House to House An MP Goes Breathing Space for In all respects the period from the 1910 debate, with all the absurdity that that episode unearthed, right through to the mid-1930s, was one of marking time for Parliament House in Western Australia. Ten governments had come and gone in a twenty-six year period, six of them conservative administrations and four led by Labor premiers with a smooth transition from one Labor Premier to another in 1936. It is true that, at times, there were periods of peace and plenty, and prior to 1914 a variety of economic indices-railway expansion, wheat and flour production and population growth to name some-showed impressive if not spectacular advances for the people of the small state. Yet if economic progress was unspectacular the State and its Parliament were but a short step away from an extraordinary incident in 1915 that was ever a reminder that in a parliamentary democracy human frailty was rarely far from lofty issues of state. The incident came in the form of the downfall and reported disappearance that year of the sitting member for Roebourne, J.P. (Joe) Gardiner, a young Labor MP, union secretary and hotel manager, who had been elected only four years before when he was all of twenty-five. The disappearance was to end Gardiner's personal political career but it was to have even more serious consequences for the Scaddan Labor Government of which he was a part. For within ten months of Gardiner's seat being declared vacant on 30 September 1915 for non­ attendance, Scaddan's government was to fall by vote of the House rather than the vote of the people. Rumours and counter-rumours concerning Gardiner's disappearance and its aftermath continued on in A.L.P. mythology for at least five decades, with speculation running rife that The 1914 engagement of Rocbourne MP. Joseph Gardiner; and a young Gardiner had vanished as a direct May Holman set offa chain of consequence of falling in love events that ended in the annulment with, and marrying, the young of their marriage, his sudden Mary Alice (later known as May) absence from Parliament, and ultimately the fall of the Scadden Holman in the District Registry Government. Office in Perth on 9 May 1914. Courtesy: Parliament House. 113 iuse to House May Holman-who would one day herself be elected to Parliament in 1925 as MLA for Forrest and Australia's first ALP woman MP-was the daughter of long-time union activist, journalist and MLA, John Barkell Holman, a former Minister for Railways and Labour, who is said to have fiercely opposed the marriage, and who allegedly threatened to 'deal with' Gardiner if he didn't get out of his daughter's life.' The official records show that the marriage was eventually formally annulled in May 1919. A closer examination of the admittedly scarce evidence suggests that Gardiner's marriage to Holman may not have been the only imperative that drove him out of town. Instead some evidence emerges of a young man, in all likelihood unsuited to the demands and pressures of elective office, finding himself in deep financial trouble and desperate to find a way out. In this respect at least, Gardiner's disappearance seems to bear a striking resemblance to that, almost sixty years later in 1974, of the British MP, John Stonehouse, who, amidst mounting business woes, faked his own suicide in the United States and was later found, and arrested, in Melbourne. One obvious difference between the two cases was the level of media attention they attracted: Stonehouse's disappearance from the mother of parliaments and his subsequent arrest were to generate worldwide publicity. In far off Western Australia fifty-nine years earlier Gardiner was clearly but inexplicably the subject of an 'old­ boys' agreement struck by West Australian newspapers and political leaders by which publicity over the incident was minimised, and what little publicity that did break through the wall of silence was disguised by a veneer of mystery. But the difference cannot be explained away simply because Gardiner had gone absent in a small, isolated corner of Australia, where some cosiness between MPs and Pressmen might have been expected. The fact was that Perth metropolitan and country newspapers were, in all other respects, fearless in their reporting at the time of all or any stories that warranted news coverage. Newspapers then, as now, frequently and comprehensively reported the foibles of all those whose activities were drawn to their attention. A glance at their content in this era does not suggest any coyness or modesty, or a desire to protect readers from improper or illegal behaviour. However, it is not difficult to read between the lines in all this that even to hard-bitten newsmen of the day the Gardiner matter was somehow off limits: that the reasons for his disappearance and departure from Western Australia were not seen as issues of public interest or scandal, but rather a private misdemeanour and the embarrassment caused by a twenty-year-old girl falling in love with a politically-overwhelmed and compromised young MP. Gardiner's hold on his remote seat of Roebourne was severed, as already indicated, on 30 September 1915, under Section of 38(5) of the Constitution Act Amendment Act 1899 which provided that a Member's seat could be declared vacant if he failed to attend Parliament for two consecutive months of any session. As previously stated also, the oral tradition, passed down successive generations to reach the present authors, was that he had got out of town to escape the wrath of May's father by then Deputy Speaker, for entering into the marriage in May 1914 in a Perth Registry Office, itself something anathema to the staunchly Catholic Holman family. But there was more to all this than met the eye. An examination of Hansard and the Votes and Proceedings of the period shows that any 'disappearance' was not at all sudden, but in fact widely expected, and with its roots in a variety of clashes Gardiner may have had with Labor luminaries. That Gardiner-a bootmaker by trade but a 114 union activist by inclination, and who had been involved in the shipping trade on the House to HOI north-west coast before becoming manager of a hotel in Cossack-had become a thorn in the side of Labor's hierarchy is undoubted, if his last speech in the House in January 1915 is anything to go by. That debate indicates strongly that some sort of cleavage with the Labor Party was on the horizon that month, when an issue affecting the north-west whaling industry blew up in Parliament and Gardiner, as member for Roebourne, challenged his own Government's attitude. He went so far in a colourful exchange as to confront the stance being adopted by the minister in charge of the matter, Rufus Henry Underwood, himself member for Pilbara. When he got to his feet, Gardiner at first complimented Underwood on an eloquent speech but then added somewhat icily that it was a speech: absolutely devoid offacts and [one which] bristled with inaccuracies. 2 In the minutes that followed Gardiner was in turn to lock horns with the Premier, Scaddan, and another senior Minister, in exchanges that clearly showed deep antagonism had developed towards Gardiner. Just what prompted that ill-feeling is almost impossible to know but it may have had its basis in the ceremony at the registry office only eight months earlier. Whatever the reason, within five days-on 2 February-the clerks of the House began to record Gardiner as being absent without leave. Indeed, he was not seen in the House again for the remaining fourteen days of the session. The period of absence at that point was still far short of the two months required for forfeiture of his seat, which meant that the countdown would have to begin from scratch when the new session got under way. Meanwhile, some eleven weeks later, on 25 April 1915-the very day that thousands of eager Australian soldiers made a fateful landing on the shores of Gallipoli-a press report left the public in doubt as to Gardiner's future. He was it seems not waiting around for parliament to act: he had apparently determined to head for Gilruthland, more conventionally known as the Northern Territory, but so-nicknamed after its then highly controversial Administrator, Dr John Gilruth. The Sunday Times thus reported that: It has become known within the last few days that Mr J. P Gardiner; the member for Roebourne in the State Assembly, has gone to the Northern Territory, where he intends to remain. 3 The news report was low-key and moderate, and emphatic at least on the pivotal issue that Gardiner had by then left for the Northern Territory. It added that it understood that he would submit his resignation 'when he reaches Darwin, which should be shortly.' The story was repeated verbatim in the Northern Times in Gardiner's electorate in the issue of 8 May 1915, though later events show that he did not resign but awaited the House's declaration of his vacancy on 30 September. The newspapers largely held their fire until the vacancy occurred, but then became a little more forthcoming, with the Northern Times of 9 October editorialising that: at length, after many months during which the electors of the Roebourne district have been bereft of the valuable service of their own chosen representative in the Legislative Assembly that gentleman has forfeited his Premier John Scaddan and Joe seat ..