William McMahon

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William McMahon 1966

Sir William McMahon GCMG , CH (born February 23, 1908 in Sydney , New South Wales , † March 31, 1988 ibid) was the 20th Prime Minister of Australia . His term of office lasted from March 10, 1971 to December 5, 1972. Before that, he held several ministerial posts. He was never an opposition leader.

Youth and early career

William McMahon was born in Sydney as the eldest of four children of William C. McMahon and his wife Mary Ellen McMahon, b. Walder, born. His father was a lawyer. When William was 8 years old, his mother died when he was 18, his father. He was raised by his aunt Elsie and uncle Samuel Walder, a Sydney businessman.

From 1923 to 1926 he attended the Sydney Grammar School and then moved to the University of Sydney to law study.

He successfully graduated in 1933 and began working for a renowned Sydney law firm .

After the outbreak of World War II in 1939, he volunteered for military service. A hearing problem prevented him from being transferred to direct military action. He performed his service, most recently with the rank of major until 1945 in the mother country.

In 1946 he began a second degree ( economics ) at the University of Sydney , which he completed in 1949.

In the parliamentary elections of December 10, 1949, he stood for the Liberal Party (LP) and was able to win the seat of the constituency Lowe (Sydney) in the House of Representatives. He maintained this for the following 33 years without interruption until he retired in 1982.

In 1951, William McMahon was first brought into a cabinet as a minister by then Prime Minister Robert Menzies . In the following two decades he led a total of 8 different ministries without interruption.

During his time from 1956 to 1958 as Minister for the Primary Sector , an important field of competence of the coalition partner, the Country Party (CP) , a personal rift arose with many of its members. In particular, the differences with Arthur Fadden and John McEwen later brought him to the earlier achievement of the office as Prime Minister. He owed this primarily to his effective and successful administration, which, on the one hand, showed little consideration for traditional interests and, on the other hand, exposed the inadequacies of his cabinet colleagues.

On December 11, 1965, he married Sonia Rachel Hopkins, 24 years his junior, with whom he had three children, Melinda (1966), Julian (1968) and Deborah (1971).

In 1966, when Harold Holt replaced Robert Menzies as Prime Minister, William McMahon rose to the post of Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party (LP) .

After Prime Minister Harold Holt probably drowned while bathing in the sea on December 17, 1967 and was pronounced dead on December 19, 1967, it was assumed that William McMahon as deputy party chairman would succeed him both in the party and as prime minister . John McEwen, party chairman of the then coalition partner Country Party (CP) announced on December 18, 1967 that he would not serve under a Prime Minister McMahon. In order to avoid a break in the coalition, the election as party leader of the Liberal Party (LP) was postponed from December 20, 1967 to January 10, 1968, in which John Gorton finally prevailed after William McMahon's withdrawal and became Prime Minister the same day.

prime minister

John McEven's withdrawal from active politics in early February 1971 was the signal for McMahon to use the internal disagreement of the Liberal Party (LP) to actively replace John Gorton as party chairman. Almost a month later, on March 10, 1971, after an internal vote of confidence between himself and John Gorton, he was able to take over the party chairmanship and take up the post of prime minister on the same day.

William McMahon 1971

William McMahon's time as Prime Minister was a bad one. Internal disputes with the supporters of John Gorton, which did not miss any opportunity to cause him problems, hampered his administration. Domestically, he had to fight against the strong opposition leader Gough Whitlam of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) , who surpassed him in popularity. In addition, the Australian public was increasingly tired of the conservative governments, which had ruled uninterrupted for just over 21 years at the time McMahon took office. Its economic policy was also undermined by the then high inflation . Domestically, he finished the construction of Australia's first nuclear power plant , the Jervis Bay nuclear power plant , which Gorton had started. In terms of foreign policy, he pursued an anti-communist course, which led him to sideline in July 1971 after Richard Nixon's announcement of a visit to China for February 1972. Less than two weeks later, the cabinet under McMahon's leadership decided to withdraw the two remaining Australian battalions from the Vietnam War by the end of the same year .

In the House of Representatives elections on December 2, 1972, William McMahon lost his government majority and was replaced as Prime Minister by Gough Whitlam three days later.

Later years

On December 20, 1972, William McMahon gave up the chairmanship of the Liberal Party (LP) . In the following ten years he remained as a simple member of the House of Representatives until he retired on January 4, 1982. He then worked as a consultant for banks.

In 1977 Queen Elizabeth II was elevated to the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Michael and St. George .

On March 31, 1988, after a long illness, he died of cancer at the age of 80 .