Fragile spoils of victory - Page 2
From Griffith REVIEW Edition 3: Webs of Power
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.
Written by Mungo MacCallum
EVERY GOVERNMENT TAKES OFFICE WITH THE PROMISE THAT there will be no more jobs for the boys, and proceeds to break the promise almost before drawing breath. Some are more open about it than others; Labor heavy Sir Jack Egerton, appointed by Whitlam to a plum job on the board of Qantas, gloated simply: "To the victors, the spoils." Others, like Howard, prefer to murmur to their colleagues that an association with the Liberal Party should certainly not be seen as a barrier to any appointments they might make in the course of running their portfolios, and then slip their cronies into every available position as quickly and quietly as possible.
Alas, in the aftermath of the privatisations of the Hawke-Keating years, there are far fewer such positions than there used to be – the Elysian fields of the Commonwealth Bank and Qantas are no more, along with many less prestigious, but still satisfying, boards of management. There remains, however, the Reserve Bank – still the jewel in the crown.
The bank is, of course, a totally independent body, but this has never stopped successive governments from appointing to its board those whom they regard as sympathetic. Naturally, the bank will be fearless in its adjustment of interest rates to the overall benefit of the economy. But if the board takes the long view that the economy will benefit best by the retention of the current government, it may hesitate to raise rates just before an election – or at least that's the theory.
Not every apparatchik can aspire to a seat on the Reserve Bank board. But there are still plenty of troughs available for the willing snout. More than one longstanding party hack has been snivellingly grateful for the gift of a sinecure on the War Graves Commission. And then, of course, there is the ABC, one board that really does matter – although it must be added that governments of all shades continue to complain remorselessly about the national broadcaster, no matter how many of their own apparatchiks they have managed to put on the board.
The key appointment is not chairman of the board, but managing director, which the board itself determines. However, the board generally manages to follow the Government's wishes. Certainly Labor got its mates David Hill and Brian Johns up without trouble, and the Libs succeeded – if that's the right word – with Jonathan Shier. But even the most compliant board can sometimes revolt. In spite of his personal friendship (which has extended to chairing fund-raisers) with Howard, board chairman Donald McDonald insisted on the in-house Russell Balding rather than a Liberal high-flyer to clean up the mess left by Shier.
But the principal area of patronage remains the diplomatic corps. Countless has-beens and never-would-bes have been shunted around the world, as often to get rid of a rival or an opponent as to reward an ally. Whitlam sought control of the Senate by popping the Democratic Labor Party's Vince Gair off to Ireland, long seen as a dumping ground for retiring politicians. Long before that, Billy Hughes got rid of Sir John Forrest by elevating him to the peerage as Lord Forrest of Bunbury – "Oh, I'd have made him a bloody duke to get rid of him," the Little Digger chortled (although he had the grace to show some remorse when Forrest died on the voyage which was to take him to England and the House of Lords).
It should be said immediately that not all such appointments are bad: Hawke's appointment of his prime ministerial predecessor Whitlam as ambassador to UNESCO and Howard's of his long-time rival Andrew Peacock as ambassador to Washington were both amply justified. But more often than not some unlucky city, country or colony ends up with a second-rate political pensioner. Whitlam sent Lance Barnard to Stockholm; Malcolm Fraser sent Peter Coleman to Norfolk Island; Howard sent Michael Baume to New York – the list goes on.
Menzies used the diplomatic corps to rid himself of possible challengers like William Casey and Percy Spender; he even resorted to the High Court as a means of removing Garfield Barwick from politics. But then, Whitlam did the same with Lionel Murphy. There are few places within the public sector safe from a prime minister determined to embed his own structure in as much of society as he is able.
IN A MIXED ECONOMY, ESPECIALLY ONE LIKE AUSTRALIA in which the public is deeply suspicious and resentful about the intrusion of government, life for the would-be totalitarian becomes rather more difficult. But this doesn't mean that someone as ambitious as Howard won't try. He may not be able to control the output of individual writers, historians, playwrights and artists and the like, but he can and does have a big say in which of them qualify for public recognition, money, fame and approval.
The Government appoints the boards of the National Gallery, the Museum of Australia and the Australia Council, to name but three. Less directly, it funds the universities and is not afraid to use that power to bully and blackmail them into taking a government line – Brendan Nelson's attempt to tie funds to the implementation of individual workplace agreements is only the most recent and brutal of such pressures. The Prime Minister himself can publicly commend those whom he feels support his cause; Geoffrey Blainey is now regarded, perhaps unfairly, as Howard's court historian, with Keith Windshuttle inside the tent and Henry Reynolds definitely excluded. Academic historians, artists and all those in the field of communications are highly susceptible to such flattery. Even Les Murray, who has constantly attacked the grants system and has complained about being treated as a token fascist, has not rushed to return the lavish handouts and numerous prizes from which he has (quite deservedly) benefited.
Which brings us to the field that all governments would most dearly like to have onside: the media. In my view the power of the media to influence public opinion, at least in Australia, has been largely exaggerated; but since politicians believe in the exaggerations and frequently add even more extravagant ones of their own, the media's influence on the politicians themselves is intense.
The efforts made to duchess everyone in the industry, from proprietors through editors to individual journalists, is relentless and usually shameless; the present government consistently belts the ABC for a perceived leftish bias, while heaping praise on the radio personality Alan Jones as a political asset. Every government compiles a list dividing the Canberra press gallery into friends and enemies and operates accordingly; favourable comment is rewarded by extra information, invariably not attributable to the minister's office from which the leak is arranged.
At a higher level, editors are wined and dined and frequently abused for real or imagined slights to the more sensitive politicians; Paul Keating, of course, was notorious for his vitriolic phone calls, particularly to the Fairfax group, for which he developed a special hatred – his media revamp was specifically designed to hurt Fairfax while boosting the rival Murdoch and Packer groups. Such discrimination is practised by all governments with the aim of locking in the support of proprietors on the receiving end, but such support is never more than temporary. Eventually the demands become too much for even the most compliant government and the former ally becomes a sworn enemy.
The best recent example of this was Rupert Murdoch's relationship with Gough Whitlam. In 1972, the Murdoch press ran a virulent campaign against the Liberal incumbent Bill McMahon, which had the side effect of helping Labor. As a reward, Murdoch demanded the post of high commissioner to London, while still maintaining his active role in the media. Whitlam regarded the demand as preposterous and refused it. Murdoch then turned on Labor and in 1975 outdid all his previous efforts in denigration, this time directed against Labor. Despite this experience, repeated in different forms many times, optimistic politicians still believe the media can be bought. They can't, but they can on occasion be rented, and for a desperate government that is enough.
THE SEDUCTION OF AN OPINION LEADER who actually works in the media is a huge prize for any government, but those outside it are also worthwhile targets. Businessmen, military types, churchmen, well-known professionals, sporting heroes, film stars, pop singers – all are potentially part of the network of support that governments seek to build around them in an attempt to make themselves the central part of a dominant popular culture. Of course, when similar groupings appear in opposition, they are contemptuously dismissed as an out-of-touch, unAustralian, elitist rent-a-crowd – unless there is a change of government, when the whole, painful process of setting up a new network has to begin again.
What is perhaps surprising is how quickly and effectively this can be done. The very flexibility of the new networks, the speed with which they can be constructed, means that they can be torn down as swiftly as they are erected. By their very nature they are there for a good time, not for a long time. Even within the lifetime of a government, those who have outlived their usefulness or have simply become unfashionable are discarded without compunction. Howard shows no nostalgia for former close allies like Peter Reith or Michael Wooldridge in the ministry or John Valder outside it, and of course we all know his attitude to Malcolm Fraser. Even that once sacred icon, the former Australian cricket captain Steve Waugh, may now find himself on the outer after snubbing Howard's invitation to barbecue with George Bush.
And with a change of government there is a complete makeover; the incoming prime minister redecorates not only the Lodge but as much of the political and social infrastructure as possible. Thus any sense of continuity is seriously endangered, if not actually lost. The stability a permanent public service provided is gone forever and the cohesion of a predictable set of community values and expectations is greatly disrupted. Political change these days involves not a smooth transition but an unpredictable lurch.
Both Keating and Howard have sought to impose a personal vision on Australia and, for a while at least, it seemed that each had succeeded. Keating's edifice, ranging from the governor-general down to the meanest Aboriginal outstation, was an imposing structure that looked fairly secure eight years ago; now Howard has reduced it to a smoking ruin while building his own utterly different, but equally comprehensive, model.
It remains to be seen if it will be any more resistant to change. Political and cultural paradigms in Australia, however well networked, seldom last long. Perhaps their transience is in itself a tribute to Australian democracy: even the wiliest and most determined politician can't fool most of the people for much of the time. ♦