AUSTRALIA’S LABOUR LEADERS

Press, 18 April 1981, Page 17

AUSTRALIA’S LABOUR LEADERS

The Leader: A Political Biography ot Gough Whitlam. By James Walter. University of Queensland Press, 1980. 295 pp. Illustrations. $18.70. Bob Hawke: A Portrait. By Robert Pullan. Methuen, 1980. 221 pp. Illustrations. Index. $14.95.

(Reviewed by

Ruth Zanker)

; Here are two more biographies to add to the mountain of books on recent Australian' Labour history. They analyse two very different styles of leadership and : because of their different approaches, should .make us reconsider the role of modern political biography. Pullan’s book on Hawke is • a traditional journalistic account of Hawke's public life up till his selection for a Federal Labour seat. It is interesting because of its choice of subject, rather than in its approach. Walter's book on Whitlam, based on a series of university seminar papers, aims to challenge our concepts of political biography by using a group of personality theories to explain the contradictory Evaluations of Whitlam’s leadership. Pullan’s book is easier to assess. Hawke, the son; of a congregational minister, won a scholarship to the intellectually elite, though non-U, Perth Modern School, and thence moved on to an awesome 11 years of tertiary education in law and economics in Western Australia, Oxford (via a hard-pursued Rhodes Scholarship) and. the Australian National University. By the way, Hawke did not win a world drinking record, as press and Hawke, tend to suggest: it was an Oxford record — for downing two and a half pints in 12 seconds. ?. How Hawke, with his prolonged academic education, managed to win the respect lof a trades hall notorious for fopping tall poppies, is a fascinating storj'. Re won'key cases in wages arbitration before going on to. lead the A.C.T.U. During the 1960 s he added a devastating new dimension to bargaining by using economic evidence to punch holes in the elaborate legal arguments of the employers. He had scant regard for the legal pundits. He once called Sir John Kerr ‘‘the Liberace of the law.” Moreover, he rapidly became Australia’s first political media-event, using radio and television to further the causes of labour. Even Fraser avoided meeting him on radio and television. The “Times” succinctly, explained why: “Ask an Englishman for an identikit picture of an Australian and there’s a good chance he’ll come up with someone like Bob Hawke.” He was the man with whom Australians could identify. He became the artist of common touch rhetoric. When he confessed to a drink “problem” on prime-time television his popularity soared. A Bob Hawke drinking song was released and the image of the flawed hero prompted one supporter to say approvingly: “Let’s face.-it, Hawke’s a piss-pot like. us”. The press continues to nave close rapport with him and increasingly sees him as heir-apparent to the Federal Labour Party. Fullan suggests it is harder to uncover Hawke’s political philosophy. He blames his fellow journalists,with- their “24 hour" memories, for neglecting any extended analysis of Hawke’s performance. Pullan .hints that he is an operator, not a builder, best in crisis and confrontation. His brilliant performance in conciliation supports this — and indeed the recent Qantas dispute may well show the limitations of Dolan, his successor. However, Pullan suggests, the flexibility of his approach is tempered by a growing conservatism. Many feel that his call to the unions to stay within the law after the sacking of Whitlam in 1975 prevented extensive civil strife. If Pullan is right in this interim biography, Hawke, . as aspirant Labour Party leader, will show restraint in dealing with the status quo. It is significant that he supports the mining of Uranium. I suspect that, like other journalists, Pullan is charmed by Hawke and has obeyed the usual conventions of omitting refractory material. His biography provides interesting, though not profound,background. Harder to assess is Walter’s biography of Whitlam. This is partly because of the book’s origihs in university seminar papers. The quasi-learnedness of its style, with its pretentiously convoluted sentences, its at times ridiculous overuseof abstract nouns, and its specialist jargon, make it all rather indigestible. The book is also infuriatingly repetitive. A pity, because it proposes an interesting methodology for political biographies which cuts across the “cradle to grave” sequence. Walter has interviewed many people who knew Whitlam and searches for

consistencies and patterns in Whitlam's “cognitive, effective and behavioural”' performance. Amongst other theories, he applies Laswell’s typology of political actors (agitator, administrator, and theorist) and Barber’s method of analysis on the - basis of active-passive and positive-negative qualities, and comes up with some stimulating suggestions about charismatic leaders such as Whitlam. He claims objectivity for his method, which, he says, checks “the irresponsible use of highly personal common-sense psychology which imposes the writer’s bias” in matters which have a profound effect on our lives. It is significant that Walter has chosen Whitlam as his subject. Whitlam draws extremes of. praise and condemnation from his biographers. His Government’s sacking in 1975 by Sir John Kerr, the then Governor General, remains a divisive issue. He is seen by his supporters as an inspired leader who led Labour into power after 20 years in the wilderness, and by his opponents as a blind and arrogant dictator. In describing Whitlam’s performance, Walter charts a central paradox — that skill in leadership may be fault in government. Whitlam acknowledged no mentors and expressed a precocious belief

in his calling as a leader. His vision of reform was attractive to divided Labour followers. In the House his evident erudition and witty argument put Liberal Party leaders on the defensive and contributed to the downfall of less articulate leaders such as Gorton. He had an ill-disguised disdain for those less adept verbally and intellectually. He was frequently described as “schoolteacheris’h” and was known ,to polish his speeches and to correct his Hansard entries. However, as Leader of the Opposition, his magnetic sense of mission more than compensated for his aloof personal relationships and he led a victorious Labour Party to Federal power under the heady slogan “It's Time.” Whitlam used the victory as a mandate for his vision of reform. He introduced 114 bills (average 53) into a cathartic first parliamentary session. Hereafter, things began to go wrong and his popularity waned. Why? The very qualities that had made him so forceful a leader proved his undoing as an administrator. He dominated policy decisions and information gathering and frequently by-passed Caucus and Cabinet. His belief in his own inspired vision is illustrated in a joke he cracked about himself to an aide who had interrupted him while working: “This party has one thing going for it and you’re wasting its time.” Walter argues, not very originally, 'that the Liberals’ land-slide victory after Labour’s sacking was an index of how far Whitlam had lost touch with his electorate. Whitlam was like all messianic leaders, Walter suggests, in that he never forgothis role in history. Ironically, perhaps, in the extraordinary circumstances of his downfall, Whitlam earned a more talked about place in history than if he had been a successful administrator. Walter argues that the great man finds, in seeming failure, the confirmation that he is too big for small enterprises. Indeed, Whitlam quipped on his departure from politics and entry into academe that he was “preparing to follow a precedent by going out in a boat on a lake and addressing the multitudes.” The conclusions Of Walter’s book are healthily disturbing because he is suggesting that the analysis of Whitlam’s style of leadership can point to the fact that greatness in leadership seems often to entail fatal blindness and weakness in other directions. It is sobering that the very qualities that made Whitlam a great leader may have carried within them the seeds of his defeat as an administrator. We are left with the sneaking suspicion, however, that Walter’s “evidence” is ultimately based on a principle of selection which is as subjective as Pullan’s, and that consequently this biography stands not so much as the objective analysis of Whitlam that it claims to be, but rather as a useful morality-tale on the nature of leaders and our deep need to believe in them in times of crisis and confusion.