Crikey

The telephone was ringing all day on Monday from media people wanting me to predict the outcome of the contest between John Howard and Maxine McKew for the Bennelong seat in federal parliament.

The answer I gave was not the conventional one.

I said I had no doubt that Maxine McKew would be the next member for Bennelong.

However, to make such an assertion does not really answer the question.

After all it is possible that (as George Megalogenis suggested in his article on Tuesday ) Howard will win the seat at the general election, lose the office of Prime Minister, resign his seat and, therefore, hand Bennelong to McKew at a by-election win.

Pressed on this point I went one further. I predicted that McKew would win Bennelong at the October-November general election, defeating John Howard.

For three reasons I believe a majority of Bennelong electors do want to rid themselves of their current local member.

First, they dislike the way they were tricked by Howard (along with six million other Australians) into voting for the industrial relations revolution now known as WorkChoices, legislation of which they were given no notice, never wanted and still oppose.

Second, they believe Howard should, by now, have announced an intention to retire.

Third, they know what they would be doing if they re-elect Howard again – for what would be his 14th term. They would be creating a quick, unnecessary and costly by-election.

It is worth noting that our last three Prime Ministers (Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating) all resigned their seats immediately upon being dumped as Prime Minister.

Consequently there were quick by-elections for all of Wannon, Wills and Blaxland, respectively.

The same thing happened when Jeff Kennett was defeated in Victoria. There were quick by-elections for Burwood (Kennett’s seat) and Benalla, the seat formerly held by his deputy. Both by-elections were won by Labor.

We have already seen several articles comparing John Howard with Stanley Melbourne Bruce, the only other Prime Minister to lose a general election and his own seat to boot. There are many more such articles to come.

In time I shall write articles comparing and contrasting John Howard with each of Bruce, Bob Menzies, Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating.

I shall get around to the other Prime Ministers eventually but, for now, I content myself to compare and contrast Bruce and Howard.

The similarities are that both were on the right, both enjoyed several victories and both went down to the same kind of humiliating defeat, Bruce while still young, Howard nearly 30 years older.

The differences lie with the details of that defeat.

Bruce enjoyed a very good victory in November 1928 when the 11th Parliament was elected. That was our shortest ever Parliament. It first met on 6 February 1929 and was dissolved on 16 September 1929, meaning it lasted just over seven months.

That was our only parliamentary term not even to reach one year.

Like Howard, Bruce had an obsession with industrial relations. Like Howard, he was all for strengthening the power of employers and bashing trade unions.

However, when he introduced the Maritime Industries Bill 1929 he found himself facing a revolt within his own side of politics.

(The purposes of the Maritime Industries Bill 1929 were to abolish the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration and to hand industrial powers back to the states except for waterfront workers and federal public servants.)

Instead of dropping the Bill (as Howard would have done in such a circumstance) he advised the Governor-General, Lord Stonehaven, to dissolve the House of Representatives.

Thus October 1929 became the first occasion upon which there occurred a general election for the House of Representatives not accompanied by a Senate election.

The campaign went so badly for Bruce that, come election day, his defeat was generally expected.

Yet no one predicted that Bruce himself would be defeated in his division of Flinders. It was the big shock of the night.

I was not around at the time but I can relate a relevant story.

On the night of the December 1961 general election there was disbelief in the tally room at what looked likely to be the defeat of Sir Earle Page in Cowper.

The famous journalist Alan Reid told me that the disbelief at the Cowper figures in 1961 was remarkably similar to the disbelief at the Flinders figures in 1929.

Historically, therefore, there are two cases of shock figures on the night, Flinders in 1929 and Cowper in 1961. Bruce was still living in 1961 and actually outlived Page who had been the Treasurer in the Bruce-Page Government.

The contrast between Bruce in Flinders and Howard in Bennelong could not be greater. Flinders was a safe seat unexpectedly lost. Bennelong is a marginal seat gradually turning from safe to marginal by demographic change and successive redistributions moving it westwards into territory more favourable to Labor.

As long ago as December 1999 I wrote in The Australian newspaper that “in the not-too-distant future, Labor will win the Sydney federal seat of Bennelong.”

I can now add a detail which did not occur to me at the time, namely that it will involve the defeat of John Howard. When I wrote those words I was assuming a graceful Howard retirement and a successor Liberal candidate being defeated.

Subsequent to my writing those words in 1999 all manner of commentators have noticed these same things.

So the essential difference is between a defeat totally unforeseen (Bruce in Flinders) and one as equally foreseen.

However, there are other differences.

First, there was the defeat of a young man, Bruce, contrasted with that of an old man, Howard. Consequently, with Bruce there was no sense he should already have retired.

Second, with Bruce there was no equivalent of Peter Costello, a deputy leader of his party with a justified sense of entitlement to the office of Prime Minister.

Third, opinion polling and psephological analysis did not exist in 1929.

The bottom line, however, is that we Australians love a winner, but we reserve our special love for those who know when it is time to leave.

The only Prime Minister in my lifetime possessing that skill was Bob Menzies who retired gracefully in January 1966 – in favour of the then Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party, Treasurer and member for Higgins, Harold Holt.

How John Howard must now secretly regret that he did not in 2006 retire in favour of the current Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party, Treasurer and member for Higgins, Peter Costello.

As everyone knows, Costello has a particular critic within the Victorian Liberal Party and his name is Jeff Kennett.

Kennett has provided the contrast with Menzies. He has shown how NOT to exit from politics.

Kennett retained his seat of Burwood at the September 1999 Victorian general election but lost the office of Premier in October after the result became known of the supplementary election for Frankston East.

Kennett then resigned his seat, creating the Burwood by-election of December 1999 which was won by Labor. Burwood has been Labor ever since.

What I am suggesting is that Bennelong electors will short-circuit the process whereby Howard looks to Kennett for his precedent.

My reasoning is that Bennelong electors will kick Howard out at the October-November general election, thus preventing a by-election early in the New Year.