspired by the anger about our gun control measures in a cause.

It caused awful difficulties for many of our colleagues. I remember talking to Warren Truss on the eve of the 1998 election and he was describing his difficulties. He said, "John, I've got a Labor candidate, I've got a One Nation candidate and she's polling about 15 to 20% and I've got a couple of independents," and he said, "On top of that I've got a Liberal candidate".

Of course at that stage, we hadn't been able to fully negotiate a non-contest, three party contest. But we got through that. There were some casualties and there were some difficulties, but we got through it because the strength of the Coalition and the determination of the leadership of the Coalition under Tim and John to keep things together. And we gradually surmounted it. But it was an extremely difficult issue.

The other thing that I have to say is that the period saw a coming together of the two parties on economic policy to a greater extent than had ever obtained under previous, certainly under the Fraser-Anthony government, I have to say that I can't think of a major economic issue on which John Anderson and I fundamentally disagreed. We had the same view about the need to balance budgets, to spend within our means, to pursue economic reform. He was a strong supporter of our plans for taxation reform.

He was an ardent supporter, as so many National Party people were, of the need for industrial relations reform because they represented farmers who saw their produce rotting on the wharves because of the industrial anarchy on the Australian waterfront. He was, in that sense, a wonderful colleague.

I've said before but say it again, that I haven't met a more decent, honorable man in public life than John, and he was a wonderful colleague to work with as Deputy Prime Minister. But the whole of the Coalition, with the odd exception for periods of time after 2004, the whole of the Coalition worked closely together.

Cabinet meetings never divided with the situation that one side of the argument had all the Nats and the other side of the argument had all the Liberals. It just didn't operate that way.

So it was a very fruitful partnership. It's a partnership that's delivered its government.

2016 was a bad election for the Liberal Party. It was a very good election for the National Party. There's this solidity about the National Party vote in its constituencies federally. I'm not quite so sure at state level. I think there were challenges particularly here in New South Wales about the solidity of the National Party vote in state elections. Federal elections have been very solid.

Having spoken so positively about it, I would be failing in my duty if I didn't say that there are huge challenges facing both of our parties. We have been very successful electorally.

All of the public focus at the moment is on the travail of the Labor Party, and long may that continue, of course. Don't get me wrong. But both of our parties face existential challenges. It's harder to maintain a political party in 2019 as any kind of mass movement.

The Liberal Party that I joined in the light 1950s was infinitely more representative. When I joined the Earlwood branch of the Liberal Party, it was infinitely more representative of the suburb of Earlwood and surrounding environs in which I lived than it is today.

Modern generations do not join organisations. They don't join political parties. They don't join churches. They don't join service clubs. I mean, a lot of them do, but not in the numbers that used to be the case. Even with a famed affection for sport that Australians pride themselves on, they don't join sporting organisations quite as compulsively as used to be the case.

We must guard against either or both of our political parties becoming composed predominantly of people who are not sufficiently representative of the people in the community that we want to vote for us. That is a real challenge for both of our parties, but we're not alone.

It's a challenge for the Republican party in the United States and the Democratic party. We've got this phenomenon in the United States, this extraordinary battle for the Democratic party nomination, where the indications are they may well choose somebody who is on the far left of that party, who one would hope is unelectable against a person who, I must say, surprised me when he won the Republican nomination.

It's a challenge, and you see in the United Kingdom. Jeremy Corbyn now leads a Labour Party that is so far out on the left wing that it would represent a real challenge to the future of Great Britain if he were to win the election.

Politics at a party level now is a lot more challenging than it was, and there are challenges for parties on both the left and the right. Our two parties are in that situation, and both of our parties face the curse of factionalism.

Sometimes, whenever I mention that, I get plenty of nods of agreement. Sometimes, I'm not saying this audience, but sometimes I look around the audience and I see people who nod and shout the loudest “hear, hear,” they're involved in the factional activities up to their ears.

I've got a long memory. But it is a challenge. Legitimate differences on philosophical grounds are the stock and trade of a vigorous political party.

Legitimate differences of that factionalism, which represents nothing more than a series of contests between personalities and co-operatives, if I can put it that way, are a curse and something that has to be guarded against. It's a particular responsibility of our organisational and our parliamentary leaders.

Now, my friends, as we gather and celebrate this quite extraordinary partnership, the most successful partnership by far in Australian politics, all political parties or gatherings of political parties are coalitions in one form or another.

The differences between the far right and the far left of the Labor Party over the years are greater than any of the differences that have ever existed inside either of our parties.

When Bob Menzies gathered the anti-Labor forces together back in 1944 to launch the Liberal Party of Australia, history will record the wisdom of the then Country Party in staying out of the new party. It's always had a distinctive identity and will always be successful if the two parties recognise the ground rules.

Of course, there is a numerical disproportionality between the two parties, but that doesn't mean, as I occasionally had to tell some of my Liberal Party colleagues when I was prime minister, doesn't mean that you apply the laws of arithmetic to every policy decision.

There are some things that are so important to the special constituency that the National Party represents that the National Party must have its way on those issues, and that was the view I always took.

Fortunately, there are not a large number of those, but there are important issues. If they're not continuously respected by Liberal Party leaders, and I know that our leader, Scott Morrison, he did such a magnificent job in the last election, understands and values the importance of the coalition.

I was delighted at the tribute dinner that was offered to Tony Abbott 10 days ago that Warren Truss was Tony's deputy and the safest pair of political hands you couldn't find in that position. He spoke warmly of the association that he had, and it epitomised that continuity of cooperation between our two parties.

Now, my friends, thank you for supporting the Page Research Centre. Thank you for supporting the Menzies Research Centre and long may this enduring partnership continue to the benefit of all of the Australian people. Thank you.