Sir Arthur Fadden KCMG (1894 – 1973)
I never met Sir Arthur Fadden personally, but nevertheless I appreciate his advice, given over a series of telephone calls during 1970.
Now, in 2025, armed with additional understanding, after studying his now – out of print 1969 Memoir They Called Me Artie, I feel that I could adequately comment on our brief, but significant to me, intercourse of 55 Years ago.
Fadden’s intertwining with Robert Menzies, twice, embeds him deeply in Australia’s political coming-of-age.
His entry into Local Government was as Town Clerk of Mackay (Qld) at the age of 22 in 1916.
Fadden’s political progression took him on a roller-coaster career through to 1941, when he became Prime Minister of Australia for 40 days, after less than five years in the House of Representatives.
Moving from his two-year term as Town Clerk where he had been studying accountancy, via correspondence, in 1918, he started a public accountancy practice in Townsville (Qld). Very early in his accountancy practice he was confronted with the rapacious nature of the Australian Taxation Department (now called ATO) and because he had studied an English House of Lords decision that resembled a client’s predicament, he was successful in achieving the cancellation of his client’s substantial tax assessment.
This major victory appears to have enabled Fadden to prioritize Justice over Tax Laws.
Fadden’s meteoric political career spanned Australia’s anxious days of WWII before Japan attacked Pearl Harbour and his vital communications with Churchill dealing with Tobruk.
Much about Robert Menzies changing ‘style’ is learned from Fadden’s Memoir where he was not a Menzies admirer when Menzies was travelling under the banner of The United Australia Party.
When Menzies announced his resignation as United Australia Party, Prime Minister on 28 Aug. 1941, Arthur Fadden was appointed Country Party Prime Minister – his Memoir expresses great admiration for his Labor Party successor, John Curtin, who he described, “in my opinion, there was no greater figure in Australia’s public life than Curtin.”
These were troubling times with Australia having 400,000 men under arms and ammunition production increasing eighteenfold over two years.
When Fadden again joined forces with Robert Menzies, now as Liberal Party Leader, for the successful 1949 elections when Menzies was again Prime Minister and Fadden, Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer, Fadden reported that, “Menzies had attained a maturity of leadership which was lacking during his previous term of office.”
During Fadden’s long political career he maintained his connection with his accounting practice Fadden Sutton and Co. in Townsville and then as Fadden & O’Shea in Brisbane, which gave him the perfect launch-pad (upon retiring from politics) from which to launch Australia’s tax minimisation industry, again with the thrust of favouring Justice over Arbitrary Tax Laws.
Thank you for reading.
Ron Manners AO
