When Kim E. Beazley (father of the Labor leader) died in 2007, he left behind the manuscript of a memoir, Father of the House. It was published posthumously by Fremantle Press in 2009, edited by the wonderful Janet Blagg, who also worked on my first book. Beazley emerges in the pages of this memoir as a principled politician, and an uneasy Laborite. He succeeded John Curtin as the federal member for Fremantle after Curtin’s death in 1945; he was only 26 and he was to remain in parliament though the entire winter of opposition for Labor from 1949 to 1972, before finally retiring in 1977.

Beazley is no gossip – it’s policy he cares about, and he writes seriously about many of the major issues which concerned him over the decades of his career. It’s the sort of book with bulleted points and – at times – the register of a sermon. Still, there are also flashes of the political drama and aspects of character which interest me as a biographer. He was called ‘the student prince’ in his early career and is candid enough to admit to having been arrogant before he saw the light. The light came in the form of his involvement in MRA – Moral Rearmament – a Christian movement which focused on absolute honesty, purity, unselfishness and love. Beazley was a sincere adherent, and it seems to have genuinely changed him for the better, leading him to be open to repentance and changes of mind on things. But there is an undercurrent of unachievable perfectionism even in his account which surely would lead some to trouble. I found out recently my grandfather, an Anglican minister in Cottesloe of the same age whom I understand to have been friends with Beazley, was also involved in MRA and it explains some of the complexities of his character too.

Beazley recounts John Curtin’s involvement with MRA through the influence of key advisors like Frederick McLaughlin. His source is his conversations with two RAAF pilots, Gordon Wise and Jim Coulter, in 1946, who he says had known Curtin. It’s a matter of historical contention which needs further examination; Curtin’s daughter, Elsie Macleod, was less convinced about Curtin’s embrace of MRA. (It’s John Curtin’s 140th birthday in three days and I will be posting in tribute to him.)

Beazley’s book is candid and self-critical but it still settles scores, and his great battle was with ‘the left’. The left becomes a refrain of the nemesis forces within the party, in a way I can imagine Labor insiders talking amongst themselves. It’s interesting to read Beazley blame himself for not averting the split of 1955 – joining the Groupers in their walkout, not in agreement with them but over a procedural principle. It’s an archetypal moment revealing his character – the high-mindedness and principled behaviour, the ego to think his action was the critical one, coupled with the humility to be blaming himself for it. Although Beazley hates the ‘left’, he has no sympathy with the neoliberal turn the ALP took after he retired. He was instrumental in making university education free, and reserves perhaps his harshest judgement for his successor in the seat, John Dawkins and his reforms to the university sector.

A final random thought: it’s strange to encounter a mention of Arthur Hartley as a left-wing teacher in Midland before the Second World War. I remember Arthur at age 100 years old from my first job, a regular and sprightly customer at the Floreat public library, still playing his flute. His diaries have been deposited in the State Library of WA, and the idea of them has always intrigued me.