Hunkered down in Canberra after 11 November with the ‘caretaker’ conditions imposed by the Governor-General on Malcolm Fraser, there was a sense of unreality and nagging doubt about the future. The political and social fabric of trust had been torn. Would it keep tearing?

John Menadue

Some of my senior Canberra colleagues, conservative and privately Liberal Party supporters, were appalled by the turn of events. I received sympathetic support from them in the difficult situation I faced which was unique because of my long association with the sacked Prime Minister. I was his personal appointment to the most senior position in the Public Service. Would I want to stay if Fraser was elected? Should I stay? Would I be asked to go? I knew the questions were being canvassed. I thought the gossip was beside the point. Not for one moment did I consider resigning.

In the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, we turned to briefings for the new Government after the election. One normally has several months to prepare. In this case we didn’t have much time. It was made more difficult because the Liberal Party had not given a great deal of thought to policy development. A Liberal Party government would be a natural return to the pre-1972 order. We hoped that Fraser’s election policy speech would give us guidance on what we should prepare for, but it was stronger on politics than policy. We had long discussions with the Public Service Board about major departmental changes that Fraser had flagged.

In the unlikely event of Whitlam being returned as Prime Minister we also prepared a briefing. We expected that Kerr would resign rather than be sacked. I also knew that Whitlam had privately speculated that he might make a symbolic point of switching the residence of the prime minister from the Lodge to Yarralumla and oblige the new governor-general to move into the Lodge. He would have enjoyed that.

I knew that we might also need to be ready for possible impeachment action against the chief justice. Mick Young privately raised it with me, although I never heard Whitlam mention impeachment. Under Section 72 of the Constitution a justice of the High Court could only be removed by the governor-general in Council ‘on an address from both Houses of the Parliament in the same session praying for such removal on the grounds of proved misbehaviour or incapacity’.

My first meeting with Fraser after his landslide victory on 13 December 1975 was in his office in Parliament House on the afternoon of Monday 15 December. It was very matter of fact; just the two of us. There was little small talk. There were awkward silences. I congratulated him on his election victory. He modestly acknowledged the success and said he appreciated my assistance in the difficult period from 11 November. He then asked me to continue as Head of the Department. That didn’t surprise me, but if he had said please go, I wouldn’t have fallen off my chair either. He said that I had behaved professionally. More importantly, although he didn’t say it, he was looking for continuity, which I supplied.

In his book, _The Unmaking of Gough_, Paul Kelly wrote: “Three days before polling day Whitlam received a phone call from John Menadue, who was now head of the Prime Minister’s Department under Malcolm Fraser. Menadue was anxious to stay on in the job if Labor was defeated but thought he should clear this with Whitlam who had originally appointed him. Whitlam told Menadue he could see no problem with this and said later he regarded it as a vindication of Menadue’s appointment in the first place.”

Much as I would have appreciated Gough Whitlam’s encouragement, such a discussion never took place. I didn’t even think of clearing it with him.

Peter Wilenski and Jim Spigelman, the other two departmental heads who had been tagged with me as being recipients of ‘jobs for the boys’, were shifted. Quickly the Fraser Government proceeded to make its own political appointments, but mostly from within the public service. The two ‘Mr Williams’ in the Treasury leaking to Fraser and Phil Lynch were never disciplined. In the early weeks of the new government, Fraser seriously considered splitting Treasury to break its monopoly over economic advice. He didn’t tell me why he didn’t act, but my view was that he had been too much the beneficiary of Treasury disloyalty to the former government, to take them on so soon.

Later Fraser commented in The Age of 6 February 1978 on how he found the Prime Minister’s Department: “The quality of the Department is noticeably good. It has been from the beginning [of my Prime Ministership]. With John Menadue I certainly had no complaints at all with the way the Department was servicing the requirements of Government.”

Under Fraser I continued to build up further the activist role of the department that I had started with Whitlam. It was necessary to be able to respond to Fraser’s wide-ranging interests and energy.

I had not known Fraser much at all before we worked together for 12 months. Our worlds did not intersect. I had met him first 20 years before, when as the new and young Member for Wannon he came to speak at Lincoln College in Adelaide. The relationship between Fraser and me worked reasonably well considering our different backgrounds but I didn’t think for a moment that it would last. On the personal side he was quite easy to work with. He was considerate to me and my family. He went out of his way to include my wife Cynthia wherever possible in dinners at Parliament House or the Lodge or travel. He was more predictable than Whitlam but didn’t generate the same level of excitement. I was kept well informed and had quick access when necessary.

Despite the bitterness of the dismissal, I found little vindictiveness in Fraser towards the public service—quite unlike the Howard Government years later. People were more likely to be judged on their ability and honesty rather than what side of the political tracks they came from. To properly inform him about the people he would be dealing with, I insisted that he be told of their party activities if it was possibly relevant. His answer, with his chin sticking out, was invariably, ‘So?’ He wasn’t interested. He won the respect of a wide range of senior officers in PM&C and I would include myself in that category.

But inevitably in a position like that I got involved in discussions on the fringe of government with Liberal Party officials and businesspeople. I increasingly felt that my home wasn’t with those people and that, inevitably, I would want to go or be asked to go. As Secretary of Cabinet, I was in regular contact with ministers. Although polite, some were suspicious of me, particularly the new-money Liberals out to prove themselves. Ministers from longer established wealthy families, particularly families on the land, like Tony Street and Doug Anthony, were more relaxed towards me. Fraser covered for me as best he could.

I was able to assess and interpret more maturely what it meant to be an outsider. As a son of the Methodist manse, I had often felt an outsider in socially conservative country towns when I’d tried to establish relationships with other boys and later girls, in school and after school. I found acceptance at school through sport. As a university scholarship holder, I also felt different. I had to study harder. At the age of 41, under Fraser, I was an outsider again. But by that time, I found I didn’t really care.

I vividly remember a lengthy discussion at the Lodge, in the early days of the new government, with Malcolm Fraser, David Kemp, Dale Budd and other members of the private office. The evening was informal and quite friendly, but I had a strong sense that I didn’t belong. But I didn’t feel perturbed as perhaps I expected. Belonging was no longer so important. It was transforming to realise that if push came to shove, I could survive as an outsider; not comfortably, but I could manage.

That realisation was assisted by Malcolm Fraser’s personal consideration for the predicament in which I was placed, amongst people most of whom bore me no ill will but whose backgrounds and attitudes were different to mine. It was a turning point for me. Until then I was much more anxious to work the system, to be an insider. From this time on it was less appealing.

This is an updated extract from Things You Learn Along the Way, 1999 - John Menadue >Tomorrow: Working with PM Fraser - The business view - Part 2

https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/working-with-pm-fraser-the-changeover-part-1/

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