Arthur Calwell and Labor's notes from a ruined party

RECRIMINATIONS followed Arthur Calwell's fall.

Labor Party

"THERE was no more farcical or unreal X (Labor Party federal executive) meeting than that which followed the debacle of (the election on) 26 November," the Labor Party's federal secretary Cyril Wyndham wrote in a secret note dated December 13, 1966.

"If the situation was not so tragic it could be hilariously funny. However, if the full facts of that meeting ever hit the press, the FX (federal executive) - the supreme governing body of the party, the men responsible for determining the destiny not only of the party but in effect of the country - would be laughed out of existence."

Labor suffered an electoral slaughter at the 1966 federal election. It was almost wiped off the map, winning just 41 seats out of 124 in parliament. It remains the Coalition's best election result.

It signalled the end of Arthur Calwell's disastrous leadership. An ageing man unsuited to the modern television age, clinging to outdated polices, crippled by poor presentation skills and leading a party plagued with disunity, Calwell would be replaced by Gough Whitlam within weeks.

But at this meeting - the details revealed for the first time thanks to the discovery of a note in Wyndham's papers, now located in the State Library of NSW - the so-called "faceless men" who ruthlessly controlled the party were blind to these realities.

"Not once at any time," Wyndham wrote, "were the real issues which caused our defeat ever referred to or mentioned, except inferentially."

The day after the election, Wyndham received a phone call from Labor's president, Jim Keeffe, who was eager to start apportioning blame for the drubbing. "I think we ought to have an executive meeting next week," he told Wyndham. The machine men were looking for a scapegoat and had settled on Wyndham. It was "a put-up job", he wrote.

Whitlam was also in their sights. "I got it on the grapevine that the Victorians were preparing charges against Whitlam. Calwell was inciting his confidants to cite him (Whitlam) for gross disloyalty."

The 12-man executive met 12 days after the election. The executive was a snake pit riven with rivalry and disunity. Earlier that year, Whitlam had described the executive as an "incompetent and irresponsible" grouping of "twelve witless men". The battlelines were clearly drawn. Key Left states Victoria and Western Australia wanted to blame Whitlam, Wyndham and NSW Labor (ruled by the Right) for the party's greatest defeat since 1940.

As they went around the table, one by one the party bosses ignored the elephant in the room: Calwell. "The party had been thrashed," Wyndham wrote. "The leftist grouping had had all their own way. For two years they had propped up Calwell, they had dictated policy on Vietnam and conscription."

The question of Calwell's leadership hovered over the discussions. Labor MP Jim Cairns was circling the leadership, but couldn't "muster the numbers", Wyndham confided. "There were suggestions that (Frank) Crean should be front man to keep Whitlam out."

Campaign fundraising had been woeful. Calwell said he "should not be subjected to the indignity" of raising funds. In any event, he had raised little. He had been tapping into the party's "trust" account to pay the debts of left-wing state secretaries who supported his leadership. Wyndham believed the party was $20,000 in deficit.

Wyndham was criticised for communications and advertising. He couldn't be reached on the phone, another said. One executive member complained about a "leaflet" not mentioning Vietnam. There were repeated calls for "unity" - a word directed at Whitlam, who had been publicly critical of Calwell and Labor's policies.

"(I) was sick of it," Wyndham wrote. "The executive had been meeting in the aftermath of slaughter and these piddling little things were emerging as the reasons for our defeat!" He was not going to be blamed for the result.

Then, at 3.20pm, Calwell spoke. It was as if the whole meeting so far had been laying the groundwork for a blistering spray from Calwell directed at Wyndham and Whitlam.

"He stuck to his principles and never betrayed them," Wyndham's note records Calwell saying. "He was proud of the fact that he had been subjected to more abuse than (HV "Doc") Evatt, (Ben) Chifley, (John) Curtin, (Jim) Scullin etc. etc. naming all of the party's leaders."

"What I am about to say is no recrimination, nor is it to be taken as a personal attack but it is said to clear the air," Calwell said. Turning to Whitlam, seated next to him, Calwell denounced his deputy: "Gough, you have been disloyal to me over the past three years. You are the most disloyal deputy any leader has had."

"Gough," Wyndham records, "looked him straight in the eye and never murmured a word. Not once did his eyelids flicker - it was a remarkable performance in self-control and dignity."

Calwell attacked NSW Labor president Charlie Oliver "for being treacherous" and lashed the AWU and ACTU for being "out of touch with the workers".

"Then he ended with his peroration," Wyndham noted, "the same old cliches, the same old quotes and the same old self-righteousness. He then left so that no one could answer him."

Whitlam didn't respond. He knew Calwell was finished - no matter how much the executive ignored it. He also knew that he would soon be leader. "I'm pretty sure I have the numbers in caucus," Whitlam had written to his son Nicholas a week earlier.

In February 1967, Whitlam defeated four others in a partyroom ballot and was elected Labor's leader.

"Whitlam was in too strong a position to be disciplined although they would have loved to have done so," Wyndham wrote. "Facing the fact that Whitlam might win they would then have to remove me, if they could, because control of the two key positions might well spell their end.

"And so the wretched performance came to an end," Wyndham wrote. "I felt sick and unclean. I could not help but think of those thousands of ordinary men and women who put their faith in a bunch of miserable wretches like this."