The best known woman in Australia

private as a solid rock of support, espe- Richard Allsop reviews cially necessary when former long-term Enid Lyons: Leading Lady colleagues spurned him. Being supportive should not be to a Nation confused with being manipulative. Hen- by Anne Henderson derson several times reinforces the point (Pluto Press, 2008, 356 pages) that ‘Joe Lyons was always the politically ambitious one in the Lyons partnership.’ She is strongly critical of Robert Men- his is the biography of a woman zies’ biographer, Allan Martin’s assertion who ‘was for many years the best (‘with no evidence whatsoever’) that it T known woman in Australia’. was Enid who forced Joe not to go ahead It says something for the fleeting- with a January 1939 plan to invite Stan- wing, whose titular head was NSW Pre- ness of fame that Enid Lyons is now ley Melbourne Bruce to return from his mier, Jack Lang. Joe particularly reviled best remembered, if at all, for having job as High Commission in London to Lang and Enid herself later wrote that had lots of children. However, as Anne take over as leader of the UAP. Joe ‘would always remember with the Henderson’s book reminds us, Lyons has While both Joe and Enid were keen greatest pride that he had the honour an important part in the nation’s politi- for Joe to retire, the lack of a successor and pleasure of introducing the legisla- cal history having been the first female who would be able to unite the party and tion that brought down John Thomas member of both the House of Represen- the need for Joe to find alternative remu- Lang’. tatives and the Federal Cabinet, and also neration to support his family precluded Joe Lyons achieved the power to the wife of a Prime Minister. it happening before Joe’s death. stop Lang by leading his followers out of Of necessity, any book about Enid As the 1930s progressed the big is- the Labor Party and joining forces with Lyons is also a partial biography of her sues kept coming. There was the abdica- their Nationalist opponents in the new husband, Joe, and Anne Henderson tion crisis of 1936, an issue on which . A speaking tour skillfully balances the task of telling one Henderson endorses the position Enid across southern Australia in April 1931 and a half life stories. took in her memoirs ‘“demolishing” the was ‘the start of the Lyons personality Politically, for both Joe and Enid, opinion of the Archbishop of Canterbury cult at the Federal level’. A key element the seminal event was the Depression about Lyons’ role’, and then the growing of which was Enid’s ability as a speaker and its dramatic impact on the Scullin prospect of war. Joe and Enid were both to appeal, in particular, to women voters Labor Government. When Joe entered strong supporters of Chamberlain and with down-to-earth anecdotes and exam- Federal Parliament his experience as Pre- appeasement. ples. Henderson describes how ‘by year’s mier of guaranteed him a min- However, it is not only the cover- end Joe and Enid Lyons would coast into istry with the Scullin Government when age of big political events that make on a wave of popular appeal it was elected in October 1929. How- this book an engrossing read. Hender- born out of their combined talents at the ever it was the impact of the Depression son presents a persuasive case that Enid podium and the unworkable divisions in which made him, and by extension Enid, was probably not her father’s daughter, Labor ranks.’ significant national figures. instead having been the product of an While ‘ratting’ earned Joe Lyons Joe became the leader of the group affair between her mother Eliza Burrell the lasting enmity of Labor, it made him within the Federal Labor caucus strug- and one Aloysius Joyce. Her evidence something of a national hero to those gling to keep a modicum of orthodoxy is based on overheard conversations, a who were not Labor partisans. He re- in the Government’s economic policies. striking physical resemblance between mains, with Bob Hawke, the only Prime The caucus was split three ways, between Enid and members of the Joyce family, Minister to have won three or more elec- Joe’s moderates, the supporters of Trea- and shared musical talents. tions without ever suffering a defeat. surer ‘Red Ted’ Theodore’s more expan- Then there is the matter of Joe Ly- Henderson makes clear just how sionary plan, and the even more extreme ons courtship, which would be scandal- much of an asset Enid was to Joe. In ous on several grounds today. When they public her speeches were very success- married, Joe was 35 and Enid 17, but Richard Allsop is a Research Fellow at ful and she effectively utilised both print they had been an item for a couple of the Institute of Public Affairs. and the new medium of radio. And in years prior to that. On top of the 18 year

64 IPA Review | August 2009 www.ipa.org.au Dame Enid Lyons, Politician, circa. 1950 NAA: SP1011/1, 3062 circa. Politician, Dame Enid Lyons,

age difference was the fact that during in 1943. While her gender and religion She also wrote two volumes of their courtship Joe was Minister for Edu- may have been negatives, her name rec- memoirs, one aim of which was to de- cation and Enid a trainee teacher, and at ognition and energetic campaigning fend Joe’s legacy. Henderson provides a one stage he wrote to her on ministerial were sufficient advantages to carry her to persuasive explanation of why Joe Lyons letterhead suggesting he might get the victory in what otherwise was a shocking has not been better remembered. To La- head of the department to station her at election result for the UAP. She shares bor he remained a ‘rat’, and one of the a location closer to him. with the honour of founding bases of the new Liberal Party Fortunately for the biographer, first female in the Parliament, Tangney in 1944 was that the UAP had been a much of the correspondence between the being elected as a Senator from Western failure. Interestingly, for those who try couple survives and it demonstrates how Australia at the same election. to paint Enid Lyons as the mother of close, and how much in love, the couple In , her friends were often modern conservatism, Henderson’s as- were. This, together with interviews with other controversial figures from the past, sessment is that her ‘political instincts the children, builds the picture of how such as Billy Hughes and Earl Page, and had often been social democratic rather it was the Catholic-convert, Enid, rather she always seemed to have something than conservative,’ and that when the than the Catholic-born Joe, who refused of a fraught relationship with Menzies. Whitlam Government was elected ‘on to consider contraception; that Enid was When the Coalition came to power in many issues the new Labor mood at- something of a remote mother, while Joe, 1949, Enid became the first woman tracted her’. for the time and allowing for how much in Cabinet, but it was something of a In an otherwise excellent work, time he was away, was quite an involved nominal role as she was appointed as there are two minor irritations—too father. These factors lead Henderson to vice president of the Executive Council. many analogies with modern political conclude that ‘this was indeed a modern Apparently, Menzies did not want her in events and a seeming necessity to men- marriage, of sorts.’ Cabinet, but was pressured into giving tion the name of almost every ship that Enid had regularly suffered from her something. It all became a bit aca- the Lyons family ever travelled on. How- mental breakdowns, often necessitating demic, because by 1951 ill-health forced ever, these are small quibbles in what is hospitalisation, and naturally Joe’s death Enid to quit both the ministry and then overall a fascinating insight, not only hit her hard. It was one of her daugh- the Parliament. Her already high profile into the biographical subject, but into ters who pushed Enid to take up the op- was boosted in this period by regular Australian politics and society in the first portunity provided by the retirement of newspaper, magazine and radio appear- half of the 20th century. the long-standing federal member and ances and subsequently by appointment run for the House of Representatives as an ABC Board member. R www.ipa.org.au IPA Review | August 2009 65