Maxwell Newton, Jobson’s Investment Digest, January 22, 1973, pp. 2-4.

Now that the euphoria has definitely and finally passed, following Labor’s return to power, the question which must concern many important sectors of the community is: “How do we stop this crowd from running completely wild?”

I have been out of Australia for a few months, looking after a little paper I own in the United States, and it is most amusing to come back and find big Labor men like Rupert Murdoch allowing papers like The Australian to write — at this early stage — articles highly critical of the Whitlam Black Panthers.

I always enjoy a laugh when Rupert runs a big political campaign and finds to his amazement that yet again he has backed a donkey.

I found it similarly amusing to read The Age in recent days and observe that the Whitlamites in that particular camp are evidently having second thoughts.

Sir Frank Packer does not have a great deal to say about politics these days, but the Melbourne Herald people have not yet been cowed into silence by the prospects conjured up by the appointment of a Minister for the Media in this new Government — usually it is only commos and niggers who appoint Media Ministers (whose function is then usually to close down the media).

Indeed, it could be argued that the Whitlam Black Panther Movement has not been wildly successful in the deployment of the army of journalists and p.r. chappies they have employed.

I have not yet had a chance to talk with Eric Walsh who has some terrible p.r. position with the WBP’s in Canberra. But it is deeply depressing and saddening to see a great and good drinking journalist like Eric working for a Prime Minister. Eric was, after all, the man who first announced: “We have now seen the best days of John Grey Gorton,” only three weeks or so after Gorton was made PM.

Happily, however, he and his colleague Evan Williams (a very serious-minded young gentlemen who always seemed to me to be better fitted for the Plymouth Brethren than for politics) have so far done very badly in boosting the Panthers’ “image”.

So far, equally, the Panthers have failed to retaliate by actually closing down any papers or TV stations.

That is, however, their form.

I well remember the terrible row which occurred between Rupert Henderson and the Labor Government during the War when the Labor crowd tried to pinch a lot of newsprint Rupert had prudently stored away.

For the time being, therefore, the weapon of propaganda is open to those who somehow want to hogtie this rag and bobtail Government.

Successful propaganda involves money, guts and training.

Money will be easier and easier to find as company after company, pressure group after pressure group, discover that some half-trained blown-up Minister is trying to stop them making profits.

My advice to all such companies — and indeed to practically every company in the land — is: “get yourself a good propaganda adviser pronto; pay him plenty and put him to work.”

A colleague of mine reminded me last week that the Libs were always able to offer Knighthoods as a way of buying off some of the worst attacks from the Press-TV monopolists.

That is how Sir Warwick made it.

He got his from Bob Askin for ratting on Arthur Calwell in 1963.

Jack Williams was another great friend of the Liberals.

I can’t work out what Phil Jones is supposed to have done but perhaps his knighthood was more in the nature of an insurance policy.

The Labor people have deprived themselves of one of the great weapons of patronage to be used in the area of propaganda.

The biography of Lord Thomson of Fleet records the tremendous and indeed very sad lengths to which that great man went in order to become a Lord.

Maybe that is why Rupert has allowed the chaps on The Australian to have their heads in hitting the Whitlam Black Panther Movement.

Rupert has realised Gough can’t make him a knight!

Propaganda will help to restrain the Labor people for a while.

But they will certainly turn nasty and there is bound to be a big issue over Freedom of Speech.

Gorton and McEwen tried to put me into Tumburumba prison for making some quite mild remarks about their respective degrees of competence.

These ALP Panthers have a far less-developed sense of humour than either Gorton or McEwen. What is more, they have a lot of Rechabites among them and these are known to be particularly dangerous people when confronted with what they choose to regard as “unfair criticism”.

So let us put propaganda down as an effective but essentially short-term means of keeping this wild crowd in check.

Bribery is another important weapon which may be available.

It is not hard to bribe a Liberal Minister as he usually has enough money of his own to buy shares if they are offered, or to take advantage of other “tips” which might be under or on the plate.

But the trouble about so many of these Labor people is they simply don’t have what is called in Federal State relations the “matching funds”.

Bribing Labor people is more on the level of the bottle of Scotch at Christmas, Easter, New Year, Anzac Day, Queen’s Birthday, August Bank Holiday … level.

That is for the non-Rechabites of whom is a goodly number in the Party.

Bob Hawke and his merry men (literally) and women foregathered with great pleasure up at the Gold Coast for their meetings. That is one way of making life so much easier for the non-Rechabites in the Ministry.

For the Rechabites, I am almost stumped.

It is this aspect which makes Jim Cairns such a devilishly ticklish proposition.

He requires a particularly professional job done on him. It requires flattery, clever argument, patience and hours and hours of time.

Jim’s case has to be given to what I would call an intellectual Manchurian Candidate of the Right.

Bribery of one form or another can carry us along some way further, after propaganda has failed and the Panthers have turned really sour on the Press-TV monopolists.

Another avenue of action will be to operate on the Civil Service.

In the past, the Labor people have often tended to make some pretty outlandish appointments to the Civil Service.

Doc Evatt was a great one for that.

But one of the great saving features of the Australian set-up has been that we have had a pretty honest Civil Service.

I cannot say that intellectual honesty has been notable at the top of either the Department of Trade or the Department of Customs in recent years, and I have always wanted to find out how many instamatics there are in the Carmody family. But, generally, it has been possible to appeal to the honesty and general sense of fairness of the officials in the Civil Service themselves.

This is an angle on which sensible companies will work very hard.

They will not try to pressure officials.

But they will work very hard at presenting cases which show that they are operating in the best interests of Australia — despite what emotional Labor Ministers might say — and they will appeal for a “fair go”.

That gets us a bit farther along the line.

The next angle will be to work hard and fast on the DLP people in the Senate.

They need help and they have been given far too little by complacent companies in the past.

The DLP people will eventually give the Panthers a terrible time in the Senate and they must be helped as much as possible.

This does not mean merely helping the DLP Senators themselves.

It means setting up appropriate funds or liaison systems to make sure the DLP is alive and well at all times and the National Civic Council get plenty of support to get back into the unions.

The commos and the Hawkeites (there is a difference?) have had it on their own for far too long in the unions and a really big push is needed to break their power right down.

This has to be done with private business money.

Finally, however, it will be found that the only ultimate protection against the Whitlam Black Panther Movement is the Australian Constitution and along with that, the power of individual State Governments to frustrate and delay the desires of the Commonwealth.

There is going to be a boom time for constitutional lawyers.

And it will be terribly important, in this context, for full support to be thrown behind Bob Askin and the leaders of the State anti-Labor Governments in Victoria and in Queensland.

When it is all said, the Law does provide protection for individuals against the tyranny of Governments.

I found that out when Gorton and McEwen tried to put me into the pokey.

Many companies and individuals will find the same as the Whitlam Black Panthers gradually discard their phoney patina of Liberalism and come clean as the authoritarian Socialists they really are.

God knows, politicians as a race are dangerous enough at the best of times. They make their living by trying to run other people’s lives.

But this crowd we have now are actually enthusiastic about running other people’s lives.

Hence, all resources must now be mobilised to trip them up.

I hope I have provided a few hints on how that vital fall might be achieved.