Robert Menzies: Nation’s longest-serving PM ‘still shapes Australia today’

Liberal Party founder Robert Menzies was Australia’s prime minister for 18 years, and his policies and vision still shape our nation today, more than four decades after his death.

• Makers of Oz: Evonne Goolagong
• Maker of Oz: Lachlan Macquarie

His name is mentioned almost every time Liberal politicians start to bicker about the values of their party.

That’s because the influence and legacy of Robert Menzies, the party’s founder and Australia’s longest-serving prime minister, persist to this day, 41 years after his death.

According to John Howard, the second-longest-serving PM, Menzies’ greatest achievement was to “lay the foundations of modern Australia”.

Robert Menzies visits the Snowy Hydro Discovery Centre at Cooma.

“The economic prosperity of the 1950s ensured a good life for larger numbers of Australians than ever before,” Mr Howard wrote in his book The Menzies Era.

“The Australia, New Zealand, United States Security (ANZUS) Treaty ­arrived as the bedrock of our security, and the 1957 Commerce Agreement opened up the huge potential of the Japanese market, just as the British market was diminishing.”

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Born in country Victoria to a general store manager, Menzies quickly distinguished himself as a brilliant student.

He excelled as a young lawyer and achieved fame by winning a case in the High Court.

After a stint in Victoria’s parliament he won the blue ribbon federal seat of Kooyong in Melbourne’s leafy east ­before heading to Canberra and becoming prime minister in 1939 when leading the United Australia Party.

Sir Robert and his wife Pattie Menzies in the 1940s.

He suffered a major setback when he was forced to resign due to internal pressures in 1941, but after that defeat he made his famous “Forgotten People” speech, ­appealing to everyday Australians who he said “represent the backbone of this country”.

Founding the Liberal Party in 1944, Menzies won the prime ministership again in 1949 and led until 1966.

In the 77 years since this speech, Australian politicians belonging to both the Liberal and Labor parties have repeatedly alluded to the country’s “forgotten people”.

Sir Robert, with Dame Pattie behind, at the opening of the Art Gallery of South Australia in 1952. Picture: Dick Joyner

In this time, Menzies oversaw mass immigration from Europe, bolstered military ties with the US and encouraged industrialisation.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott told The Daily Telegraph this week that the length of Menzies’ two stints as leader still resonated today.

“Menzies shaped the Australia of his time because he was prime minister for 18 years and nobody makes more difference to the life of our country than the prime minister of the day,” Mr Abbott said.

“He still shapes the Australia of our time because his beliefs and examples continue to inspire the Liberal Party.

“The Liberal Party today is unimaginable without his words and his deeds.”