Sir William McMahon - Politics, Honours

Australian statesman and prime minister (1971–2), born in Sydney, New South Wales, SE Australia. He studied at the university there, and qualified and practised as a solicitor. After service in World War 2 he became active in the Liberal Party and was elected to the House of Representatives in 1949. He held a variety of posts in the administrations of Sir Robert Menzies, Harold Holt, and John Gorton, until he took over the premiership when Gorton lost a vote of confidence in 1971. The following year the Liberals lost the general election, but he continued to lead his party until 1977, when he was knighted.

Rt Hon Sir William McMahon

20th Prime Minister of Australia
In office 10 March 1971 – 5 December 1972
Preceded by	John Gorton
Succeeded by	Gough Whitlam
Born	23 February 1908 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Died	31 March 1988
Political party	Liberal

Sir William McMahon, GCMG, CH, PC (23 February 1908 – 31 March 1988), Australian politician and 20th Prime Minister of Australia, was born in Sydney, New South Wales, where his father was a lawyer.

Politics

McMahon was elected to the House of Representatives for a Sydney seat in 1949, one of the flood of new Liberal MPs known as the "forty-niners." In 1966, when Harold Holt became Prime Minister, McMahon succeeded him as Treasurer and as Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party.

Despite his steady advance, McMahon remained unpopular with his colleagues.

When Holt drowned in December 1967, McMahon was assumed to be his automatic successor. But John McEwen, caretaker Prime Minister and leader of the Country Party, announced that he and his party would not serve in a government led by McMahon. This was partly because of McEwen's personal dislike of McMahon, for reasons suggested in the previous paragraph, but also because McEwen, an arch-protectionist, correctly suspected that McMahon favoured policies of free trade and deregulation.

McMahon therefore withdrew, and John Gorton won the party room ballot.

After all that waiting and intriguing, McMahon found the Prime Ministership to be a nightmare.

McMahon lost his nerve, and in the December 1972 election campaign he was outperformed by Whitlam and subjected to further humiliation in the press.

No Australian Prime Minister has had such a bad press as McMahon. Personal matters aside, McMahon has been judged by historians as a highly efficient minister and an excellent Treasurer, and they have asserted that he might have made a good PM if he had been ten years younger, if he had not alienated the support of his colleagues through his short temper, and if he had not been in charge of a government of which the electorate had grown tired.

Honours

McMahon was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1966, a Companion of Honour in 1972 and Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1977.