Steering without a compass or a map
In 1971, Time magazine decided that it might do a friendly cover story on newly installed Liberal prime minister, Billy McMahon, and asked for co-operation from his media office. The office asked that questions be submitted in writing. This was not from mistrust of Time – indeed the office was deeply conscious of what Jane Austen would call the magazine’s condescension in so honouring an Asian backwater. It was from mistrust of Billy, who was capable of almost any media stuff-up.
Time journalist John Shaw went through the pre-submitted questions, but for his final query asked one that was not on the script: it was a lollypop, set to be hit to the Boundary: “What are your thoughts on the future of Australia?”
“McMahon, confronted with the unexpected, was nonplussed,” Time reported. “McMahon shuffled rapidly through his paper, he found no brief on the future, no position paper files under F, no memorandum on destiny. He said, ‘I’ll have to send you a note on that’, but he never did.”
That was a long time ago, but it could have happened yesterday. To most of the political leaders of the past decade or so.
The article commented that “today the US is engaged in extricating itself from Indochina, and is unlikely to make new commitments in South East Asia for some time. Yet the Soviet Union, China and Japan are increasing their influence in the oceans that bound Australia.
“Clearly the Australians are being challenged to find a new role for themselves in the Pacific. But the response of their leadership has been less than dynamic. Indeed, some critics grumble that Australia’s political leadership is so mediocre that every rosy prediction about the national destiny must be qualified.”
Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke, Paul Keating, John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull would not have been flatfooted like Billy (later Sir William) McMahon. The quality of the words might have varied – and, perhaps only one or two would have been memorable. But the howls of laughter after McMahon’s response seem to have made nearly all subsequent prime ministers and political leaders elsewhere cautious about getting involved in what President George Bush senior once called “the vision thing”.
People kept telling Bush he needed to articulate a vision. He was rated as competent and clear thinking, but boring and unable to galvanise or mobilise passion and emotions. Bill Clinton beat him.
In writing about politics, including from the time of Billy........
© Pearls and Irritations
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