Gair Affair

Jenny Hocking has said of the affair: "The government's attempts to effect an additional Senate vacancy through Gair's resignation was constitutionally sound, strategically brilliant and an unmitigated political disaster."^[1]

Vince Gair[edit]

Vincent Clair Gair was a former Australian Labor Party (ALP) Premier of Queensland 1952-57 who was expelled from his own party while in office, and formed the breakaway Queensland Labor Party (QLP), which in 1962 merged with the Democratic Labor Party (DLP). In 1964 he was elected to federal parliament as a DLP Senator for Queensland, his term commencing on 1 July 1965. He was elected parliamentary leader of the DLP immediately although it had only two members at that time (Frank McManus from Victoria was the other). He was re-elected in 1970 for a new term (1971–1977). In 1973, by which time the DLP's Senate numbers had risen to five, internal issues caused Gair to resign as leader of the party from 10 October, with McManus taking over.^[3] He had first intimated in January 1973 that he would resign as leader, but vacillated until October, when Frank McManus offered him the choice of immediate resignation or being removed by his colleagues.^[4]


Gair announced at that time that his current term as senator would be his last. In March 1974 he also complained to the Labor senator Justin O'Byrne that the DLP had treated him shabbily. He said he was thinking of leaving the Senate earlier than 1977, and suggested that he would consider accepting a diplomatic post should the government be minded to offer him one. O'Byrne repeated this conversation to his Senate Leader Lionel Murphy, who devised a plan to use Gair's disgruntlement to Labor's advantage, which he talked over with Whitlam. The plan was to appoint Gair to an overseas post, which would require him to resign his seat in the Senate, and to arrange for this to occur before the writs for the impending half-Senate election were issued. This would have the effect of causing writs to be issued for the election of 6 senators from Queensland, not the 5 as would otherwise have been the case (at that time, each state had 10 senators, and 5 of them were elected at each half-Senate election). Gair was not the only non-Labor person in Labor's sights: they also offered the post of Ambassador to the Holy See to Frank McManus (he refused outright); and they had been considering offering Liberal senator Peter Durack a seat on the High Court, but never approached him.^[2]


This plan also relied on a feature of the Constitution at that time, which was amended in 1977. While now senators appointed to fill a casual vacancy serve the remainder of the original senator's term, in 1973 the appointed senator's term only lasted until the next Senate or House election.^[2] In a normal half-Senate election, Labor could expect to win 2 of the 5 seats in Queensland. However, if 6 seats were up for election, Labor could expect to win 3, and this would give it the bare majority it needed in the Senate to guarantee passage of future legislation.


Gair was offered the post of Ambassador to the Republic of Ireland, and readily accepted on 13 March 1974.^[2] Ireland was dear to his heart, as his mother was Irish, his wife was of Irish stock,^[2] and he was a staunch Catholic, and he saw this as a particularly fitting way to conclude his public life. However, the matter needed to remain strictly confidential pending various matters of protocol being attended to. The Federal Executive Council approved the appointment on 14 March, and the Irish Government accepted the appointment on 19 March. It cabled its approval to Canberra, where it was received on 20 March.


On 21 March, Gough Whitlam advised the Parliament that he had obtained the concurrence of the Governor-General, Sir Paul Hasluck, to hold a half-Senate election on 18 May 1974, and the timing of the issue of the writs was a matter of discussion between the Governor-General and the state governors.


Labor's plan was that Gair would tender his resignation to the President of the Senate, Sir Magnus Cormack, on 2 April, when the Senate returned after a break, well before the writs were expected to be issued for the election, but for it to remain a strictly confidential matter until then.

The Night of the Long Prawns[edit]

On the morning of 2 April, The Sun News-Pictorial newspaper broke the news of Gair's appointment to Ireland. In Parliament, the Leader of the Opposition, Billy Snedden, asked Prime Minister Whitlam to come clean. He readily confirmed the appointment. Snedden decried it as shameful and "worse than any Tammany Hall effort that has ever been made in the United States", and compared it with what he called the "very fine appointment" of Sir Garfield Barwick as Chief Justice of the High Court.^[5]


The Leader of the National Country Party (NCP), Doug Anthony, denounced the appointment as a cynical buying-off exercise. He was aware that the timing was crucial, and he phoned the NCP Premier of Queensland, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, urging him to have the writs for the Queensland Senate seats issued immediately before Gair had a chance to see Cormack and resign.^[2] Senator Ian Wood also contacted Bjelke-Petersen along similar lines.^[6] But Gair had to be kept at bay while the Governor of Queensland, Sir Colin Hannah, was consulted about the matter, as it was his sole prerogative under the Constitution to issue writs for Senate elections, albeit always acting on advice from the premier of the day. NCP Queensland Senator Ron Maunsell entertained Vince Gair and other senators in his office, plying him with drinks and prawns he regularly brought all the way from his home in Townsville.^[2] Ian Wood also had a hand in arranging this; he was a teetotaller, but had no scruples about arranging for others to use alcohol to further his political goals.^[6] But Gair also had to appear in the Senate chamber and vote where necessary; the Opposition was aware the government would likely claim he had effectively resigned in March when his appointment as Ambassador was approved, as this was an office of profit under the crown, which serving members and senators are prohibited from accepting on pain of forfeiture of their parliamentary seats.^[2] If Gair was appearing in parliament right up till 2 April, with no objections from the government, the Opposition reasoned that the government could hardly credibly hold to the line that he had ceased to be a senator in March, or at any time before the issue of the writs for Queensland. Thus Maunsell stayed close to Gair the whole evening, shepherded him into the Senate chamber for a vote on the Petroleum and Minerals Authority Bill,^[6] and then straight back to his office for more whisky and prawns.^[2] In fact, he did not need to do this, since the electoral legislation deems writs to be issued at 6 pm regardless of the time they are actually issued. As long as Gair was prevented from seeing the President until 6 pm, the plan would work. Maunsell later made a personal explanation to the Senate, in which he denied exerting any undue influence on Gair; he explained that the Parliamentary Dining Rooms had gone on strike in the morning,^[2] Gair had not eaten all day, Maunsell was simply extending courtesy to a fellow Queensland senator, and Gair was free at all times to come and go as he pleased.


The Senate sat through until 12:30 am on the morning of 3 April, and Gair did not finally leave for home until around 3 am. About 90 minutes earlier, at 1:40 am, Bjelke-Petersen announced to the Queensland Parliament that the Governor had, on his recommendation, issued writs for the election of five senators at 11 pm on 2 April.^[2]


Labor had been stymied, and the evening of 2–3 April 1974 has been known ever since in Australian political discourse as "The Night of the Long Prawns" thanks to a newspaper headline in The Australian of 4 April, to an article written by Bob Baudino.^[2]


On 3 April, Vince Gair was expelled from the party of which he had been leader until just over four months earlier. At this time he said to his erstwhile DLP colleagues, "I've carried you, bastards, for years, and now you can all go to buggery!"^[1]