The Money Men Chris Bowen (the red fox clan .txt) 📖

conference before touring Eastern Europe with Gwen. In February 1972 he flew to Versailles for a meeting of the World Assembly for Peace and Independence for Indo-Chinese People. He later flew back to Europe to protest French nuclear testing in the Pacific.

As someone who has been a shadow minister in an opposition striving for office, this schedule of international travel strikes me as quite unthinkable. It does not allow for a full contribution to winning office, even making allowances for the more relaxed media cycle of the time. Nevertheless, Labor duly won the 1972 election with a clear, though not huge, majority, returning to power after nearly twenty-three years on the opposition benches, and Cairns was sworn in as minister for overseas trade and secondary industry.

The Minister Most Likely

In early 1973, an opinion poll found that Cairns was the minister in the Whitlam government whom the public thought most likely to fail.20 But in 1974, a new opinion poll showed that swinging voters now regarded Cairns as the government’s second most impressive performer after Whitlam himself.21 This is reflective of the success Cairns enjoyed as minister for overseas trade and secondary industry, and gives us a taste of the reasons why the Caucus chose to make him deputy leader, and thus deputy prime minister, in the aftermath of the 1974 election.

Cairns’ affinity with the nations of Asia, and his forward-looking understanding of the inevitably of their economic rise, proved a useful attribute for Whitlam’s new trade minister. He led the first of many Australian trade missions to Communist China in February 1973, accompanied by a number of senior business leaders (more than two thousand businesspeople had applied for the chance to join him on that mission). The visit was an outstanding success, and it was agreed that China and Australia would accord each other ‘most favoured nation status’. Cairns could not solely claim credit for the trebling of trade between Australia and China that occurred between 1971/72 and 1973/74, but he could take satisfaction in knowing that he had contributed to a substantial part of it. Likewise, he encouraged an emphasis on Asian nations that had previously been neglected at the expense of Europe and the United States, and so was uniquely qualified to lead a trade mission to North Vietnam in late 1973.

The defining issue of Cairns’ tenure as trade minister would not prove to be Asia, however. Cairns had been less than consistent in his support for tariff liberalisation. Whitlam, meanwhile, had become a passionate believer in the policy. For this reason, Whitlam had placed the Tariff Board (the forerunner to the Productivity Commission) in his own portfolio instead of Cairns’, which caused tension between the two men. But Cairns was steadfast in his support of the agenda, which had been endorsed by an expert committee of key government advisers and departments. This was good news for Whitlam, who knew that he did not have enough authority to push such a controversial change through Cabinet without Cairns’ support as trade minister. Treasury, however, opposed tariff reduction because they feared it would prejudice further necessary appreciations in the dollar and require reductions in government expenditure. The government’s rejection of the Treasury position on the question of tariff reductions would mark the beginning of a substantial and serious deterioration in the relationship between the two, which would reach its height when Cairns became treasurer.

The Whitlam government’s decision to reduce tariffs by 25 per cent would be one of its most controversial, earning the ire of both the union movement and the manufacturing sector, while simultaneously earning the plaudits of the conservative press. Cairns’ support for tariff reduction surprised many commentators, given his patchy history of support for a more liberal protection regime. Cairns came to regret his support for Whitlam on the issue, but it is to his great credit that the first important step in reducing the ridiculously high tariffs in place at the time occurred on his watch.

Whitlam and Cairns’ collaboration on tariff reduction was not enough to stop Whitlam stripping Cairns of the secondary industry part of his portfolio in an October 1973 reshuffle, leaving him with only the overseas trade element. This occurred after a significant disagreement between the men on the powers of the new Industries Assistance Commission, which replaced the Tariff Board. Whitlam wanted the commission to have more sweeping powers to recommend reductions in assistance than Cairns was comfortable with.

Despite this setback, Cairns was comfortable to play a much more prominent role in the 1974 election campaign than he had in 1972. He was also confident enough to challenge Lance Barnard for the deputy prime ministership after the election had been won.

An Unusual Appointment

During the 1974 election campaign, a story appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald alleging that Cairns was planning to challenge for the deputy leadership of the Labor Party after the election. Keen not to provide a distraction during the campaign, Cairns emphatically denied the story. Indeed, there was speculation after the election that Whitlam, or sources close to the prime minister, had planted the story in order to generate exactly such a denial, which in turn would make it much harder for Cairns to bring on such a challenge. Cairns felt under no obligation, however, to stick to his initial denial and duly launched a challenge against Barnard after the poll.

Cairns’ motivation for seeking the deputy leadership of the party was more deep-seated than a simple desire to claim the position he had so narrowly missed out on in 1967. He knew he needed the authority of the position in order to exert more influence over economic policy. Just after the 1974 election, for instance, Whitlam and his senior ministers had been briefed by Treasury about a looming further blowout in inflation. Treasury was recommending a short, sharp reigning-in of the budget deficit as part of an anti-inflationary program. But Cairns was having none of it. He clearly had the Treasury briefing in mind when he gave a