The Gorton Manner: Australia, Southeast Asia, and the U.S.

Abstract

S HORTLY AFTER the announcement by Prime Minister John Grey Gorton 0 on February io, i969, that Sir Paul M. C. Hasluck was resigning as Australia's minister for external affairs in order to become his country's governor-general, and that his place would be taken by the Air Minister, Gordon Freeth, a leading Australian daily commented: It is difficult to escape the feeling that the calibre of the Government as it now stands is the weakest it has been for many years.' The editorial's reaction was a common one in Australia, but it was perhaps less the news of Sir Paul Hasluck's departure-which had already been rumored for days-and more his replacement by the relatively unknown Mr. Freeth that occasioned the greater public concern. Mr. Freeth's ministerial record is as publicly unimpressive as his performance as a party infighter, one typical press comment put it.2 Cronyism was the terse comment of the Leader of the Opposition, Gough Whitlam, on Freeth's appointment. Whitlam's reaction reflects a common belief that the close friendship between Gorton and Freeth (the latter is considered one of the ruling Liberal party's chief hatchetmen and is known to be a member of the so-called cocktail cabinet, the small circle of confidents who regularly meet for drinks with Gorton in the whip's room of parliament) had been normative in the latter's elevation to the External Affairs post. Such views, however, tend to ignore the context both of Hasluck's departure and Freeth's appointment, and they do less than justice to the quiet, but nonetheless profound, reassessment and reorientation of Australian relations with the United States and Asian nations that has taken place since Gorton succeeded the late Harold Holt as prime minister in January i968. A vigorous reconsideration of established Australian foreign policy assumptions is a major facet of Gorton's much discussed new nationalism, and