John Menadue stayed on as the most senior public servant in the land, after the trauma of the Dismissal. In this 5-part series he details what life was like working with PM Fraser. Given his closeness to Whitlam, some of his conclusions are surprising. 

Some of the business community, who were apoplectic about the Whitlam Government, clearly wanted me to go. A Liberal Party official in Sydney, a knight of the realm from the insurance industry, leant on Fraser to remove me.

A very senior Melbourne Liberal business leader asked me over a lunch, “Is it true that after the dismissal your department was shredding and burning files?” It was hard to accept the prejudice and ignorance of so many of those people. The same business leader later had to resign his company directorships.

Some commentators speculated that because of my Methodist origins and my ‘fierce detestation of idleness and extravagance in Government’ I was a natural ally of Fraser in cutting waste. This was partly true. The same journalist, Peter Samuel, reported five months into the new government that “Menadue remains a strong and vocal critic of the Governor-General’s action in dismissing Whitlam.” That was very true.

Early in January 1976, with senior officers in the department, I organised drinks for Mr Whitlam to wish him well. He was without bitterness, despite the injustice that had been done to him. It was important to thank and farewell him, to underline the civility and continuity of public life.

With the smell of blood in their nostrils, some ministers were determined to pursue further four of the outgoing ministers—Whitlam, Jim Cairns, Rex Connor and Lionel Murphy—involved in the attempted loan raisings.

On 21 October 1975, a few weeks before the dismissal, Bob Ellicott, the shadow attorney general, had presented a petition from Danny Sankey, a solicitor and constituent of his, to the House of Representatives stating that he wanted to prosecute the four ministers involved in the 13 December 1974 meeting of the Executive Council and asked for leave to subpoena certain loan documents. It was refused by the Whitlam Government.

On 20 November, in the middle of the election campaign, Sankey launched a private legal action against the four ministers for allegedly conspiring with each other to contravene the financial agreement which regulates loan raisings. Furthermore, he alleged that they had conspired to deceive the governor-general. When Sankey’s prosecution came on in the Queanbeyan Court in the week before the 13 December election, he asked that warrants be issued for the arrest of the four ministers.

Then in the early months of the Fraser Government there was a bolt from the blue. Billy McMahon privately approached the Secretary of the Executive Council, David Reid, who was based in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. Reid reported to me that the former Prime Minister had approached him to provide copies of the Executive Council minutes. He refused. McMahon was quite persistent and suggested that if Reid left the documents in the letterbox at his home, he would arrange for them to be collected. After discussions with Clarrie Harders, the Secretary of the Attorney-General’s Department, we decided not to call in the police to investigate McMahon’s actions. I thought it better that the matter rest.

Ellicott was determined that the Government take over the prosecution. I advised Fraser not to because, to the best of my knowledge, there was no corruption or illegality in the attempted loan raising. The four ministers had acted legally at every step. Fraser didn’t take much persuading that that was the case. He was also persuaded that it was unwise for one government to be raking through the documents of another government and that if the matter came to court the Commonwealth Government should refuse to release them. But Ellicott was single-mindedly determined to continue. At the end of the day, Fraser said that Ellicott should not proceed. He had wrung everything he could politically out of the loan’s affair and the Executive Council meeting and to proceed further would be fruitless or even counterproductive.

As a result of Cabinet’s decision not to proceed, Ellicott later resigned as Attorney-General in September 1977. In his view, he was being blocked from what he saw as his duty as the first law officer of the Crown. Ellicott’s actions were puzzling. He was a lay preacher who had been personally welcomed to the Parliament and praised by Whitlam, although he was joining the other side. When he entered Parliament in 1974, Whitlam said that the institution of Parliament needed more men like Ellicott.

On Ellicott’s resignation, some media thought that he had resigned on the principle of not interfering with a previous government’s records.  In fact, it was the opposite—he resigned because he was not allowed access.

The adversaries of 1975 were toppling one after another.

Kerr requested that I resume the regular conversations that I had had with him during the Whitlam Government. It is common practice for the Head of PM&C to have such conversations with the governor-general. I spoke to Fraser, and he agreed. As before, Kerr was eager to get a briefing on a wide range of government activities. Security, intelligence and foreign affairs were always top of the list.

At the second and all subsequent meetings, we were joined by Lady Kerr. She would stay for the full meeting, often an hour or so. She didn’t join in the conversations except for the normal courtesies. She was there to listen and support. In those discussions, Kerr conveyed very starkly his concern about his physical safety. He asked me several times to review security at Yarralumla and, to a lesser extent, at Admiralty House in Sydney. He was afraid that protesters might scale the walls and attack him. He felt very insecure. We made some checks and decided that security was adequate.

He also continually sought my view whether Labor hostility would blow over. I could not advise him what the Labor movement was likely to do but I had a pretty good idea. From Mick Young and other friends, as well as what I could read in the newspapers, I was aware of the extent of the hostility. I gave Kerr no encouragement whatsoever that the hostility was only a passing phase.

Perhaps as a thank you to Kerr, Fraser, unknown to me, wrote directly to the Queen in April 1976, proposing that the Governor-General receive the honour of Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG)— ‘Kindly call me God’. I got a rebuke from Sir Martin Charteris, the Queen’s Official Secretary, in a ‘Dear Menadue’ letter, indicating that it was unwise for the Prime Minister to be sending such a formal letter requesting a KCMG to the Queen. The letter was leaked. Charteris suggested that whilst I might think it was ‘mumbo jumbo’, it was useful to first do some preliminary informal soundings. Only in informal discussions would it be proper for the Queen to indicate whether she agreed with the proposal or not. Once it came as a formal proposal from the Australian Prime Minister, she really had no choice but to approve. Charteris said, of course, that “[the Queen] had no reluctance in approving this award.” But the message was clear. The Queen had reservations.

Increasingly Kerr became an embarrassment to Fraser, with his extravagant public lifestyle and overseas travel. He claimed he couldn’t holiday in Australia because of protests. Fraser finally cut him adrift in July 1977, glad to be rid of an embarrassment. By that time, I had gone to Japan. For a period, however, Kerr was a useful fall guy for Fraser. Kerr, rather than Fraser, was the focus of scorn and derision.

This is an updated extract from _Things You Learn Along the Way_ 1999 - John Menadue

Tomorrow: Working with PM Fraser - a country divided - Part 3