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Prime Minister, 10 January 1968 to 10 March 1971
Liberal Party, of Australia 1949 to 1975; Independent, 1975
John Gorton (1911-2002) became Prime Minister in unusual circumstances when he was elected as Liberal Party leader after Harold Holt’s death. His departure was similarly unconventional, declaring himself ‘out of office after a tied party vote of confidence in his leadership’.1 He remains the only senator to have become Prime Minister.
Born in Victoria, Gorton studied French, political economy, constitutional law, and history at Oxford University. He married Bettina Brown in 1935; they had three children.2 Gorton enlisted in the RAAF in 1941, serving in Singapore, Darwin, and Milne Bay. He was seriously injured crash landing his aircraft during the fall of Singapore, and survived two further crashes and the sinking of his evacuation ship. Shortly before his 1944 discharge, Gorton received reconstructive surgery for his significant facial injuries.3
Gorton became a local government councillor in 1946 and three years later was elected to the Senate for Victoria as a Liberal–Country Party candidate. After nine years on the back bench he was appointed as Minister for the Navy, modernising both its fleet and administration. Other portfolios followed, until in 1968 he was appointed as the first Commonwealth Minister for Education and Science, hitherto the exclusive remit of the states.4 A commanding presence in the Chamber, Gorton was appointed Leader of the Government in the Senate in 1967.
Following Prime Minister Holt’s disappearance, Gorton won the ballot to replace him, assisted by Country Party leader John McEwen’s refusal to work with Liberal deputy leader Billy McMahon. Gorton resigned from the Senate and won the ensuing by-election for Higgins. As Prime Minister, Gorton’s priorities included defence, foreign policy, social welfare, and the arts, but his commitment to centralisation proved divisive within his party and with the states. At the 1969 election, the Coalition narrowly retained government despite losing 32 seats, with Gorton’s leadership style and policy volatility heavily blamed. Gorton lost the Prime Ministership to McMahon in a 1971 party room challenge and was then elected his deputy.5 He served briefly as Minister for Defence but was sacked after publishing a series of articles implicitly criticising McMahon. When McMahon resigned in 1972 following the Liberal defeat, Gorton attempted unsuccessfully to replace him, before joining Billy Snedden’s shadow ministry. Gorton resigned from the Liberal Party in May 1975 and, standing as an Independent Senate candidate, was defeated at the following election.
On leaving Parliament Gorton remained active in public life as a radio commentator and patron for marijuana law reform. After Bettina died in 1983, he married Nancy Home. Gorton was appointed a Privy Counsellor (1968), CH (1971), GCMG (1977) and an AC (1988). He re-joined the Liberal Party in 1979 and died in 2002.
June Yvonne Mendoza AO OBE
Australian portraitist and member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, June Mendoza (b. 1927) was born into a family of musicians in Melbourne. She toured with her mother, a pianist, from an early age performing small non-speaking parts for various musical productions. Inspired by her experiences on stage, she began to sketch the world around her, further honing her skills with life-drawing classes throughout her teenage years. With academic portraiture her chosen genre, Mendoza forged a path as one of Australia’s pre-eminent portraitists, undertaking commissions of many notable figures across diverse fields including portraits of Her Majesty The Queen and other Royal Family members, foreign dignitaries, and personalities across the arts, music and business world. As well as portraits of leading Australian political figures, Mendoza was commissioned by the Historic Memorials Committee to capture a group portrait of the House of Representatives to commemorate their first sitting in the new Parliament House in 1988.6
John Grey Gorton
by June Yvonne Mendoza
1971
Oil on canvas
136.2 x 90.9 cm
Historic Memorials Collection, Parliament House Art Collection
References
1. Information in this biography has been taken from the following: : ‘Australia’s Prime Ministers: John Gorton’, National Archives of Australia; G Browne, ‘Gorton, Sir John Grey (1911–2002)’, The Biographical Dictionary of the Australian Senate Online Edition, Department of the Senate, Parliament of Australia, published first in hardcopy 2010; ‘Prime Ministers of Australia John Gorton’, National Museum of Australia; M Grattan, ed., Australian Prime Ministers, New Holland, Sydney, 2000, p. 306. Websites accessed 23 August 2021.
2. ‘John Gorton’s partner: Bettina Gorton’, National Archives of Australia, accessed 23 August 2021.
3. B Carroll, Australia’s Prime Ministers: From Barton to Howard, Rosenberg Publishing, Dural, 2004, p. 213.
4. ‘John Gorton: before office’, National Archives of Australia, accessed 24 August 2021.
5. P Williams, John Grey Gorton: Australian to the Bootheels, Connor Court Publishing, Redland Bay, 2020, p. 19.
6. Information in this biography has been taken from the following: ‘June Mendoza’, National Portrait Gallery; ‘June Mendoza: Portrait Artist’, artist website. Websites accessed 25 March 2021.