The second and final episode of the ABC docu-drama Whitlam: The Power & The Passion aired on Sunday night. As readers of The Spectator Australia know, this column is a fan of this particular program. The reaction to the show was somewhat predictable. Nick Cater rails against its pro-Gough bias in the pages of the Australian. The letters page of the Sydney Morning Herald is replete with missives complaining that the show is ‘disgracefully inadequate’ in not praising Whitlam enough and being soft on the Liberal party of the day. For me, the second episode was as fair as the first. It captured the tumultuous and divisive nature of the times. Whitlam of course, deserves praise for his social reforms and modernising agenda. He should be remembered for putting the long-ignored concerns of the suburbs and regions in relation to services and infrastructure on the national agenda for the first time. Of course, he let his less than economically literate and sensible ministers like Connor and Cairns have their head far too much, with disastrous consequences, while economic hardheads like Bill Hayden prevailed far too late in the government’s life.

The argument about the accuracy or otherwise of this documentary is a good thing. Shows like this are important for the debate they generate as well as the points they make. It would be good to see the ABC doing more of this. The 18-year rule of Menzies may not have had the turbulence or the excitement of the Whitlam interregnum but I am sure that a talented documentary-maker could take his years and turn them into compelling and informative television. His wartime prime ministership, its ending at the hands of his colleagues and his eventual triumphant return and extended rule would be worthy of the ABC’s attention.

Let’s have a look at some counterfactuals: Calwell won a majority of the popular vote in 1961, but he also won a majority on the floor of the House as well. (Two of Labor’s members represented the territories, but in those days, territory members did not get to vote on confidence matters, so Menzies survived.) What would Australia look like if Menzies had been prime minister for just 11 years and Calwell had begun Labor’s time in government 11 years before Whitlam eventually did? While we are at it, let’s have a series on Australia’s most historically significant prime ministers from both sides. It would be a good to
have such a series even if only because it would enable plenty of us interested observers to have a say on their achievements and shortcomings.

Another PM who might have a documentary made about him is Malcolm Fraser. Much history has been re-written about the Fraser years already. These days, he sounds like a Greens candidate for the Senate (or maybe the Wikileaks party). Sometimes it’s tempting to assume that the things he argues for now are consistent with the approach he took as prime minister, which of course they are not. Fraser’s recent contribution condemning the placement of US troops in Darwin is particularly strange. He argues that we are far too close to the US, that the placing of US troops in Australia means that we will be a target for invasion and occupation by China when the war (apparently inevitable) comes, and that we should distance ourselves from an alleged policy to contain the Chinese. There is much that could be said about this, of course. Fraser mis-represents the nature of the deployment and his warnings of the risk of invasion that it entails are, shall we say, out there. It’s one thing to correctly argue that the rise of China should be welcomed within the context of our long-standing alliance with the US. It is quite another to argue in effect for the alliance with the US to be torn up in the name of an independent and robust foreign policy which Fraser has embraced in his post-politics career.

As with many other matters, Fraser takes a very different view now to the one he promoted in the past. It was, of course, Gough Whitlam who pioneered the opening of relations with China. Before he recognised the People’s Republic of China as Prime Minister, he visited as opposition leader. It was a bold and visionary thing to do. The Liberal party poured scorn upon him as a sell-out to communism and
a betrayer of the US. The most vitriolic attack came from one Malcolm Fraser, who was in self-imposed exile on the back bench at the time. (It is a very fine place to be.) Fraser accused Whitlam of being the Chinese candidate for the next Australian election and called him ‘a disgrace to Australia’. Of course, 40 years is a long time and views can and should evolve. But it is worth pointing out that Fraser was wrong to castigate Whitlam for his vision in 1971, just as he is wrong to be alarmist about our alliance with the US now.