The Menzies Ascendency: Fortune, Stability, Progress 1954–1961 is the third of a four-volume history of Menzies and his world, based on conferences convened by the Robert Menzies Institute at the University of Melbourne. Photo: Supplied.
Sir Robert Menzies was Australia’s 12th and longest-serving prime minister, a record he achieved on 30 November, 1954. He served a total of 18 years and 163 days.
It’s a record that’s been synonymous with the name of Robert Gordon Menzies ever since. According to The Menzies Ascendency: Fortune, Stability, Progress 1954–1961, every day onwards, for the next 11 years and 57 days, Menzies was setting a new benchmark, eventually reaching an aggregate that today appears virtually insurmountable.
Dr Zachary Gorman has edited a book that is fundamentally a collection of papers written by experts on numerous aspects of the life and career of Robert Menzies. Every chapter exudes genuineness. Even the introduction by the academic coordinator at the Robert Menzies Institute is proficient. The extensive diversity of material in this hardback edition is adroitly expanded. The verification is easy to find from the contributors including Anne Henderson, Selwyn Cornish, Stephen Wilks, Michael De Percy, Damien Freeman, David Furse-Roberts, Paul Kelly, Sean Jacobs, David Lee, and Paul Strangio.
These chapters represent excellence of work throughout. Even the editor’s hand in upholding a steadily elevated criterion is evident. Add to that a foreword written by former Justice of the High Court of Australia Michael Kirby, and it sets the tone for exceptional professionalism.
Kirby opens with: “In an age of generally short-lived federal governments in Australia, it is difficult for many contemporaries to imagine a federal government lasting an unbroken interval of 23 years, before the electors decided that it was time for a change.”
He continues: “… I am reminded of the doubts and criticisms that I felt, alongside a certain grudging appreciation … there are chapters on a number of themes, whose analyses do not necessarily show Menzies in his best light. They include his aspirations and actions in the new atomic age; his resistance to any outright abandonment of ‘White Australia’; and his failure to grapple substantively with (or really to understand) the increasingly recognised injustices that settlement and its aftermath had brought to our First Nations Peoples.
“It must be conceded that, politically, in Australia, Menzies repeatedly outsmarted and bested the political hero of my youth, Herbert Vere Evatt. On most fronts, in Australia, Menzies time after time, defeated his rival in the struggle for the highest election position in the nation.
“There were certainly initiatives that Menzies took as prime minister, that are revealed in this book, that were greatly to his credit, on his chosen battlefield. There he contributed to our emerging national consciousness in Australia …”
It is a fair axiom to claim that historical figures are often viewed in retrospect. Perhaps, it’s more revealing to say that “we view them as crystallised or set in stone as if the whole narrative of their life had played out in an instant with a predetermined endpoint, and thus that their character was a constant”.
Dr Gorman deals with powerful, factual material. The Menzies impact on Australian policy revolution is noted. Could it be that Menzies’ unprecedented electoral success was merely a matter of luck, or did he make fortune bend to his will? Between the closely fought 1954 and 1961 elections, the Coalition enjoyed a political dominance that allowed it to reshape the nation.
The period saw the creation of the Reserve Bank of Australia, the signing of the landmark Commerce Agreement with Japan, vast investment in Australia’s universities, the development of Canberra, the opening of Australia’s first nuclear reactor, forgotten but transformative healthcare reforms, the abolition of the dictation test, progress on Indigenous policy, the signing of an enduring Antarctic Treaty and more.
Yet to critics, this was a time when the opportunity for reform was wasted. What does the Australian public want from its leaders? Has Menzies’ deliberate emphasis on continuity over change obscured his achievements? Is consolidated progress preferable to policy revolution?
All these issues are explored in the third of a four-volume history of Menzies and his world, and deals with the important decisions and policies implemented by the Menzies government. The first volume, The Young Menzies, revealed an ambitious but thoughtful man, who showed certain character flaws indicative of being unsuitable for politics. Volume II, The Menzies Watershed, only became a watershed because it was exposed to a crucial period of consolidation.
Menzies’ first tenure (1939-1941) lasted two years and 125 days, and his second (1949-1966) for 16 years and 38 days. The latter was the longest single term.
The Menzies Ascendency: Fortune, Stability, Progress 1954–1961, Edited by Zachary Gorman, Melbourne University Publishing, $50
