The veteran Queensland political leader, Manfred Cross, who died on 30 January aged 94, had an influence in history-making events inside the Labor Party, within his home state and at national level. Dr Lee Duffield reflects on the man and his times.
MANFRED CROSS played a big part in changes within the Labor Party in Queensland, first of all as a negotiator during the ruinous party split of the 1950s, then as a leader in reforms that readied it to form the Goss and Beattie governments.
He was a champion storyteller — and through such histories, a teacher.
Just before joining the Australian Labor Party he served during the Second World War as the Scout Aide-de-Camp to the State Governor, making one more adult service person available for duty overseas.
“ROUGH AND TUMBLE” - Labor split of the 1950s
He would recall travelling around the state as a party official during the “split” that resulted in the formation of the break-away party, the Democratic Labor Party (DLP), attending wild meetings, brokering local settlements, trying to keep the Labor Party together.
He had the right temperament for such a task, always modest in his demeanour, respectful to others while prepared to give stern advice -- and gifted with indefatigable patience. He seemed an unlikely participant in the rough-and-tumble of the “old” ALP but also appeared to quietly relish it.
In one of his stories, he had the then-Speaker of Parliament, Johnno Mann, preparing to shoot dead the Treasurer, Ted Walsh, in the public bar of the Lands Office Hotel, at two o’clock in the afternoon. Walsh had been holding up Mann’s pre-selection for his seat. The Premier, Ned Hanlon, intervened with Mann and confiscated his firearm, explaining that the act would bring the government and party into some disrepute, and undertaking to help secure his re-endorsement instead. After Hanlon’s death, they emptied a safe in his office, the contents of which included a pistol found to be on the police register as stolen.
STATE-CRAFT
Manfred Cross had a pragmatic understanding of state-craft, on the lines that the public needed valuable public services, which had to be paid for. He was always highly satisfied with the story of a post-war Commonwealth-State budget settlement, where Queensland was holding large receipts from the rail transport of American and Australian troops and materiel. Much of that was remitted to the Commonwealth, but sufficient was left for leading State projects.
When the Menzies government scrapped federal support for hospitals – an inheritance from the previous Labor government in Canberra – the Queensland Labor government made up the level of funding, generating a long-standing legend of Queensland’s “free hospitals” system — as the only one in the country. Another great beneficiary of the temporary surplus was the crash program on housing, through the State Housing Commission, which resolved a post-war housing crisis.
UPS AND DOWNS IN ELECTIONS
Manfred Cross won preselection for the Labor seat of Brisbane, based around the area where he grew up, for the 1961 Federal Election. It was the year of the great swing to Labor in Queensland which almost defeated the Menzies government – reducing it to a one-seat majority.
Together with his friend and colleague first elected that same time, the Member for Oxley Bill Hayden, he withstood the counter-swing in 1966, the election fought over conscription and the Vietnam War. He’d said the war commitment, strongly supported in the electorate that year, was an issue “you could not run away from”.
He developed a prescient interest in the importance to Australia of the South Pacific countries, committing to research on their needs and histories, with most of them coming into independence during the 1960s.
Gough Whitlam as incoming Prime Minister in 1972 declared that he wanted him in the Cabinet, as Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, but it was blocked by caucus. Members caught up in the ambitions of the day – with mates of their own to advance – were prepared to mistake his quiet manner for being “too conservative”.
Other disappointments would follow.
Manfred Cross lost Brisbane in the anti-Labor swing of 1975, and was unsuccessful again in 1977, before regaining the seat in 1980, to remain in parliament for another ten years.
He was passed over for the Ministry in the Hawke government, saying it had become impossible after he supported Hayden against Bob Hawke’s successful leadership challenge in 1983.
KEY NEGOTIATOR - REFORMING THE LABOR PARTY
Undaunted he played a central role in getting together an internal reform movement within the Labor Party in Queensland, worn down by repeated electoral defeats since the time of the split, and reduced to fighting between left-wing and conservative groupings of unions.
Together with the Labor historian Denis Murphy, Peter Beattie and others, he formed a “Centre” faction to draw in residual supporters, who would want both a modernisation of Labor and also of Queensland under the continuing rule of Joh Bjelke Petersen.
Once again, a quarter century after he set out to broker deals over the “split”, Cross became the negotiator called on to set up agreements and cajole the “Old Guard” of his party to give ground. He had some stories about visiting the party headquarters building at Breakfast Creek, to see them about handing over the premises.
After federal intervention in the State branch of the party, the system of internal voting was liberalised enough for the reform group to dominate, for a sufficient time to reverse Labor’s poor standing in State polls.
HONOURS AND FAMILY
Manfred Cross is often remembered as a Christian, with background in the Anglican Church, and also a bibliophile — a man with an urge to note just about every serious new book published and maybe add it to his large personal library. He would handle the volume of words by scrutinising the reviews, then delve into a book that particularly interested him. He was a Fellow of the Historical Society of Queensland, writing several articles for the society’s Bulletin, and followed a similar strong interest in geography.
Manfred Cross was a model parliamentarian in the way he would study any issue that he approached. He was a kindly mentor, advisor and active helper to many entering the political game.
He towered above the great majority of his colleagues in Canberra, where his honesty and dignity surpassed the go-getter greed, cynicism and bullying that makes up too much of the culture of that place. Although, he had respectful relationships with fellow politicians, loved the parliament and generally would not himself hear anything against it. In 1992 he was honoured as a Member of the Order of Australia for services to the parliament and community.
From the late 1960s he had a strong partner in his wife Barbara, a person also with a history of Labor activism, whom he both cherished as a friend and saluted as an ideal “political wife”. Mrs Cross had stories of her own, opening a window on the life of politics.
She remembered the State Parliament House garden party after the break-through election of the Goss government in 1989, noting the arrangement whereby Government invitees got the shady side of the lawn and Opposition ones got the hot sun — tickled that they had swapped over and she was enjoying the cool shadows. The couple set out some time ahead of the later wave of “grey nomads” into the interior, driving off in their 4WD on bird-watching expeditions.
Manfred Cross who died in Brisbane is survived by his wife, son Ashley and daughter Tanya, and their families.
Manfred Cross AM 12.8.29 – 30.1.24
Amongst Dr Lee Duffield’s vast journalistic experience, he has served as ABC's European correspondent. He is also an esteemed academic and member of the editorial advisory board of Pacific Journalism Review.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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