John McEwen

John McEwen. Photo: National Library of Australia, nla.pic-an12266121.

Our third 'care-taker' Prime Minister was John McEwen, who took over the role of Prime Minister in 1967 after Harold Holt disappeared while swimming in heavy surf. McEwen, who had been leader of the Country Party and Deputy Prime Minister for nine years, was replaced after only 23 days by the Liberal Party's new choice - John Gorton.

McEwen is well known as the architect of a high tariff policy established in the 1950s to protect Australian industry.

John McEwen was born in Chiltern, Victoria on 29 March 1900. He was the son of David McEwen, a pharmacist who had immigrated from Northern Ireland and married Amy Ellen Porter in Wangaratta, Victoria. John was only 18 months old when his mother died; his father died when he was seven. His widowed maternal grandmother then reared him and his younger sister.

John McEwan left school at 13 but continued his education at night school while working as a switchboard operator for a pharmaceutical firm. After passing an examination for the Commonwealth Public Service at 15 he started work in the Commonwealth Crown Solicitor's office.

McEwan enlisted in the 1st Australian Imperial Force (AIF) in August 1918, but the war ended before he set off for service overseas. He was granted a soldier settler block of 35 hectares at Stanhope in the Goulburn Valley, Victoria, where he cleared land and established a dairy farm and later moved into sheep farming. He led a campaign to establish a cooperative dairy factory and became its chairman of directors.

In 1932 McEwen stood unsuccessfully as the Country Party (CP) candidate for election to the Victorian state parliament, but succeeded in doubling the CP vote.

He married Ann McLeod in 1921, who died in 1967, and Mary Byrne in 1968. Neither marriage produced any children.

John McEwan entered federal parliament in 1934 at the general election as the Country Party candidate for Echuca. After electoral redistribution he won the seat of Indi at the general election in 1937 and held it through the next three general elections: 1940, 1943 and 1946. Following further redistribution he took the seat of Murray in 1949 and held it through the next eight general elections: 1951, 1954 (unopposed), 1955, 1958, 1961, 1963, 1966 and 1969.

McEwen was Minister for Interior in Joseph Lyons' United Australia Party-Country Party coalition from 29 November 1937 to 26 April 1939, when Earle Page took the CP out of the coalition in protest over the United Australia Party's (UAP) appointment of Robert Menzies as UAP leader, after the death of Lyons. When Page resigned as CP leader on 13 September, McEwen stood for CP leadership but was narrowly defeated by AG Cameron. When Cameron resigned in October 1940, McEwen stood again for the leadership, this time against Page. When the vote was tied, the deputy leader, Arthur Fadden, was chosen as 'Acting Leader' and later confirmed as leader.

On the CP's re-entry into the coalition with the UAP on 14 March 1940, McEwen was appointed Minister for External Affairs and held the position until 28 October 1940. He was then appointed Minister for Air and Minister for Civil Aviation. He held these portfolios until the fall of Fadden's UAP-CP coalition government on 7 October 1941. McEwen also served on the War Council in 1940, then on an all-party Advisory War Council until the end of the war in 1945.

On the election of the Liberal-CP coalition government led by RG Menzies in December 1949, McEwan became Minister for Commerce and Agriculture and served in that portfolio until 11 January 1956.

McEwen became both Country Party leader and Deputy Prime Minister when Fadden retired as CP leader on 26 March 1958. He held these positions in both RG Menzies', and then Harold Holt's, Liberal-CP coalition governments.

McEwan was the key figure in negotiating Australia's international trade agreements throughout the 1950s-1960s. During the 1940s the UK had taken over 50 per cent of Australia's exports and provided 40 per cent of its imports, but by the early 1960s these figures had dropped to 20 per cent and 30 per cent respectively. UK efforts to join the European Economic Community (EEC) prompted Australia to diversify its markets, establishing new outlets for its wheat, wool, beef, iron ore and bauxite in Japan, USA, China and the Eastern European Communist bloc. By 1967, six years before UK entered the EEC, Japan had replaced UK as Australia's principal trading partner.

McEwen travelled widely in Europe, Asia, North America and Pacific regions, attending conferences on trade and tariffs. A determined, hard bargainer in such venues and a vigorous defender of Australian interests in agriculture, industry and commerce, he became widely known by his nickname, 'Black Jack'.

McEwen led Australian delegations to General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) conferences in Geneva in 1954 and 1967. He served as Acting Prime Minister on many occasions while RG Menzies and HE Holt were overseas.

As Deputy Prime Minister when HE Holt disappeared and was presumed drowned, McEwen was commissioned as Prime Minister until the governing parties appointed a replacement for Holt. He held the position for three weeks, from 19 December 1967 until 10 January 1968, when the Liberals elected John Grey Gorton as their new leader. He played a critical role in Gorton's accession by announcing on 20 December 1967 that he and the Country Party would quit the coalition if the Treasurer, William McMahon, became Liberal leader. He and McMahon had been in serious conflict over economic policy during the year, and he believed that McMahon's views on economics were antagonistic to CP interests.

After leaving parliament (only five weeks before W McMahon replaced JG Gorton as Prime Minister), McEwen retired to his grazing property at Stanhope, where he resided until his death almost ten years later. He died in Melbourne on 20 November 1980.