Gough Whitlam’s head mandarin and Pearls & Irritations founder & editor-in-chief John Menadue shares what he sees as the lessons of the Whitlam years, one of which is that the powerful can never be trusted.

An interview with John Menadue

John Menadue AO is someone rare in Australian life, one who has been at the centre of power and is willing to give an honest account of its inner workings. Menadue, who was born in 1935, has had an exceptionally wide ranging career spanning jobs as general manager of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, ambassador to Japan, and heading several government departments under three federal governments.

Most momentous of all, he was secretary of Prime Minister and Cabinet during the Whitlam Government – including on 11 November 1975 when the governor-general, Sir John Kerr, made his history-making decision to dismiss the Labor Government and anoint opposition leader Malcolm Fraser as prime minister. Since 2013, he has edited Pearls and Irritations, an online public policy journal that has a wide readership on the progressive side of Australian politics.

With 50 years having passed since the Dismissal, and with a newly re-elected Labor Government in power, there is no better time to look back on the Whitlam years and see what they might say about the contemporary Albanese Government.

Menadue discusses the Whitlam dismissal, the movement for a Republic, Australia’s foreign and resource policies and Labor’s changing identity in government.

Bart Shteinman: I want to use this interview, and your experience at the heart of the Whitlam Government and observations of some half-century of events since, to try and construct a conversation between the Whitlam and Albanese Governments, the inspirations and the mistakes of the past, and how our current government stands up in comparison. Can we say the Albanese Government has learned some lessons from its predecessor, and were they the right ones?

But before we get into all that, can you describe how you think of your own role as both a participant in — and commentator on — public life?

John Menadue: At the time of the dismissal I was working as the secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. I knew Gough Whitlam well because I’d formerly worked with him as his private secretary, press secretary and everything else in between for seven years. So, I knew Gough well.

The lesson we all learned out of the dismissal, certainly what I learned, is that many of the people who lead our institutions could not be trusted. That’s a fairly bold thing to say, but if you look at the behaviour of High Court judges, the governor-general, the Palace, the Queen and her gaggle of other royals, we all learned that they had feet of clay, that they didn’t serve this country, and they were not honest with the Australian Government and the prime minister particularly. They all deceived him and that has left a great shame and problem for Australians.

It’s also, for me, made me more radical. It taught me that we need substantial change, and we should be less accommodating, less naive in fact, to so many of our so-called leaders and institutions, whether they be in government, in the media, in universities, or in religious institutions. We need improved leadership in almost all those areas.

And we’ve, of course, seen that most recently over the genocide in Gaza, when people who should have been providing leadership to this country have failed dismally in their responsibilities to act as good human beings. They’ve been frightened.

So, I see a link between the dismissal and what I do today, particularly in Pearls and Irritations, the public policy journal I founded. I’ve long been interested in the media. I worked for seven years for Rupert Murdoch, and I’ve continued and retained that interest in the media. Particularly now, with the mainstream media in such bad shape, there is a need, an opportunity for journals like Pearls & Irritations to fill something of that void.

Bart Shteinman: Starting at the top of our institutions, Anthony Albanese recently became the first Australian Prime Minister to visit Balmoral Castle since Paul Keating. Is it your feeling that the spark of Labor’s republican anger — the movement to abolish the monarchic arrangements that led to the Dismissal — do you feel like that rage from 1975 is finally gone for good? The prime minister has said we shouldn’t expect any such change under his leadership.

John Menadue: I don’t think it’s gone for good. There is an inevitability about it. But it is very disappointing that Anthony Albanese has run for cover on that issue – particularly because of his earlier support for a republic. In his first term of government, he had an assistant minister for the republic. That was abolished in the last administrative arrangements for the second Albanese Government. It is very disappointing, but I can understand to some degree how the failure of the Voice referendum has frightened Anthony Albanese.

Part of the problem was that he didn’t articulate the case for constitutional change particularly well. Contrast that with Paul Keating with his Redfern speech many years before, the passion of that was lacking in Anthony Albanese’s presentation in the Voice referendum.

But the other significant thing I thought coming out of the meeting that Anthony Albanese had with King Charles was that he did not raise with King Charles the role that he had played in the dismissal of the Whitlam Government and there’s no doubt that Prince Charles played a key role.

Probably 12 months before the dismissal, John Kerr and Prince Charles had been in conversation. Interestingly, John Kerr put to Gough Whitlam that Charles was looking for something to do and that it would be nice if the Australian Government would purchase a property, provide staff and support for Charles to live in Australia, at least for some period. Gough Whitlam said no, but it’s an indication of the relationship that Charles and John Kerr had.

We know, coming closer to the dismissal — about two months before — Prince Charles was in New Guinea for the independence celebrations for Papua New Guinea. John Kerr was there as well, and Kerr sidled up to Prince Charles and, I believe, shared with him his concern about the political prospects in Australia and the awful decisions he might have to make – presumably to dismiss the government.

From the letters that Jenny Hocking released, it became clear that Prince Charles was favourably disposed to the predicament that John Kerr might find himself in, and that if by chance Gough Whitlam got wind of the fact that he might be dismissed, Charles would be available at the Palace to ensure he could head off any possible sacking by the Queen.

There’s no doubt that Prince Charles went back to the UK and must have shared those views with the Palace – with his mother, with Prince Philip, who had described Gough Whitlam as “that socialist asshole” in Australia, and, of course, an influential, foolish fellow in the background was Lord Mountbatten. So that gaggle of royals, together with Martin Charteris, the Queen’s private secretary, were very familiar with John Kerr and the situation he might have to face. The Palace was ready when John Kerr acted, and Prince Charles had been, I believe, the messenger boy to ensure the Palace was fully informed.

It is regrettable that Anthony Albanese, speaking to the King, didn’t even hint at anything like that. He probably thought it would have been bad form. You’re not supposed to embarrass royals.

So, it’s a sorry story – of King Charles and our prime minister. And it wasn’t just running the republic referendum off the road; it was also that vital issue of the dismissal of the Whitlam Government and Charles’ role in it that has not been raised.

Bart Shteinman: Fascinating. Certainly, the bipartisan embrace of our old Anglosphere ties have never been greater in the last 50 years.

John Menadue: Our prime minister couldn’t get there fast enough. He was there for the death of the Queen. He was there for the inauguration of King Charles. With King Charles’ visit to Australia last year and Anthony Albanese was back at Balmoral, tugging the forelock again. I’m sure that in discussions the Queen would have had with Paul Keating, Paul would not have been tugging the forelock to the monarchy. I know he wouldn’t be.

Bart Shteinman: Nothing feels more in contrast with the Whitlam years than not just the relationship with the UK, but the American relationship and our embrace of the AUKUS (Australia-UK-US) security pact and the related nuclear submarine deal. What do you think the Labor Party of 1975 that used to have these great debates about foreign policy? What do you think the men and women of that era would make of the Australian-American relationship today?

John Menadue: On the American relationship, it would be very, very different. Whitlam showed his colours about a month after his election by criticising the American bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong. The Americans were terribly upset with that, because we were supposed to be a locked-in ally. People around the White House with Nixon were calling us — or at least the Australian Government, the prime minister — “North Vietnamese collaborators”. And there were some rude words that Nixon said about Whitlam – that they were “peaceniks” or worse!

From the beginning, Whitlam nailed his colours to the mast very successfully. On AUKUS: if there had been a Labor government — or even if Labor were in opposition — the Americans would never have put that proposal seriously to Australia. They would know that the Labor Party, in government or in opposition, would reject it. After Morrison had negotiated AUKUS, the Americans were insistent that the Labor Party should be consulted to see if they could be locked in; and if they couldn’t, the deal would be off. The Americans clearly knew that the Labor Party might have doubts, given the record. If Whitlam had been in government, it certainly wouldn’t have got to first base.

Gough Whitlam often said to me — and he said in Parliament after the general election in 1974 — that it was anomalous for a foreign country to have bases in Australia. To some extent, he was conscious of the politics of that and may have equivocated a little, because after we came into government it was raised with the American ambassador at the time, and Gough told him that, provided the Americans didn’t bounce his government or try to twist their tail, we could probably put up with the bases. Whitlam’s view strengthened as the years went by, indicating he was concerned about the very close relationship between Australian security agencies and the CIA.

Whitlam’s reservations about the American alliance were firming but he was conscious of the politics: of being wedged by conservatives on the issue. What concerned him towards the end was when he found out that Pine Gap was not run by the Pentagon, but by the CIA. That produced quite an outraged response because Whitlam had been deceived for three years into believing it was run by the Pentagon and not by the CIA. That became an issue in the subsequent election and in the American response. I’ve got no doubt that the CIA was directly involved in the dismissal of the Whitlam Government. I had assumed and known they were standing in the background, and I’ve subsequently learned they were very much in the foreground.

On the issue of Gaza, Whitlam would never have gone near anything like the support which the Albanese Government has given by word and deed in support of Israel. I’m sure Whitlam wouldn’t have been part of that. Whitlam was the first person who explained to me the difference between Judaism and Zionism. As a young man I hadn’t appreciated the difference. He explained it to me, and it was quite a revelation.

I was also with Whitlam in 1963 when we visited Israel, and we both came back impressed. Israel was a pioneering country, it was new, young, vibrant. When I came back, I saw the Israeli ambassador and asked about the possibilities that when my children grew up they might live on a kibbutz for a period. So, I was quite enthusiastic, and Gough was also.

But we both went again in 1967, after the Six-Day War and the Occupation It was very clear to both of us that the Occupation had damaged Israel’s attitude and its moral position. It had warped the mind and the heart of Israelis, and that’s what occupation does when you’re occupying another person’s country. Gough was sceptical. After the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Gough was asked about his position, and he said he would not take a position either pro or anti-Israeli, that we would stay out of it, and he had harsh words about lobby groups pressing the Labor Party. So, I believe Gough would have come to a very different view on Gaza from the present government.

Another factor: Gough was a lawyer, and he placed great emphasis on legal obligations. Working for him, I spent weeks in the Parliamentary Library digging out information about international conventions — human rights, law of the sea, and so on — that Australia had signed, but hadn’t ratified. I had to list what Australia had done on all those international conventions. So, when it comes to Israel and the numerous conventions, treaties, decisions of the General Assembly and international courts, Gough would have been very influenced by those international conventions and treaties.

He would have consistently defined, proclaimed and argued that we had these numerous conventions we should be observing. Unfortunately, the Albanese Government has not done that at all. It has run away from almost all of those conventions: the ICJ, the ICC, and others. So, in short: Gough would have taken a very different position, on legal grounds and because of the distinction between Judaism and Zionism, and Australia would not have gotten involved in siding with one country, as clearly the Albanese Government has sided with the Israeli Government.

Bart Shteinman: We’ve seen a lot of the efforts to hold Israel accountable in international institutions being led by countries in the Global South, such as South Africa. Whitlam had a vision of a different role Australia could play in its own region and on the world stage. Do you think he would have been attracted to aligning ourselves with countries like South Africa, Brazil, and so forth, that are trying to play a different role within the multilateral system?

John Menadue: I believe he would have. An interesting sideline: he was concerned about how Australia was selling its raw materials — its agricultural products and resources — to Western countries who were, frankly, screwing us on price: Japan, Europe, the US. He often spoke about the possibility of Australia joining with other developing countries — those that depended upon agricultural and resource exports — to make common ground together to get a better deal for those products around the world, including Brazil and Argentina. Unfortunately, not much progress was made, but he would have had a common interest with what is now called the Global South. He was certainly very supportive of the boycotts of South Africa, and of helping to bring an end to the Smith Government in Southern Rhodesia.

So Gough was very much an internationalist, and I believe he would have had common feelings with the Global South in their overwhelming opposition to the genocide in Gaza.

Bart Shteinman: Australia’s resource diplomacy is certainly an understudied area of the Whitlam Government, slightly overshadowed by the other foray into resources policy led by Rex Connor – the so-called “Loans affair”.

It’s often seen as one of the key scandals of the Whitlam Government. Was this policy always doomed to become a scandal? Or do you think there’s something to learn from that ambition, particularly in transitioning Australia from a predominantly fossil fuel exporter to a “renewable energy superpower”?

John Menadue: Most people would agree the politics of the Connor fundraising left a lot to be desired. It was messy, very difficult. Gough expressed a lack of confidence in Treasury and Treasury paid it back in spades, leaking a lot of information about the loan raising. So it was politically very damaging.

But what drove Rex Connor and was supported in the Labor Party generally was lost sight of in the whole “loans affair”. It was an attempt by the government to address the problem of foreign ownership of our resources. Now, around 80% of our resource industries are owned offshore: BHP, Rio Tinto, and so on, and Rex Connor was trying to head that off. Instead of selling off our companies, we would borrow but retain ownership in Australia. That would have been difficult to achieve, but that’s what drove Rex Connor, and most Australians would applaud that now.

I remember Rex was criticised for a map of gas pipelines from the North-West Shelf coming down through Alice Springs and into the southern and eastern coasts of Australia. To some extent, that’s been done today. Rex Connor also had in mind that money could be used for processing uranium into enriched material for nuclear power. It was a grand vision which he didn’t sell, and it got lost and diluted by the mess about the loans, Executive Council meetings, and so on. That played an important part politically in the defeat of the Whitlam Government.

But what drove it was attractive, and we are now paying the price: so much of our resources are owned overseas. They employ only about 2% of our workforce. They’re very capital-intensive; they don’t employ many Australians. They employ about 200,000 people, whereas in health and human services we employ 2.8 million. They make a very small contribution to tax revenue through all sorts of tax devices – offshoring, basing profits in Singapore or elsewhere. We’re probably not able now to reverse that foreign ownership, but most people would think we should be getting a better return, whether through improved resources taxes, petroleum taxes, or taxes on output rather than profits – so the income they’re earning can be appropriately taxed.

Rex was right in what he was trying to do, but it became so messy, and the public didn’t quite understand what he was about. We’re still left with that problem now – that so much of our mineral resources are in foreign hands. They keep our exchange rate at a higher level through export earnings, which puts pressure on our manufacturing sector. It’s unfortunate, and the horse has bolted to a large degree, but we should be getting a better return. I’m sure the Whitlam Government would have and hopefully the Albanese Government will, through the Treasurer, address that more aggressively than in the past.

Bart Shteinman: It is interesting to see the distinction between that kind of vision, of a scepticism of foreign investment from wherever it came, versus the situation now where one of our bargaining chips to keep AUKUS is to give preferential access to our resources to the Americans. It’s quite a turnaround.

On the question of personalities: in the Albanese era, one of the themes is the valorisation of discipline and unity; often portrayed in contrast to past Labor Governments. How would you compare the strengths and weaknesses of the Whitlam cabinet — its powerful personalities — and the Cabinet we have today in the Albanese Government?

John Menadue: I can understand, after the Rudd-Gillard experience, why the present Albanese Government places a great deal of emphasis on discipline and unity. It’s remarkable how few leaks come out of this cabinet. Newspapers used to live off leaks, sometimes from conservative governments, but more particularly from Labor Governments. It was extremely damaging, of course, to Gillard and to Rudd, and Labor has not — and should not — forget that.

The Whitlam Government had similar problems. They’d been out of power for 23 years. There were a lot of firebrands — Clyde Cameron, Jim Cairns, Rex Connor — people with very strong views and no experience in government. Gough had his full ministry in cabinet, all 27 of them. Managing a meeting like that is extremely difficult, and Gough was not particularly good at it. Often, as I saw sitting in the corner as secretary of Cabinet, they’d come to a vote. I thought votes should be left for caucus, but here they were voting on important issues in cabinet, when there should have been continued debate to find a consensus. That, of course, was Bob Hawke’s great ability: to develop consensus.

Gough was so committed to his program that he was determined to implement it almost regardless of the politics. I can’t recall, over the 12 months I was secretary of Cabinet with Gough Whitlam, any serious discussion about “the politics”: how it was going in the community, what the media was saying about what it should be doing. It was all the program, the program, the program. So, I understand the problems, and I don’t think Gough was particularly good at managing a lot of prima donnas. That was not his forte, even though he was good at many other things.

Bart Shteinman: And what about Whitlam and Albanese themselves? It is often remarked that Albanese was more leftwing earlier in his career than the prime minister we know today. Whitlam was considered a right-wing influence in Opposition but today is an icon for the left. What does that say about how power can change people?

John Menadue: Looking back on Labor Governments, and all governments, power reveals what people are like. We often hear Lord Acton: “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” but it was Robert Caro who made the point that power reveals what people are really like.

That happened to Gough: in opposition you might see one thing, but in power you see the real person. He grew in that, not in every respect, but he grew. Paul Keating is the person who most grew in the job. Not particularly well-educated formally but — with great political sense and the ability to present a case — he grew. I think of Rupert Murdoch; I worked for Rupert for seven years and found it pleasurable. I haven’t had much contact since I left about 50 years ago, but the point is this: when Rupert got real power, we saw what he was really like. Along the way he had to make compromises and grey-shade himself, but as he built power, we saw what Rupert Murdoch was really like.

I’m not sure where our prime minister will finish in that regard, but power does reveal what people are really like: what their base and true instincts are. That’s something I’ve learned watching people grow with the job, and certainly Gough Whitlam did. People say he was different from what we saw in opposition — he looked right-wing— and in power it revealed what he was really like and the things he cared for. Power tests people.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.