In the first part of a series on prime ministers, Barry York discovers that the voices of most of Australia’s prime ministers can be heard in the National Library’s Oral History Collection Twenty-five men have served as prime minister of Australia since 1901: Edmund Barton, Alfred Deakin, John Watson, George Reid, Andrew Fisher, Joseph Cook, William Hughes, Stanley Bruce, James Scullin, Joseph Lyons, Earle Page, Robert Menzies, Arthur Fadden, John Curtin, Francis Forde, Ben Chifley, Harold Holt, John McEwen, John Gorton, William McMahon, Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and John Howard. The National Library’s Oral History Collection holds sound recordings relevant to nearly all of them. These recordings vary in origin from interviews recorded directly with former prime ministers and their colleagues and family members through to taped interviews acquired from researchers and media recordings. When the Library’s Oral History Program was established in 1970 (as the ‘Oral History Project’), the prime minister was John Gorton. Eighteen other men had been prime minister and only four, Arthur Fadden, Robert Menzies, Francis Forde and John McEwen, were still alive. McEwen was born in 1900; the other three were late nineteenth-century men. The Library lost no time in recording the eldest of the surviving prime ministers: Frank Forde, who was born in 1890. Forde, who had been prime minister for eight days after the death of Ben Chifley in July 1945, was interviewed by Mel Pratt in 1971. McEwen, prime minister from 19 December 1967 to 10 January 1968, was interviewed a few years later, in 1974 and again in 1975, by Ray Aitchison. For the second session, Aitchison was assisted in his preparation by historian Sir John Crawford.
Unfortunately, ‘Artie’ Fadden, who was prime minister from 29 August to 7 October 1941, was never recorded for the Library. He died in 1973. Menzies, who lived until 1978, was also not recorded directly; though the acquisition of his papers for the Manuscript Collection included over a hundred audiotapes of media interviews and speeches. Among them is an interview recorded by Lady McNicoll in the early 1970s. Australia has had seven prime ministers, including Gorton, since the Oral History Program’s inception and the Library has successfully recorded interviews with three of them: Gorton, McMahon and Fraser. Gorton was prime minister from 10 January 1968 to 10 March 1971 and was recorded by Mel Pratt in 1976 and by Justin Macdonnell in 1986. The Library also holds an interview with him recorded for Parliament’s Oral History Project in 1985. McMahon, prime minister between 10 March 1971 and 5 December 1972, was interviewed for the Library on two occasions in 1974, by Ray Aitchison and by Jonathon Gaul, and there is also an interview with him recorded for Parliament’s project. The interview with Fraser was recorded in 1999 and 2000 by former political editor of the Canberra Times, and long-time oral history interviewer, John Farquharson. Fraser was prime minister between 11 November 1975 and 11 March 1983.
A particularly important collection recorded for the Library is that of former parliamentarian Clyde Cameron. His profound knowledge and personal experience of parliamentary politics made him an ideal oral history interviewer in that field. Cameron’s ‘reminiscental conversations’ with former parliamentarians, recorded in the 1980s, included Gorton and Fraser. Other interviews have been acquired by the Library from outside sources. A taped interview with Stanley Melbourne Bruce, who was prime minister between 9 February 1923 and 22 October 1929, is a case in point. The interview with Bruce was recorded by Cecil Edwards in the early 1960s for his book Bruce of Melbourne (1965) and includes an assessment by Bruce of his achievements and failures when prime minister. Other recordings of special importance acquired by the Library are the taped interviews produced by Blanche D’Alpuget while researching her book, Robert J. Hawke: A Biography (1982). The D’Alpuget collection includes a substantial interview with Hawke, who was prime minister from 11 March 1983 to 20 December 1991. The Library also has a collection recorded by John Edwards in 1972 for a series of features in the Australian Financial Review. Edwards interviewed McMahon, Whitlam and Fraser. Whitlam was prime minister from 5 December 1972 to 11 November 1975. In addition to acquisitions from independent researchers, the Oral History Collection holds interviews from broadcasters. Radio interviews, generally acquired with manuscript papers, are brief and lack the insightful probing and depth of the Library’s own oral history work. However, they do provide information and, most importantly, are a record of the voice of the interviewee. It can truly be said that in the National Library one can hear the voices of most of Australia’s prime ministers, the earliest recording dating back to 1936 with Prime Minister Joseph Lyons announcing the abdication of Edward VIII on station 3DB. Lyons was prime minister for the United Australia Party between 6 January 1932 and 7 April 1939.
The Library has a brief interview recorded with William Hughes by radio station 2GB in April 1951 and there are also audiotapes of television interviews with Robert Menzies. Hughes served as prime minister for the Australian Labor Party and then the Nationalist Party between 27 October 1915 and 9 February 1923. Robert Menzies was prime minister for nearly two and a half years between 26 April 1939 and 29 August 1941, and for 16 years between 19 December 1949 and 26 January 1966. No other individual has served so long as prime minister. Speeches and addresses are another category of sound recording in the collection. These include speeches made during election campaigns and other special occasions and cover a period from the 1930s to the 1990s. A very large collection of addresses to the National Press Club is held and features all the prime ministers since Gorton. Knowledge and better understanding of the men who were prime ministers can also come from people who knew them well. The Library was privileged to secure the cooperation of Dame Pattie Menzies, the wife of Sir Robert Menzies, in an interview recorded in 1990, Dame Mary McEwen, wife of Sir John McEwen, recorded in 1974, and Margaret Whitlam, who was recorded in 1979. The children and grandchildren of former prime ministers have also provided insights via the oral history process. Examples include Peggy Fisher, the daughter of Andrew Fisher, who was prime minister on three occasions between 1908 and 1915, and Judith Harley and Jessie Clarke, granddaughters of Alfred Deakin, Australia’s second prime minister. Deakin, who was a Protectionist, was prime minister on three occasions: 24 September 1903 to 27 April 1904, 5 July 1905 to 13 November 1908, and 2 June 1909 to 29 April 1910. Other interviews that throw light on prime ministers are those with former senior public servants, parliamentarians, state premiers, press secretaries and journalists. Examples of the former include men and women who worked as high-ranking members of the Prime Minister’s Department, such as Frank Strahan, Sir Geoffrey Yeend and Hazel Craig.
An extensive collection of interviews with former Commonwealth parliamentarians is held by the Library through the Parliament’s own Oral History Project, which has recorded more than a hundred former federal parliamentarians since 1983. The tapes and transcripts are archived, housed and catalogued in the National Library. While the emphasis in each interview is on the interviewee’s own life and career, there are in some cases assessments of, and anecdotes about, prime ministers. State premiers interviewed by the Library include Thomas Playford, who was premier of South Australia between 1938 and 1965, Henry Bolte, premier of Victoria between 1955 and 1973, and Robert Askin, premier of New South Wales from 1965 to 1975. These include discussion of Hughes, Lyons, Curtin, Chifley, Menzies, Holt, McEwen, Gorton, McMahon and Fraser. Press secretaries and journalists specialising in political affairs prove to be a particularly perceptive source of oral history. The Library holds interviews with Irvine Douglas, who was press secretary to Lyons, Donald Rodgers, press secretary to Curtin and Chifley, and Tony Eggleton, press secretary to Menzies (from 1965), Holt, Gorton and McMahon, and with celebrated journalists Frank Chamberlain, Edgar Holt, Alan Reid and Alec Chisholm. BARRY YORK is a writer and researcher who has lived through the time of ten Australian prime ministers. His email address is: garocon@pcug.org.au |
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