London, 25 January 1973
Personal And Confidential
1. I think you would like to know a little bit more about the visit of Senator Murphy1 which, as we explained in our telegram No. 112, was not a success.
2. On arrival, he made one or two provocative statements to the press about ‘relics of colonialism’ and then occupied himself with the Commonwealth Law Conference. During the Conference he had one or two brushes with the Lord Chancellor and, as you can well imagine, there is not much common ground between them. He made no secret of his dislike of Lord Hailsham and this was picked up by other participants in the Conference.
3. On Monday, 22 January, he got down to official business. He saw Lord Hailsham that evening and saw the Secretary of State the following evening (record to your Chancery by this bag). I was present during the discussions with the Secretary of State and, after a good deal of argument, we evolved a press statement which was mutually acceptable. But the Secretary of State told him that it would be necessary to get the Prime Minister’s final approval. Senator Murphy then left for the Mirabelle nightclub and the draft document was sent over to No. 10. The Prime Minister rejected it for largely party political reasons. He was justifiably concerned lest Sir John Pagan and his Parliamentary buddies would make an issue of the matter and claim that we were letting down the States. Towards midnight, Senator Murphy heard that the draft had been rejected and hastened, in company with Mr Harders, his Permanent Secretary, to see the Secretary of State at No.1 Carlton Gardens. I was called in. He claimed to be extremely angry and was generally pretty offensive in a style reminiscent of George Brown when ‘tired’.2 Discussion went on for about two hours without any agreement being reached.
4. The Senator was due to leave by plane next morning, after a press conference at which he threatened to make all sorts of revelations which he thought would be particularly damaging to the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State, and the United Kingdom in general. However, it was all patched up by the Prime Minister’s call to Mr Whitlam. As you know, in the event, the Senator’s press conference was an orderly affair. Altogether an unhappy day for Anglo-Australian relations.
5. The purpose of this letter is to let you know the background, as I have no doubt Senator Murphy will recount some of it on his return. One of his gripes against us was that we should have known the importance which the Labour Government attach to this ‘colonial question’ and that we should have made preparations for his arrival and had a solution ready to hand. He seemed to think, perhaps understandably, that we had been studying the Labour Party Manifesto for the last 6 months or so. However, I think there was some substance in the complaint that we were not alive to the importance which he attached to the issue. I know that the Department and your people had been pressing Harders for a clear indication of the points Murphy wanted to discuss (if with limited success). In retrospect, perhaps we ought to have been put on notice more positively before he arrived. But he is a manifestly cantankerous individual and I suppose he had his own domestic reasons for seeking a row.
6. During the time at which officials were drafting the abortive joint statement, Senator Murphy spoke to the Secretary of State and Mr Royle3 about Canberra. He said that much to his regret it seemed much more natural for Australians to turn to the Americans for advice as they were so much more easy and informal. He paid a tribute to you personally but contrived to leave the impression that our attitude towards them in Canberra was somewhat de haut en bas. The parallel he drew was that Australians preferred to borrow money from finance houses or worse, rather than enter banks, even though they had to pay more in interest. The implication was that an Australian entering British premises in Canberra felt rather like an Australian having to go into a bank to borrow money. I got the impression that a lot of this was part of the process of being quietly offensive and derives quite clearly from a monumental chip on his shoulder. I thought you ought to know what had been said and I would, of course, be amused to hear your comments upon it.
7. Altogether a pretty unlovely interlude, but something which l suppose we have all got to get used to. Our Attorney-General gave a dinner for him in Admiralty House at which Mr Royle was also present, which went off pretty well and by the end of it, he had begun to thaw out, confining his hostility to snide remarks about the Lord Chancellor. But there were very few people that he met to whom he did not gratuitously give offence. In contrast, the wretched Mr Harders put up a first-class and honest performance and stood his ground very well indeed. Prichett4 came in for one or two knocks and Australia House was criticized vocally in front of him.
8. In retrospect, I am not sure that any of this trouble was avoidable. What would perhaps have been helpful was a more specific warning about the man himself and his likely attitudes on the particular problem of ‘the colonial relics’.
1 See Document 440.
2 George Brown when tired had often been drinking heavily.
3 See Document 120, note 2.
4 W.B. Pritchett, Deputy High Commissioner for Australia in London.
[UKNA: FCO 24/1644]