Cold Light (39 page)

Edith kept trying to see her brother and Janice in this light, to imagine them in secret rooms making dangerous plans to overthrow the government by force.

She could see how Menzies and his followers would see them that way, and maybe they were zealots. She remembered Frederick regretting that he did not have the temperament of a true revolutionary. And yes, they wanted a radically different system of economics and government to the one Australia already had. At what point did that become a crime? She answered herself:
When those who wanted radical change committed crimes
.

The recent Victorian Royal Commission into the Communist Party had found no criminal activity.

The Prime Minister outlined how, under the new legislation, the communists and their associated organisations and members could be ‘declared’, and have their property seized and face gaol or other penalties. ‘The bill provides that officers and members of unlawful associations are under penalty of imprisonment to cease their activities as such . . . Anybody so declared, other than the Communist Party – that party is being disposed of with no right of appeal and no humbug – may appeal to the High Court. The onus is placed upon that body to satisfy the court it is not a body to which this legislation applied. It will be suggested by some people of liberal mind – and I appreciate this attitude – that to reverse the onus of proof is wrong . . .’

He went on to say that he felt that this reversal was necessary in such times, and argued that members of the Communist Party would bogusly ‘resign’ from the Communist Party to avoid arrest, hence the need for retrospective legislation.

At least, she noted, he was aware that the legislation breached two foundations of British justice: that there should be no retrospectivity and that the onus of proof should not fall on the accused. Rather huge principles to disregard. Required great haughtiness to shrug off such venerable and hard-won legal wisdom, Edith thought. Even bumptiousness. Yes, bumptiousness.

She did not want him to be bumptious.

Thankfully, the protestors were gone when the reading of the bill finished and the diplomatic corps and public gallery all filed out of the chamber. She did not have to face the disapproving glares of Janice and Frederick – or, worse, their sarky, sardonic waves.

The High Commission car was waiting. She said to Ambrose that she had not quite analysed all of Menzies’ arguments. ‘For a few minutes afterwards, one is always the prisoner of a strong speech, even if it was embarrassingly amateurish in its oratory, as you say. But it seems that for the legislation to be justified you have first to convince people that the Party is actually doing sabotage and injury to real people, has real guns and explosives and the like, and that a war-like state of affairs really exists. You have to accept the idea that there is such a thing as “cold war”, which requires the same restrictions on citizens as a real war.’

Ambrose tiredly agreed. He seemed uninterested in talking about it. ‘I am led to believe that Menzies, when last in London, agreed with Atlee that the communists should not “be martyred by special legislation”. He seems to have lost that sound position, seems to have drifted to the American hysteria.’

‘I thought it rather dramatic fun,’ she said.

‘Amateur dramatics.’ He said that if she liked, they could go again next week to a debate about the possibility of calling a double dissolution, where an election is called for both the Senate and House of Representatives so that the party in power can ask the voters for control of both houses. The Labor Party at present controlled the Senate. ‘The PM is threatening this to get the Labor Party to support the legislation in the Senate. The Labor Party certainly doesn’t want an election on this issue. It doesn’t want to be seen as a friend of the Communist Party.’

She could see that it would be poison for the Labor people. She replied, ‘Let’s go to it. It’s the best show in town.’

The car dropped them at the new house. She was still not at home in the house. She still had trouble finding the light switches. She was still not even at home with having a home.

Inside, they settled down for a nightcap. Ambrose said he had heard there had been a squabble in parliament about the allocation of tickets. ‘I was told that Canberrans – if that’s the word – were refused tickets, so that visitors from afar would have the chance to see their democracy in action.’

‘Or was it just to keep Frederick and his people out of parliament?’

‘Most likely. I agree with you that we should have permanent seats booked, as the HC does at the cinema.’

T
hey returned to Parliament to hear the continuation of the hearing of the bill. The gallery crowd was smaller and there were no protesting citizens outside. They were the only people in the diplomatic gallery.

The atmosphere was not as charged as it had been when the bill had been introduced.

There was an arcane outlining of the effect of proportional representation changes, which had occurred two years earlier in the Senate. The Prime Minister pondered the possibility of a stalemate in the Senate and the need for uneven numbers in the representation of the states to avoid this.

The parliament then came alive when a member of the Labor Party, Edward Ward, from the working-class suburb of East Sydney, interjected that the Prime Minister could get rid of the Senate deadlock by ‘declaring’ a couple of the Labor senators. His voice was gravelly, earthy, contemptuous – far from the debaters’ timbre of Menzies’ voice, although Menzies still had a hint of a broader Australian tone, even if he had striven to eliminate it. Perhaps Menzies’ accent was the Australian accent of the future. It was not unpleasant. She hadn’t heard her own voice but thought it was closer to that of Menzies. Some people said it had been shaped by her years of having to speak French.

The Prime Minister replied, ‘I am obliged to the Honourable member for the suggestion. I can think of at least one Labor Senator who it would be easy to declare.’

The Liberal members laughed.

Mr Ward shouted out, ‘The Führer has spoken.’ There was no levity in his voice.

There was laughter in the chamber and the public gallery.

The Prime Minister continued in the same vein. ‘I can think of one member of this House who might escape only by the skin of his teeth.’ He pointedly did not look at Ward, but looked down theatrically at his papers, achieving the same effect.

The Leader of the Opposition, Ben Chifley, then interjected in a serious tone, ‘The Right Honourable Member is on dangerous ground.’

The Prime Minister said, ‘I agree – on dangerous ground. If this is dangerous ground, I suggest to the Right Honourable gentleman that he might restrain his interjectors . . .’

Ward shouted, ‘Heil, Menzies.’

Chifley rose and interjected, ignoring Ward. ‘I suggest that the Prime Minister should not make threats.’

The Prime Minister said, ‘I never make a threat that I do not carry out.’ This retort came too quickly, defensively.

More laughter from the Liberals, though this time a little more subdued, perhaps uneasy, as they saw the tone of the exchange was no longer parliamentary banter.

Edith sensed that this wordplay by the Prime Minister was more revealing in implication than the Liberals realised. The Prime Minister was demonstrating the very dangers to freedom that thinking people were worried about – that under the new legislation he could, by whim, ‘declare’ someone who would then have their property seized and face gaol or other penalties. The Prime Minister seemed to be becoming slowly aware of the line he had crossed in his remarks.

Ward came in again without levity, ‘The Right Honourable gentleman is drunk.’ And then added, ‘With power.’

Ambrose whispered to Edith, ‘More than with power, it seems to me. I think the PM has had one or two of his legendary martini drinks.’

The Prime Minister now realised he had gone too far and pulled himself together. He veered away from the line of the exchange, taking refuge in the arcane, theoretical questions of a double dissolution.

After a while they left, the subject becoming too mathematical for Ambrose. ‘Too many sums to do,’ he said when they were outside.

‘The exchange about the Führer was worth the money,’ she said. ‘I hear that Ward has something of a reputation for impertinence.’

‘And Menzies is renowned for lordliness. His love of high office showed through, but you could see he felt he was suddenly in deep water.’

‘There was a reckless disregard. I thought he would have been more sensitive to the lines he was crossing.’

‘They are fat on their trafficking of fear,’ Ambrose said, somewhat worried. ‘Not a pretty picture. In their first year, all governments think they are in power forever. And they are a newly formed party.’

Next day, after they had finished work, Ambrose told her that a reporter had said to him that he had never seen Menzies so affected by liquor in parliament. Ambrose thought it showed that Menzies was worried about the legislation.

They returned to parliament a few days later to hear the Leader of the Opposition, Ben Chifley, talk against the bill. There were fewer diplomats to hear this.

Chifley began, ‘There is one thing, Mr Speaker, that the Labor Party, the people of this country and the Honourable Members of this parliament have always held very dear, and that is the right of free expression of opinion . . .’

Edith whispered to Ambrose, ‘Didn’t Labor gaol Sharkey for speaking out when they were in government?’

Ambrose whispered back, ‘They gaoled Sharkey for sedition. When you don’t want to say it’s a banning of freedom of expression, you call it sedition. Sounds graver. We British taught them that.’

Chifley said that the government legislation ‘strikes at the very heart of justice. It opens the door for the liar, the perjurer and the pimp to make charges and damn reputations and to do so in secret, without having either to substantiate or prove any charges they might make . . .’

Then, in a dry voice, he threw salt onto a wound that Menzies had that day taken. ‘I witnessed one of the most pathetic occurrences in this parliament when, after hearing a statement made by the Prime Minister ten days ago, in which he named certain persons as communists, I found that today he has had to correct the statement. He made statements which, in the course of ten days, have proved to be entirely incorrect in some particulars . . .’