Harold Holt

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Harold Edward Holt, 5 August 1908 – 17 December 1967), was an Australian politician who served as Australia's 17th Prime Minister from 1966 to his presumed drowning death in 1967.

At that time, he was the Liberal Party's leader. Holt was born in Sydney but moved to Melbourne at a young age.

He was the first prime minister to be born in the twentieth century.

He studied law at the University of Melbourne and later opened his own law practice.

Holt was elected at the Fawkner ward by 1935 and represented the United Australia Party (UAAP).

He was a protégé of Robert Menzies and was appointed to cabinet when Menzies became prime minister in 1939.

Early life

Holt was born in Stanmore, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney, on August 5th, 1908. He was the first of two sons born to Olive May (née Williams; formerly Pearce) and Thomas James Holt; his younger brother Clifford was born in 1910. In January 1908, his parents had married seven months before his child. Holt, a Birmingham, England cobbler who arrived in New South Wales in 1829, was descendent from James Holt, a descendent from him father's side. Thomas Holt Sr., Thomas Holt Sr., owned a large farming farm in Nubba and was twice elected mayor of nearby Wallendbeen. Holt's father worked as a schoolteacher in Sydney, and when Harold was born, he worked as a physical education tutor at the Cleveland Street School in Surry Hills. Holt's mother was born in Eudunda, South Australia, and had Cornish, English, German, and Irish roots; her sister, Vera Pearce, was born in Eudunda, South Australia; and her brother was born in Eudunda, South Australia;

Holt's parents immigrated to Adelaide, where his father became the licensee of a hotel in Payneham. He and his brother remained at home in Sydney, living with an uncle and attending Randwick Public School. Holt was sent to live with grandparents in the United States in late 1916, where he briefly attended the Nubba State School. He returned to Sydney the following year and stayed at Abbotsholme College, a private school in Killara; his parents separated around this time. Holt began boarding at Wesley College, Melbourne, in 1920. He was a popular and gifted student, winning a scholarship in his last year and finishing second in his class. Holt spent more holiday in Nubba or with schoolmates than with his parents – his father started working as a talent agent on the Tivoli tour, while his mother died in 1925. He was 16 years old at the time and was unable to attend the funeral.

Holt began studying law at the University of Melbourne in 1927, and he stayed at Queen's College on a scholarship. He worked in cricket and football and was also active in various student organisations, including as president of the Law Students' Society and of the Queen's College social club. Holt received awards for oratory and essay-writing, as well as being a member of the inter-university debating team. In 1930, he obtained a Bachelor of Laws degree. Holt's father, who lives in London, was invited to continue his studies in England, but he turned down the invitation.

Holt joined Fink, Best, & Miller in clerkship. He was admitted to the Victorian Bar in late 1932 and began his own litigation the following year. However, during the Great Depression, clients were scarce and often underpaid, so Holt lived in a boardinghouse and often depended on friend's hospitality. He eventually accepted an invitation to become secretary of the Victorian Cinematograph Exhibitors' Association, a film industry advocacy group, based on his family history in show business. He appeared numerous times before the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration for his position in this capacity. This had a positive impact on his own practice, and he eventually took on two colleagues, first Jack Graham and then James Newman. Holt, Graham, & Newman was founded in 1963, following a financial crisis and later reconstituted as Holt, Newman, & Holt, with Holt's son Sam as the new addition. Holt's involvement in the sport faded after he entered politics and stopped entirely in 1949, although he did not officially retire until taking over the prime ministership.

Personal life

Holt was a student at the University of Melbourne, and she and her daughter, Zara Dickins, developed a "immediate common attraction"; They had intended to marry before Holt had graduated, but they had to separate due to a financial crisis. Zara went on a trip to the United Kingdom, where she was introduced to James Fell, a British Indian Army officer. Fell was taken to India by Fell, who later returned to Australia, where Holt's marriage was a possibility. She turned down his invitation and married Fell a short time later, and they now live in Jabalpur with him. Holt had entered parliament by that time and was soon named as the "most eligible bachelor in parliament" shortly. He briefly dated Lola Thring, the daughter of his father's business partner, F. W. Thring, but his widowed father Tom, who died young, was also interested in her (to his son's "disgust"). Tom Holt married Lola in 1936 and their daughter Frances (Harold's half-sister) was born in 1940; Tom Holt died in 1945.

Zara returned to Australia in 1937 to birth Nicholas, her first child. In 1939, she had two more children, twins Sam and Andrew. Fell's marriage ended a short time later, but in late 1940 she returned to Australia permanently and rekindled a friendship with Holt. The couple's personal information was not revealed for some time in order to avoid Holt's involvement in Zara's divorce proceedings from being revealed. They married on October 8, 1946, at Zara's parents' home on St Georges Road, Toorak. They lived on nearby Washington Street but purchased the St Georges Road home in 1954. Holt lawfully adopted Zara's three children, and as young men, they changed their surname to his. According to biographer Tom Frame, it was a "open secret" that Holt was the biological father of the twins, given that he revealed his physical appearance and that he was born in Melbourne at a time when Zara was not well known.

Zara Holt was a wealthy businesswoman, owning a chain of dress shops and out-earned her husband even as prime minister. It was her triumph that enabled the couple to buy two holiday homes, one in Portsea, Victoria, and the other in Bingil Bay, Queensland. Nevertheless, she made sacrifices for her husband's political career by accompanying him on all but one of his overseas trips, which could span weeks.

Zara remarried in 1969 to Jeff Bate, one of his Liberal Party colleagues, following her husband's death. In 1984, she was widowed for the second time and died in 1989. Zara said in a 1988 interview with The Sydney Morning Herald that her husband Harold had "dozens" of extramarital affairs. "I haven't listed the names of women with whom Holt reportedly had a sexual relationship because I was unable to confirm or deny that the majority of these relationships were ongoing," Tom Frame said in his biography of Holt.

Holt was the first Australian Prime Minister to be born in the twentieth century. In stark contrast to Menzies and the majority of his predecessors and coworkers, he was an enthusiastic sportsman and keen swimmer. This resonated with positive reception among the electorate, like later successor Bob Hawke. His oratory skills were notably superior to Arthur Calwell's, whom Holt resoundingly defeated in 1966. Holt's speech, on the other hand, was compared to that of new Labor leader Gough Whitlam.

Whitlam himself later said of Holt:

Holt has been described as a "apathetic agnostic." He was baptised Anglican, attended Methodist colleges, and married in Presbyterian fashions, but neither he nor his wife expressed any interest in the faith. His lack of religiosity seemed to have no effect on his political prospects, and was not particularly noted. Holt's "lay in this world not the next," Alick Downer said. "I was an agnostic whose raison d'être was commitment to his work," he told his colleague Simon Warrender. Holt was known as a tragicist and was frequently quoted from Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" book. Warrender also loved Rudyard Kipling's poem "If—," which he used as a "guiding light in his personal and private life."

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Early political career

Holt joined the Young Nationalists, the United Australia Party's youth branch, in 1933. He began developing a relationship with Mabel Brookes, and through Brookes, became familiar with senior members of Australia's influential Women's National League (AWNL). He acquired Robert Menzies' patronage, as well as his political convictions. Holt was a member of the United States Academy in the Division of Yarra during the 1934 federal election. It was a secure seat for the Labor Party, held by the party's leader (and former Prime Minister) James Scullin. Holt's campaigning paid him a lot. He ran for Clifton Hill – another safe Labor seat in Victorian state elections, losing to Bert Cremean early this year. Holt was eventually elected to parliament on his third attempt, winning federal by-election for Fawkner's seat in August 1935; his predecessor, George Maxwell, had died in office. He gained UAP preselection against five other candidates, a victory that Smith attributed to his "political godmothers" in the AWNL. His new seat was centered on Melbourne's wealthy inner-eastern suburbs.

Holt was twenty-seven years old when he entered parliament, making him the youngest member of parliament. In his first two years, he maintained a low profile, but he spoke on a variety of topics. Holt was one of four ministers without a portfolio when Robert Menzies became Prime Minister in April 1939. His appointment was made possible by the dissolution of the country party's coalition, meaning that a limited number of positions had been reserved for Country MPs, but that the new ministry was solely made up of UAP representatives. Although Holt had no portfolio, he served as an assistant minister to Richard Casey, who was in charge of the Department of Supply and Development. He was given charge of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), and he served for a few years as Minister of Trade and Customs and Minister for Civil Aviation and Air when the incumbents were overseas. In March 1940, when the Country Party's alliance came to an end, Holt's first stint as a cabinet minister came to an end. Arthur Fadden, another potential prime minister, was named as his replacement.

Postwar ministerial career

The coalition won the federal election of December 1949 and Menzies' record-breaking second term as Prime Minister after eight years in opposition. Holt's majority in Fawkner barely vanished in a redistribution effort leading up to the election. He moved to Higgins, one of many new seats established in the 1949 redistribution process. The seat was created as a safe Liberal seat in Fawkner's wealthy areas; it had been carved out of Fawkner's richest parts. Holt took the trophy with a landslide. He was appointed to the prestigious portfolios of Labour and National Service (1949–1956), as both Minister of Education (1940–1956) and Minister for Immigration (1949–1956), by which time he was being heralded in the media as a "certain successor to Menzies and a potential Prime Minister." Holt continued and extended the massive immigration program started by Arthur Calwell, a student at the University of Ayo. However, he had a more flexible and caring attitude toward Calwell, who had been a vocal promoter of the White Australia policy. Lorenzo Gamboa, a Filipino man with an Australian wife and children who had been refused admission by Calwell due to his ethnicity, was one of his first acts. Gamboa was able to settle in Australia permanently, according to Holt.

Holt excelled in the Labour portfolio and has been dubbed one of the best Labour ministers since Federation. Although the conditions were set for industrial conflict, unemployment in the union movement was at its high point, and the right-wing faction in Cabinet was agitating for a showdown with the unions, with increased job turnover and Holt's enlightened approach to industrial relations seeing the number of working hours lost to strikes fall dramatically from 250,000 in 1949 to just 439,000 in 1958. In 1956, he was also charged with the Melbourne Olympics.

Holt encouraged greater collaboration between the government, the courts, teachers, and trade unions. He had positive interactions with union leaders like Albert Monk, President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions; and Jim Healy, founder of the radical Waterside Workers Federation; however, his controversial decision to deploy troops during a waterside conflict in Bowen, Queensland, in September 1953, sparked intense criticism.

Holt's personal profile and political fame increased in the 1950s. He served on numerous committees and overseas delegations since being elected a Privy Counsellor in 1953, and he was named one of Australia's six best-dressed guys in 1954. He was elected Vice Leader of the Liberal Party in 1956 and later became Speaker of the House, and from this point forward, he was generally acknowledged as the Menzies' heir apparent.

Following Arthur Fadden's retirement, Holt succeeded him as Treasurer in December 1958. Holt had no expertise or passion in economics, but the position as Menzies' most likely successor solidified his employment. Holt, the Treasury Secretary, relying heavily on Treasury Secretary Roland Wilson's direction. His contributions included major reforms to the banking system (originated by Fadden) as well as the planning and preparations for the introduction of decimal currency. It was Holt who persuaded Cabinet to call the new currency the "dollar" rather than the "royal."

Holt's economy was increasing strongly, aided by the onset of new iron ore mines. In 1959, inflation stood at 4.8 percent, but the Treasury was alarmed. Holt was reluctant to act, but a deflationary package of tax reforms was introduced in November 1960. He reluctantly agreed to a Reserve Bank interest rate rise. The credit squeeze was dubbed the "Holt jolt." The economy went into recession, and unemployment increased to three percent, which was considered high at the time and in contrast to the government's policy of full employment.

The credit crunch brought the Coalition dangerously close to losing the 1961 election, with the Coalition returning a precarious one-seat majority. Holt was sacked, but Menzies retained their love. "My most difficult year in public life" was described as 1960–61 by the author later. The bulk of the deflationary steps were reversed in 1962, and unemployment fell to 1.4 percent in August 1963. Holt retreated to his Queensland holiday home when it was being planned in later budgets. The 1965 budget "has had the best reception of any in the series I have shown," he said.

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