A post-mortem of PMs I’ve known (and not necessarily loved)

I’ve had personal contact with all our PMs from Robert Menzies. Four have been visitors in my home. The jury’s out on who was the best – but I can tell you the worst.

John Howard claims victory for the coalition during the 1996 federal election campaign. Picture: Michael Jones

PM stands for a few things. Post meridiem, post mortem and Prime Minister. And this column this AM provides my post mortem on the PMs I’ve known and not necessarily loved.

One of the few things I’ve always liked about Australian politics is that the PM often sits in the front seat of his official car beside the driver – and that the PM can be addressed by his first name. As in, “G’day Bob.” Imagine, I once mused on this page, the former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl riding in the front seat of his Mercedes, let alone tolerating such informality. “Hello Helmut.” Nein, never.

That sit-in-the-front tradition presumably survives in Canberra, even though it wasn’t necessarily popular with the driver. Our first gay PM (and at last count I know of two) used to fondle the thigh of his hapless chauffeur.

I’ve had personal contact with all our PMs from Robert Menzies on. Picture: Camera Press

I was going to say I’ve had personal contact with all our PMs from Robert Menzies on, though never of such intimacy. But on checking back I missed out on John McEwen and, thank heavens, Scott Morrison. Four have been visitors in my home. Mind you, keeping up with them became increasingly difficult as the turnover accelerated. Years ago I suggested they install a revolving door at the Lodge. More recently I said the job, rather than representing long-term employment, had the shelf-life of a jar of yoghurt.

Then British PMs started coming and going at such a giddying rate that the tenure at 10 Downing St was likened to the lifespan of a supermarket lettuce. (That legendary lettuce outlasted the PM. I think it was Liz Truss, if anyone remembers her. Certainly pommy PMs aren’t around long enough to be immortalised at Madame Tussauds.)

In the US anyone, in theory, can become president. Even a Hollywood actor like Ronald Reagan or a reality TV star like the Donald. Ditto Australia, where a kid from rural Jeparit can be reborn as our longest-serving and most pompous prime minister (Menzies).

You can even be a woman; we’ve had effectively three female PMs – Gillard, Janette Howard and Peta Credlin.

Julia Gillard. Picture: Matt Loxton

Yes, there have been too many lawyers, but one great PM was once a humble train driver – Ben Chifley. An Australian PM can even admit to atheism (as unthinkable in a US President as it would be in a Pope). We’ll even tolerate religious nuttery, as with that recent Pentecostal example, or a total flop in previous jobs. Same bloke: Morrison.

Who was the best? The jury’s out, though Meta’s new artificial intelligence tool last month anointed Gough Whitlam.

Gough Whitlam was annointed best PM (by Meta’s new artificial intelligence tool).

And the worst? Any number of frontrunners but for me it’s a one-horse race. The winner by a mile, my exact contemporary: we turn 85 within days of each other next July. Yep, “Little Johnny” Howard. I was assured by that ultimate insider Bob Woodward that as PM, Howard not only followed George W Bush into a war that would kill, maim and displace millions, but that he played a major role in urging GWB into that monstrous fiasco.

And that’s before we factor in his wrecking ball record on the three Rs: Reconciliation, the Republic and Refugees, the latter a policy that gave JWH his notorious “dark victory” and remains the gold standard for cruelty.

Happy birthday.