1958 Federal Election
The ABC’s 1958 election panel, including future Prime Minister Billy McMahon. Image from the ABC Archives.
On this day, 22 November 1958, Robert Menzies leads the Coalition to a historic fifth consecutive Federal election victory. This was a landslide result for the Government, which picked up seats in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. It will be the last election for Opposition Leader Dr H.V. Evatt, marking the end of an era in Federal politics.
The election was the first since the advent of television in Australia, and consequently the first to have election results televised, including a remarkably modern ‘tally room’ and panel of experts analysing the results as they came in. At this stage the new medium made a limited impact on campaigning, with both sides primarily focused on in-person speeches and radio broadcasts. Menzies embarked on a particularly gruelling tour of Australia, accompanied and at times directly assisted by his wife Pattie.
Menzies ran on the slogan of ‘Australia Unlimited’, promising to continue the great post-war material progress of the nation. In his major policy speech, he claimed that ‘what Australians want is good and honest government, with administrators who pursue steadfast policies, encourage growth, foster individual enterprise, preserve freedom, and maintain Australia’s place in the world. We have unquenchable pride in Australia and an unlimited faith in its future’.
He boasted of a tremendous expansion, particularly of major mineral discoveries that were creating a boom in Australia’s mining industry. While promising an additional £1,000,000 per year to assist in the search for new oil deposits, he even went so far as to ask his audience ‘do you find all this exhilarating?’.
Labor’s alternative to a successful status quo was to promise a family package featuring increased child endowment rates, the establishment of marriage loans, and housing and taxation benefits. Evatt claimed that these changes would come at no increased cost to the taxpayer, presumably because of the way in which prosperity was already increasing existing tax revenues.
Labor was still reeling from the consequences of the Great Labor Split, which if anything had gotten worse with the expulsion of Queensland Premier Vince Gair, who formed a breakaway ‘Queensland Labor Party’ which produced its own Senate ticket. Evatt’s association with the split was clearly an albatross around the neck of his party, which he tried to throw off by making a promise that, win or lose, he would vacate the ALP leadership after the election if the DLP were to direct their second preferences to Labor.
The wounds that Evatt had done so much to create would prove too deep for this band-aid solution, but it would matter little. While the DLP received almost 8% of the vote for the House of Representatives, its high-water mark, the Coalition comfortably out-polled Labor even before preferences were distributed.
The scale of the victory came as a shock to most people who had predicted a swing against the Government, albeit not one which was large enough to unseat the Prime Minister. A confidant of Menzies said that ‘I got the feeling whilst having dinner with Bob, that he was almost embarrassed by the size of his majority and would have preferred to have had it reduced to the ten or fifteen which he had expected’.
Evatt, who had once been hailed as the up-and-coming star of the Labor movement, had failed to live up to expectations and instead become a electoral liability. In 1959 Eddie Ward stood against him for the leadership, but was defeated 32 votes to 46. Instead, the party managed to secure Evatt a dignified but controversial exit, as the NSW Labor Government gave him the position of Chief Justice in 1960. His mental and physical health was already failing however, and he would last less than three years in the posting before suffering a stroke which forced him to resign. He passed away on 2 November 1965, while Menzies was still Prime Minister.
Further Reading:
A.W. Martin, Robert Menzies, A Life Volume 2 1944-1978 (Melbourne University Press, 1999).
ABC Federal Election Coverage Over the Years https://www.abc.net.au/news/redirects/backstory/television/2019-05-18/how-abc-election-night-coverage-has-evolved/11096938
Robert Menzies, Policy Speech, 29 October 1958, Museum of Australian Democracy https://electionspeeches.moadoph.gov.au/speeches/1958-robert-menzies