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John Curtin, Ben Chifley: fresh insight into Labor’s wartime heroes

Two books shed new light on our wartime leaders, the inspirational John Curtin and egalitarian Ben Chifley.

Prime Minister John Curtin, left, with his treasurer Ben Chifley. Picture: National Library of Australia
Prime Minister John Curtin, left, with his treasurer Ben Chifley. Picture: National Library of Australia

John Curtin: How He Won Over the Media, by Caryn Coatney (Australian Scholarly Publishing, 218pp, $39.95)

Remembering Ben Chifley, by Sue Martin with Jane Chifley and Elizabeth Chifley (Inspiring Publishers, 306pp, $26.95)

This October marks 75 years since John Curtin became prime minister and Ben Chifley was appointed treasurer. The wartime duo of Labor reformers continues to cast a long shadow over Australian politics, even though they seem remote from contemporary times.

In Canberra, there is a statue of the two venerated Labor icons that reimagines them walking to Parliament House in the 1940s. It prompts memories of an age when there was a greater degree of comity across the aisle and politicians garnered respect from voters.

Two new books about Curtin and Chifley give readers a fascinating insight into the men behind their statuesque modern-day image. One deals with how Curtin manipulated the media and honed his oratorical skills. Another looks at the private life of Chifley told through stories passed from generation to generation in the Chifley family.

Jonh Curtin: How He Won Over The Media
Jonh Curtin: How He Won Over The Media

Caryn Coatney’s John Curtin: How He Won Over The Media is an academic study that reveals the secrets behind Curtin’s powerful wartime broadcasts, stirring parliamentary debates and his spellbinding oratory delivered to enraptured audiences at home and abroad.

Curtin, a former journalist, used the media to present himself as a strong wartime leader through the power of his speech. As Coatney shows, his voice projection and hand gestures were planned and rehearsed. The diaries of Canadian prime minister Mackenzie King divulge how these tactics helped Curtin become in public what he was not always in private.

Coatney quotes King’s diary, noting he was impressed with Curtin’s private presentations to Winston Churchill, his public speeches and his handling of journalists’ queries.

But King saw Curtin as privately “self-absorbed” with a “lack of any gracious manner”, someone who “seemed more interested in ascertaining the effect of his media messages than meeting dignitaries” on a visit to Ottawa.

More than any other contemporary politician, Curtin understood how he could use the emerging mediums of radio and film “to promote his war leadership” and “enlist support for Australia’s role in global battles”.

The images voters saw on movie screens were of a “man of the people” at ease with workers and children.

Curtin used radio more than Franklin Roosevelt, who made his Fireside Chats a feature of his presidency.

Confidential briefings to journalists, including the sharing of secret cables from Churchill, were another element of Curtin’s tactics. He traded information with journalists and proprietors and enlisted them to his cause. Coatney uses journalists’ diaries, memos and correspondence to show how Curtin’s courted the media.

John Curtin.
John Curtin.

As he battled personal demons and deteriorating health, there was no one Curtin looked to more than his party comrade, cabinet colleague and friend Chifley.

After Frank Forde’s eight-day prime ministership in July 1945, Chifley won a ballot for the Labor leadership and became the fifth prime minister during World War II.

But as Sue Martin recalls in Remembering Ben Chifley, he decided not to contest the leadership and was happy to remain treasurer. Chifley was so distraught at Curtin’s death that he could not attend the funeral and returned home to Bathurst. It was only when former Labor leader Jim Scullin urged Chifley to nominate for leader, and said it was Curtin’s dying “wish”, that he sought the prime ministership.

This is just one of the stories from Chifley family lore recorded by Martin in a fascinating book written with the assistance of her sisters Jane and Elizabeth Chifley. They have collected stories told by their father, John Chifley, who was Chifley’s nephew, along with tales from other family members and friends.

While he sat at his desk in a small office in Parliament House — Chifley did not use the prime ministerial suite — the phone would often ring with meat orders for the Manuka butcher. The shop’s phone number differed by only one digit from Chifley’s direct line. Rather than embarrass the callers, usually “housewives”, Chifley would take their orders and then phone them through to the butcher.

The book shares anecdotes from Chifley’s childhood living with his grandfather, his work in the railways and imprisonment during the 1917 strike, his excommunication from the Catholic Church and rivalry with NSW premier Jack Lang. Predominantly self-educated, he ordered a parcel of books from Dymocks every month and retained much of what he read.

There is no Labor leader more loved than the down-to-earth, pipe-smoking Chifley. His only security when occasionally staying at The Lodge was a one-eyed guard dog named Nelson. He refused to wear a dress suit to dinner with George VI. And he believed an array of external forces were out to destroy his government: the banks, the communists, the Catholics, the media, the CIA, MI5 and the FBI.

Mary Elizabeth Calwell, the daughter of former Labor leader Arthur Calwell, launched the book about Chifley in Canberra earlier this year. As her father was a minister in the Curtin-Chifley government, she would often visit Canberra. It is fascinating to listen to her childhood memories of Curtin and Chifley, and others such as Robert Menzies, Arthur Fadden and HV “Doc” Evatt.

Remembering Ben Chifley.
Remembering Ben Chifley.

The Calwells had dined with Chifley just hours before he died in June 1951. On the 10th anniversary of his death, Arthur Calwell visited his grave in Bathurst and said, “Chifley had the modesty and simplicity of those who possess innate greatness.”

These books provide readers with a window into the personalities and characters of Curtin and Chifley, against the backdrop of a different political age and defining events such as the Depression and two world wars.

It is worth recalling that Curtin and Chifley waged a ferocious political battle during their eight years in power against opponents such as Fadden, Menzies, Earle Page and Billy Hughes. It was often brutal and unremitting. But none of this diminished the respect and friendship across the political divide.

In 2014, Menzies’ daughter Heather Henderson showed me a small polished wooden box that still sits atop a cabinet in her lounge room that once belonged to her father. In it, she said, Menzies kept letters and notes he had received from Curtin.

“My task,” Menzies wrote to Curtin in August 1941, “always difficult, has frequently been rendered easier and at all times been rendered more tolerable by your magnanimous and understanding attitude … your political opposition has been honourable and your personal friendship a pearl of great price.”

Curtin’s reply was no less extraordinary. “On my part I thank you wholeheartedly for the consideration (and) courtesy which never once failed in your dealings with me,” Curtin wrote. “I wish you good health (and) fair going. Your personal friendship is something I value, as I hope and know you do, as a very precious thing.”

They were remarkable men. It is just one reason why there is much to commend in these books in the lead-up to the 75th anniversary of that noteworthy partnership forged between Curtin and Chifley, which continues to influence the shaping of modern Australia.

Troy Bramston is a senior writer on The Australian. He is writing a biography of Paul Keating.

Troy Bramston
Troy BramstonSenior Writer

Troy Bramston has been a senior writer and columnist with The Australian since 2011. He has interviewed politicians, presidents and prime ministers from multiple countries along with writers, actors, directors, producers and many pop-culture icons. Troy is an award-winning and best-selling author or editor of 12 books, including Gough Whitlam: The Vista of the New, Bob Hawke: Demons and Destiny, Robert Menzies: The Art of Politics and Paul Keating: The Big-Picture Leader. Troy is a member of the Library Council of the State Library of NSW and the National Archives of Australia Advisory Council. He was awarded the Centenary Medal in 2001.

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/review/john-curtin-ben-chifley-fresh-insight-into-labors-wartime-heroes/news-story/3ff86cf78d7bb6b04c82072330f032c5