Presenting … six Bert Kelly columns aimed at post-poll politicians, especially the newly-elected (maidens) and the newly-unelected — who feel an opinion coming on, no doubt of wise words and mature reflection.
1. Why pillory big-eared politicians? (December 15, 1972)
2. To pelt or pat the new Government? (January 5, 1973)
3. It’s hard to digest this economic cake (March 30, 1973)
4. Mavis more bulging than revealing … (February 27, 1976)
5. High and low tide in Canberra (April 5, 1983)
6. Better to lose a poll than morality (April 12, 1983)

1.
Bert Kelly, “Why pillory big-eared politicians?,”
The Australian Financial Review, December 15, 1972, p. 3.

When people ask me why the Liberal Party lost the election, I usually blame everything on Mr McMahon.

This is a comfortable thing to do. He is not likely to be again in a position to make me a minister, so Mavis tells me to go my hardest.

Besides, he is now flat on his back and that is a convenient posture if you want to hit a man hard.

There is no doubt that the personality of the party leader is now thought to be much more important than ever.

This is due to the impact of TV which has made us much more interested in personalities. After all, you can see a leader’s personality on the screen but you can’t see his policy.

The impact of TV is really terrifying. Not only does it affect the public’s assessment of their leaders, but there will be another more serious, though long-term, price to pay.

Eccles says that the next generation of politicians will be even worse than we have now — that we won’t be able to induce good candidates to come forward because they know they are likely to be pilloried if their ears are too large or their feet too flat or something equally silly and unimportant.

And now we are going to have colour TV. Not only will the shape of a man’s nose be important, but from now on its colour also will be a decisive factor in the quality of his image.

Cripes, you can imagine the pre-selection conventions of the future!

We used to listen to what candidates had to say when they came before us. Now we will spend all our time peering at them. And God help the successful candidate if he goes bald on us!

I don’t deny that Mr McMahon’s performance on TV was a handicap though I must admit that it was a lot better than I could do, even if Mavis doesn’t think so.

But I have an uneasy feeling that it was also our policies that were to blame.

Our trouble is that we don’t quite know what we believe in any more. We used to think of ourselves as a free enterprise party and we do now too, but only if this is popular.

We will help any large section that calls loudly on us for aid because we think that this will make us popular.

We used to sneer at the philosophy of the Welfare State, and tell of the bears at Yellowstone Park who were fed by tourists in spring, summer and autumn, and who starved to death in the winter, waiting for the tourists who stopped coming when the snow was thick on the ground.

But now we go charging off after each Welfare State hare that gets up, particularly if it is large and popular.

But our trouble is that we are not as good at this as the Labor Party. They really believe in the Welfare State, so they chase the hare with more enthusiasm.

And they really believe that financing it by taxing those that have and so making everyone more equal is a desirable social objective.

We don’t, but we tend to do it all the same.

There was a time when defence or communism were issues which divided us. But people aren’t frightened about these things now, even if they should be.

So unless we change our policies, future elections will turn into a competition to see which party is the most efficient at distributing other people’s money to the most people.

Or we will have a change every three or six years, just for the sake of having a change of people to pillory.

But in the process, much money will stick to the Government’s fingers, and certainly the incentive to produce a bigger economic cake will disappear.

And we will end up like Britain which makes a good living shining the boots of the tourists, but with the fire of their spirit dampened under the wet blanket of well-meaning, mediocre Governments, be they Labour or Conservative.

Eccles says that rather than blaming everything on Mr McMahon, it might be more accurate to blame myself for not having better policies; for looking for popularity rather than principle.

That’s the kind of nasty bitter remark I’ve come to expect from Eccles!

*****
2.
Bert Kelly, “To pelt or pat the new Government?,”
The Australian Financial Review, January 5, 1973, p. 3.

Mavis is certain that I have a great opportunity to make my political reputation by beating the new Government over the head all the time. She advised:

Hit them hard and often, dear, even if some of the things they are doing are good.

Before long you’ll find you have a fine reputation as a bonny fighter and the newspapers will love you because you are stirring up strife and muddying the water.

They like that — it’s good for the circulation. Besides, it saves them the trouble of thinking up criticisms themselves.

“So get stuck into the sods, dear,” she cooed, using language she has learnt since reading books about women’s liberation.

Fred, however, takes a different view. He is surprisingly uninterested in party politics.

I don’t think he even cares which party is governing the country — he is only interested in whether it is good at it.

His advice to me is to wait and see how the new Government performs.

If it makes bad decisions, I am to hit on the head as hard as I can. But if it makes good decisions, he wants me to pat its head instead.

MPs are, by definition, very interested in party politics and we often make the mistake of thinking that other people are also. But Fred’s view is much more typical of the community.

And Fred also says that if I go round continually making loud opposition noises just to get my name in the papers, then he and other people will soon get sick of me and what’s even worse, will ignore me.

Eccles agrees with Fred, but uses longer words to do it.

He is very please with some of the things that the Government has done, particularly the decision to put the Tariff Board under the authority of the Prime Minister, instead of its previous location in the Trade Department.

Eccles thinks that this is a big improvement as it may prevent some of the log-rolling that has occurred too often in the past.

And Eccles was delighted with the new Government’s decision to refer the question of colour TV sets to the Tariff Board. He was fearful that we were going to have another exercise in instant economic wisdom by the Department of Trade.

He always reminds me about the mess we have made of the car industry and he was fearful that we were about to do the same thing with colour TV, namely, encourage the establishment of another uneconomic industry for too small a market and then we would have to prop it up forever.

So Eccles went quite pale when he heard that Mavis wanted me to belt into the new Government for everything it did, good or bad.

I have an uneasy suspicion that Eccles, like Fred, is more interested in the well-being of the country than in my political progress!

The Government has suggested that it is going to change the name of the Tariff Board to the Protection Commission and that the new body is to inquire into the problems of rural industry as well as of secondary industry.

As you know, Eccles has always advocated a Rural Industries Board to give expert advice to the Government on rural problems.

He says that he would still prefer the Tariff Board to continue to advise on secondary industry and the RIB to concentrate on rural industry problems.

But he admits that he would rather have the suggested new Government machine, whatever it is called, than nothing.

And he thinks that there may well be some quick changes of attitude by some of the rural industry groups.

The more thoughtful and responsible of these have always accepted the RIB as basically sound.

Others, however, have posed the idea — afraid, I presume, that they may lose their preferred position with the Minister for Primary Industry.

Well, I guess they have lost this now and perhaps they now wish they had a Rural Industries Board on which to rely.

Although Eccles is pleased with the new Government about some things, he’s getting in an awful sweat about inflation.

Still, the old boy’s always perspiring about something and as far as I am concerned, he can go on sweating for a week or two now while I have a holiday.

*****
3.
Bert Kelly, “It’s hard to digest this economic cake,”
The Australian Financial Review, March 30, 1973, p. 3.

It has been interesting watching the new Parliament settling down. There are many bright new faces on both sides of the House and the standard of maiden speeches has been higher than I have known.

Mavis has been most impressed by the youth and the idealism of many of the new members. And I know she has been looking at me sideways, wishing that I was more like them, was younger and fresher and oozing idealism. She advised:

You must really try to give off an aura of sympathy, dear. You always look tired and disillusioned. Try to look as if you loved everyone, and for goodness sake try to smile more heartily and more often.

I’ve tried this but people keep asking me if I’m feeling crook, or suffering from wind, or something.

But I suppose it won’t be long before we start abusing one another in our usual infantile way. Soon members will be accusing me of being indifferent to the suffering of the poor pensioners or the unemployed people and so on. They will shout:

How would you like to exist on a pension of $21.50? Haven’t you any sympathy for the unfortunate people in this great country of ours?

But it isn’t really as simple as that. I would say most MPs have an equal interest in helping the unfortunate. Where we often disagree is how best to do this.

Our side of politics believes (or used to) that the important thing is to produce as big an economic cake as possible and then cut it up in such a way as to give the unfortunates in the community as big a slice as possible.

The Labor Party believes there is a fundamental virtue in having everybody as equal as possible. But equality can usually be bought only at the price of having a smaller economic cake with the result that the share going to the unfortunate is smaller, though more equal.

The only way the economic cake can be made bigger is by people working well in productive employment. The Government’s action in encouraging the 35-hour week will reduce productivity by 12.5 per cent, an extra week’s annual leave by 2 per cent. These actions will inevitably reduce productivity and so reduce the size of the economic cake.

Increasing income tax will do the same thing just as inevitably. I have heard some people argue that increase income tax makes people work harder in order to make up for the income that the Government has taken in tax. People who argue that way either live in an academic ivory tower or have a pathetic belief that people are different to what they really are.

The trouble is there are too many people in the world like Fred and me. When I find that the Government is taking a large part of what I earn by extra effort I quickly look around for some way of beating the tax man. And if I can’t do that I cease the extra effort.

And Fred, too, has the same mean attitude to life. If present prices continue Fred will be paying a lot of income tax. I know him well enough to know that he will already be thinking deeply about when he will do about it. Perhaps he won’t try to beat the tax man because he knows he isn’t particularly bright. But there is one thing he will certainly do and that is to play more bowls and do less work.

He will say to himself:

I know by working hard and taking more risks I could put in another paddock of wheat. But if I do the Government will take half the crop and they don’t help me with the work and they won’t help if drought comes and I make a loss. So I will take things a bit easier and play bowls on Wednesdays.

There is room for much argument about the best way to help poor people, and the choice is usually between “equality” and “productivity.”

Let’s assume, for once, that all MPs have hearts that throb equally. If we spent less time abusing one another and more time concentrating on getting as big a slice of the economic cake as possible into the hands of the unfortunate, then this would be a notable and fruitful Parliament.

*****
4.
Bert Kelly, “Mavis more bulging than revealing …,”
The Australian Financial Review, February 27, 1976, p. 3.

I know I should have stopped Mavis coming to the opening session of Parliament.

She doesn’t often come to Canberra these days, mainly because she gets tired of people urging her to treat me with more consideration. But she came this year and I hope she never comes again.

The first problem was clothes. There was a time when Mavis knew what was expected of her and her only anxiety was whether we could afford the outlay.

We used to pore over our financial position, plot and plan her wardrobe and then make the great decision that we could afford three dresses and two hats. We weren’t sure we could win the competition or even get placed but at least we knew the rules of the game.

But it’s not like that now. Now we don’t even know whether hats will be worn at all.

People seem to wear whatever they like and this is not really fair when Mavis has been abiding by the rules for so long.

She spent hours choosing a monstrous edifice to wear to one function only to find that everyone else was hatless.

And Mavis is also uncertain whether she should have a great slit in her skirt. She knows how splendid Mrs McMahon looks when so attired and she is tempted to do the same.

But the truth is that Mavis is hardly the shape for such apparel. She would be more bulging than revealing.

So the problem of what to wear made Mavis miserable. But she has been made far more miserable by the performance of the bright young Members of Parliament who have been making their maiden speeches during the opening weeks.

Years ago, when I made my maiden speech there were not many of us to be heard in the respectful silence that tradition demands, but this year there were dozens of them.

And not only were they numerous but they were also eloquent in an almost unnecessary way.

In my maiden speech I plodded earnestly and drearily along the usual maiden speech path.

I first congratulated the Speaker on his election, but he was asleep at the time.

Then I described my constituency to the ineffable boredom of the other members who couldn’t even talk to one another to pass the time.

When I at last sat down, everyone came and congratulated me and I thought I was the new Messiah, but the next time that I got up to speak everyone walked out.

But on this occasion things were different. There was an almost endless procession of new Members making their maiden speeches, all watched with avid interest by their loving wives, attired in resplendent gear which somehow appeared just right for the occasion and who made Mavis look rather like a moulting fowl.

But the position was made worse because the new members spoke so well.

After listening to about the 23rd maiden speaker, Mavis took me aside and told me that I should pick my feet up higher when I was speaking. She advised:

You really must try to copy their style, dear. I can see now why you haven’t become a minister. You are too jolly dull.

I told her that it wasn’t easy for me to pick my feet up high while speaking while at the same time holding my stomach in as Mavis is always ordering.

I can’t seem to concentrate on two things at the one time. But the new members were magnificent and they made me look like a draught horse.

I can see that Eccles is justified in leaving me for dead in favour of these bright young blades.

And there was one other thing besides eloquence that the new members had in common.

After earnestly supporting the Government’s policy of cutting down government expenditure in general, and explaining to the House that this unpopular medicine was necessary for the well-being of the body politic, each then turned with unerring aim to their own constituency and proclaimed in ringing tones that it was absolutely essential that the Government spend unlimited amounts of money on tourism, ports, roads, opera houses, sporting facilities and so on in their particular area.

Reduction in government spending is evidently excellent in theory as long as it does not apply to one’s electorate. Eccles says it’s like the Jackson Committee which is in favour of tariff reductions as long as they do not actually happen.

The back benchers of our party held a meeting to discuss the question of reducing government spending.

After about five hours we came to the unanimous conclusion that there should be a cut in ministerial allowances.

That was the only item on which we could agree. Then we all went home.

*****
5.
Bert Kelly, “High and low tide in Canberra,”
The Bulletin, April 5, 1983, p. 139.

Mavis says that I should offer my political experience to the large number of new MPs who have suddenly appeared in Canberra, carried there by the big change in the political tide.

I can still recall the pleasant excitement I felt 24 years ago when I was first elected so I can imagine, to some extent at least, how the new members must feel.

I admit I had an easier entry to politics than they did; I almost blundered into parliament by succeeding the previous member, Sir Philip McBride, who retired. When I asked him if he thought I could win the seat, he started me on the path to my modesty by saying: “Bert, even you couldn’t lose it!”

Most of you members just starting your political careers will have won your spurs in tougher election battles than I had but I think I can still understand how excited you must feel.

Your lives will indeed be jammed full of excitement, meeting all the good and great and even calling them by their Christian names and that kind of thing. You will also be busy trying to understand how parliament works but I cannot help you there, as it was all a mystery to me after 19 years.

And then there is the relief of having a secretary and a research officer. And the Commonwealth drivers will wear uniforms and call you “Sir” when they pick you up. And your wife will glow demurely when she goes to Canberra with you for the opening of parliament. Everything will be so pleasant and exciting, at least for a while.

Then, things will start to go sour.

Your maiden speech will rightly be a great occasion for you (if not for the others) and it will be heard in respectful silence, as tradition demands. Mine was, too, and people congratulated me warmly when I sat down and I couldn’t help thinking that perhaps I was, after all, the New Messiah. But I noticed that a lot of people walked out when next I rose to speak.

The first signs of disillusionment come when you find that even your friends do not know — or even seem to care — that you have been toiling night and day governing the country. Indeed, I used to find that the sods did not even know whether parliament was sitting.

I shall never forget my disappointment when a friend stopped me in the street one day after I had been labouring in the capital vineyard for nearly three years. “Can you remember who succeeded Sir Philip McBride as our member, Bert?” he asked.

“I can’t remember his name,” I replied, “but, if I do, I’ll let you know.” I wonder if he knows yet.

The iron really enters your soul when you return from Canberra one Friday, having made a powerful speech which attracted quite a little attention, so you hope your wife will be pleased. But, when you ring her from your office, she is crying because one of the kids has measles and the hot water system is on the blink and the neighbours are starting to avoid her since the salary increase.

Then, she says that she will not be able to go with you to the big ball you have to attend that night. So you have that sinking feeling that, if she is not at your side looking sweet, rumours will start that all is not sweetness and light at home. This is electoral dynamite.

Next comes the creeping realisation that everything is not going well in Canberra, either.

You probably will have realised by now that all the talk about governments creating jobs is nonsense, that any money the government uses for job creation has to be borrowed (thus raising interest rates) or printed (increasing inflation) or taken from taxpayers (so reducing their ability to employ people).

Finally, as you feel the next election grimly approaching, you almost certainly will have discovered that many of the idealistic things you hoped to do have not been possible just because they cost too much. You will know by then that money does not grow on trees but comes from taxpayers and that too many of these are too much like me: When I find that the government is pinching too much of my money, I just slow down so the economic cake tends to get smaller.

It is true that the government can cut the cake up into more equal slices but, because the cake is smaller, the slices are smaller than before and this makes the cake eaters sad. It is on this rock that socialism usually breaks after about three years in Australia.

So, unless the new government makes a good job of governing the country, many of the new members who came in in such large numbers on March 5 will have to get ready to go out on another tide in three years.

But perhaps things will be different this time; perhaps this time Labor will govern us well. I hope so, anyway — for your sake and mine.

*****
6.
Bert Kelly, “Better to lose a poll than morality,”
The Bulletin, April 12, 1983, p. 111.

Last week [above] Mavis made me lecture the newly elected government members of parliament about how to behave, which they will no doubt ignore. Now I must do the same to the coalition members who suddenly find themselves in Opposition and who don’t know how to behave.

I went through this trauma in 1972-5 and it was hard to get used to. But it should not be so hard this time as many of the present Opposition went through the mangle then.

We did not acquit ourselves well then. There was something childish about the way we thought an Opposition should behave. We used to oppose any government proposition whether or not it was sensible.

One sordid example of this behaviour was our refusal to lengthen the quorum time while the cabinet room was being refurbished. This necessitated another room being used pro tem so the Labor cabinet had almost to run to answer the quorum bells.

Far worse was our knee-jerk reaction when the Labor Government reduced tariffs in 1973. Instead of analysing the reasons for this, we just grabbed the opportunity to beat the government over the head.

Even the Country Party, as it was then, joined in with gusto in spite of its policy of tariff reduction. We really thought that this was the way an Opposition should behave.

At that stage, both coalition parties were interested only in getting back into government at any price. We justified this by pointing out how badly Labor were running the country so we were prepared to do almost anything to get rid of them.

This thinking was continued when we returned to office. If I complained to my colleagues that some of the things we were doing were clearly unwise or contrary to our party’s policies, they would snarl at me and say: “Do you want Labor back in power again, Bert? Surely you know that politics is the art of the possible.”

Ginger, when joining the army in 1914, asked if he wanted to join the infantry or the cavalry. He considered this important question for some time and then said that he preferred the infantry. When asked why, he replied, “One day the retreat will be sounded and then I don’t want to be hindered by no plurry horse!”

Since 1973, the coalition has been imbued with only one thought and that was to get, and keep, Labor out of office and, in doing this, they were not going to be hindered by any plurry political principles.

So the Fraser Government lectured the world about the wickedness of its trade barriers while building ours even higher. It lectured the electorate about the virtues of self reliance and self help while promising a car racing track to the people of Canberra. It promised us smaller government but the government grew bigger; it was going to be ruthless in controlling the money supply and look where we finished!

There is a worse fate for a political party than losing an election and that is for it to lose its morality. It is bad when the electorate begins to regard a party and its policies with cynical contempt. It is far worse when its members, particularly its parliamentary members, do so too.

Now the wise ones are telling us that to regain government we must regain the middle ground and try to be loved by all, posing as believers in free enterprise while at the same time giving in to powerful pressure groups who want more government intervention. Andrew Peacock says that he will return to Liberal principles and will resist the temptation to chase after every popular political hare that gets out of the squat. I hope he can but it will not be easy.

In 1978, in One More Nail, I wrote:

I must record my disappointment with the performance of Andrew Peacock, our Foreign Minister. Judging by his public statements, it is clear that he is aware of the damage done to our relationship with Asian countries by our protection policies. But nothing seems to happen. I used to figuratively keep my ear pretty close to the cabinet keyhole when I knew they were discussing the effect of our protection policies on our Asian neighbours, but I could never catch any sounds of battle. Andrew Peacock has all the attributes I envy most, grace, charm, intelligence and eloquence.

But he gives the impression that he is waiting in the wings for the call to be Prime Minister one day, and doesn’t want to get mixed up in the rough and tumble of the sordid political world. I would like to see him come out of the cabinet room more often with blood on his boots and a frown instead of that contagious smile on his dial.

I would love to eat those words.