
Issue No 119		16 November 2001

LaborNET	Ask Neale	Tool of the Week

History

The Fall-Out

Neale Towart looks back to Labor's reaction to its loss in the 1954 'Petrov election' and finds warnings for today's post mortem.

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Lindsay Tanner, in contrast to other "advisers" to the ALP this week, hasn't called for a split with the unions. He acknowledges problems for Labor and labour, but looks for ways to hold together increasingly divergent interests around a political theme.

His call to embrace hope may be the key for the ALP's future. He also shows an awareness of labour history (something we at Workers Online can only applaud) by his comment that "If Labor allows another Petrov story to take hold as the explanation for our defeat, we will not learn from our mistakes and we will continue to lose."

Certainly the Tampa "crisis" and the Afghan "war" were factors, but the argument that the ALP has been too reactive and too defensive, that the ALP has relied too heavily on winning by Howard mistakes rather than any ALP appeal to the public mind, has echoes in comments from the 1950s

Verity Burgmann, in True Believers, notes Henry Mayer in 1956 querying the idea of the ALP being the party of initiative. He maintained then that there were strong elements of negativism or resistance in the ALP such as "narrowness of objectives, absence of a positive policy of implementing socialism and constitutional reform, internal rigidity and mechanical discipline, leading to a general orthodoxy and confusion and uncertainty about foreign policy."

Tanner's reference to the Petrov mythology perhaps downplays the nightmare it was for Doc Evatt. Menzies used Petrov to demonise the ALP and turn around his political fortunes in the 1954 elections, seen by Evatt as his best chance for the Prime Ministership. This led on to the Split and the loss of the 1955 election. Evatt's loss and his subsequent apparent mental decline clouded a wonderful career and record as a champion of Labor. Evatt was most vociferous in his claims of a conspiracy theory. He moved on to attack the Movement and its influence in the ALP, and to indicate that he was going to take on the Victorian branch. He appeared at the Petrov Royal Commission, against the wishes of Caucus and implicated his own staff. This led directly to the Split and the formation of the DLP. Menzies called a very early election for December 1955, and won a huge victory. The ALP didn't recover until 1972.

Evatt's problems with the movement had haunted the Chifley years too. In 1951 Chifley despaired of the "mad buggers". He could see the end of Caucus solidarity coming. Evatt's coming to the leadership perhaps made it all the more inevitable, as many saw that he lacked the experience of the internal workings of the ALP to be able to hold things together. This despite his run ins with Lang and the NSW party in the 1920s and 1930s. He was undoubtedly committed to the cause of the ALP but many saw him as the wrong one to keep it together in the Cold War days. He also continually sidestepped party machinery designed to help the party restrain the politicians.

His campaign against the anti-Communist referendum in 1951 hardened the Catholics against him. John Iremonger points out in his chapter on the Rats in True Believers, that the main Caucus group of Keon, Mullens, Bourke, Joshua, Crenean, Andrews and Bryson were as Labor as anyone in Caucus. They were also hardened veterans of internal struggles in Victorian unions, local government and local branches. Some of them dined regularly with Santamaria. The animosity within Caucus is summed up in Fred Daly's anecdote about Reg Pollard and John Mullens. When Pollard got up to speak in Parliament, Mullens interjected, 'You are defending Communists.' Pollard was furious and roared 'I brand him for what he is, a narrow-minded skunk and a man who is prepared to do..." Lost in the uproar was the rest of the sentence. Mullens tried to scramble over the seats in the House to get to Pollard. This was before the Split. Menzies, as Iremonger notes, was of course delighted with the permanent opposition within the ALP.

Menzies summoning up of the Petrovs and the deft media play that kept it in the headlines enabled him to win in 1954.

Kylie Tennant, in her biography of Evatt relates a part of this, quoting Catholic economist Colin Clark. This view stuck in the public mind thereafter. Mrs Petrov was forcibly dragged onto the plane at Sydney Airport, in view of a large crowd anti-Soviet Russians. The press reported that she was calling "save me". She later said (at the Royal Commission, that at no point did she call to the crowd but felt that the Embassy people were trying to rescue her from the crowd. ASIO agent Bialoguski claimed the credit for the dramatic "rescue" of Mrs Petrov but Tennant notes that Cark fairly gives it to famous redbaiter W.C. Wentworth.

Wentworth phoned Menzies about events at the airport. Menzies at first failed to grasp their significance (his acolyte John Howard was not so slow on the uptake with regard to the refugees supposedly throwing children in the water and setting fire to their engine) but eventually agreed to radio instructions to the captain of the plane. There was then an even better piece of political theatre in the photograph of two large couriers being disarmed by even bigger Australian police, with a frail woman being rescued at the last moment from the horrors of the Kremlin.

The ALP won 50% of the vote in the 1954 election but nowhere near enough seats. The loss embittered Evatt. There was a Caucus vote on the leadership soon after that saw a quarter of the federal party vote against him. This further emboldened the Groupers. Bourke even went as far as to publicly challenge the leadership during the campaign. The ongoing Royal Commission and Evatt's decision (without Party approval) to appear for two of his staff before the Commission didn't help. There was another call for a spill of the leadership later in 1954 and the events at that meeting traumatized many. The call for a spill was clearly lost on the voices apparently, but deputy Eddie Ward, a great hater according to Daly, called for a division. To everyone's amazement, Evatt leaped on the table and said "get their names, get their names'. Senator John Armstrong, who was supporting the leadership said" if that's what you intend to do I'll vote for the motion. Put my name down too. Daly says that these were his sentiments too and he Stewart and Luchetti crossed over in potest at what Daly saw as "the worst action I have ever seen". Gil Duthie said it made many there "sick at heart." Clyde Cameron said it was a vote against the groupers, not a vote for Evatt. And perhaps if Daly had been a Victorian MP rather than from NSW he may well have been firmly aligned to the grouper faction anyway. He doesn't give the context of the Evatt and the leaderships struggles with the groupers, who were, as noted, very experienced factional warriors.

Calwell said such a scene could not have happened under Curtin or Chifley, but did not personally blame Evatt, laying the blame at the feet of two extreme groups that Evatt was battling so as to keep the party together. Dale, Buckley and Reynolds also saw it this way. Evatt had already used the Federal conference against this crew. The debacle of the 1955 election saw all the groupers mentioned above defeated (after the party had split). The subsequent history of the DLP proved the limited vision of the group, but the damage to the Federal ALP was long lasting. Evatt finally resigned in 1960, after all challengers mistimed it or backed off. It then took another 12 years to rebuild.

Rebuilding

The old guard took took a long time to fade. Eddie Ward (once a rat himself with the Langites) felt cheated of the deputy leadership in 1960 when Calwell took over. However the newly powerful federal executive (powerful because of Evatt's attacks on the groupers especially in Victoria but also in NSW) moved in favour of a young 43 year old Gough Whitlam. This is seen by Burgmann as a move away from old style industrial militancy and a move to provide a young middle class socially progressive, non-Catholic counterpart to Calwell. Today the jargon would be an appeal to the aspirational generation.

Tanner says that Labor's role is "to offer people hope for a better society. Our success is governed by our ability to do this, not by our capacity to exploit community anger and fear."

References

Lindsay Tanner. Losers must embrace hope; in The Australian Tuesday 13 November 2001). Also Tanner's Open Australia discussion forum at http://conference.socialchange.net.au/openaustralia/

For further thoughts and dispute about what went on see:

John Faulkner and Stuart Macintyre (eds) True Believers: the story of the federal Parliamentary Labor Party. (Allen and Unwin, 2001)

Arthur Calwell. Be Just and Fear Not. (Hawthorn, Vic.: Lloyd O'Neil, 1972)

Kylie Tennant. Evatt: Politics and Justice. (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1970)

Nicholas Whitlam and John Stubbs. Nest of Traitors: Petrov Affair. (Milton, Qld: Jacaranda Press, 1974)

Robert Manne The Petrov Affair: Politics and Espionage. (Rushcutters Bay, NSW: Pergamon Press, 1987)

Clyde Cameron and Daniel Connell. The Confessions of Clyde Cameron. (Sydney: ABC, 1990)

Fred Daly. From Curtin to Hawke. (South Melbourne: Sun Macmillan, 1984)

Peter Crockett. Evatt: a life (Melbourne: Oxford Uni. Press, 1993)

Ken Buckley, Barbara Dale, and Wayne Reynolds. Doc Evatt: patriot, internationalist, fighter and scholar. (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1994)

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Issue 119 contents

Interview: Out of the Rubble
Michael Costa argues that Saturday's election result could have been much, much worse.

Unions: Sixty-Forty Are Good Odds!
John Robertson argues that while there may be many problems with the ALP, union power is not one of them.

Politics: Wrong Way, Go Back
Labor's failure in the federal election is the result of more than bad luck. It is the result of a shift to populism that has left the Party bereft of core principles.

Campaign Diary: Week Five: All Washed Up
If you can stand it, relive the fatefull final week of a most remarkable election campaign.

International: Trade Piracy Unmasked
As the trade barons met in Qatar to chart out their agenda, George Monbiot looks at the machinations behind the scenes.

Factions: The Party's Over
Chris Christodoulou renews his call for a breakdown of the factional system to bring new life into the ALP

History: The Fall-Out
Neale Towart looks back to Labor's reaction to its loss in the 1954 'Petrov election' and finds warnings for today's post mortem.

Media: Elite Defeat
Rowan Cahill looks at the intellectual paucity in the PM's ongoing attacks on 'elite opinion'.

Satire: Crean 'Listens To Australian People': Will Sink Refugee Boats
Simon Crean, the most likely candidate to replace Kim Beazley as Labor's leader, says he will take heed of the message sent to the ALP by Australian voters at the Federal Election.

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