Holt, Harold Edward (1908–67) entered politics as a protégé of Robert Menzies, and fulfilled his patron's hopes when he became leader of the Liberal Party and prime minister of Australia in 1966. Holt was educated at Wesley College, followed by law at the University of Melbourne. He practised briefly as a solicitor before winning the seat of Fawkner as a UAP member in 1935 and held the seat until a redistribution in 1949, after which he was member for Higgins. Holt joined the first Menzies government in 1939 as minister without portfolio, before enlisting in the AIF in mid-1940, only to be recalled to Canberra after the death of three senior ministers in a plane crash.
He was given the portfolio of labour and national service. Although he reluctantly supported the removal of Menzies in 1941, Holt was welcomed back into the ministry following the 1949 Liberal victory; he became minister for immigration as well as labour and national service. His rise in the party was smooth: he became deputy leader of the parliamentary Liberal Party in 1956, then treasurer in 1958. It was in the latter role that he experienced his first real political setback, when his decision to create a credit squeeze led to unemployment and a large voter backlash in the 1961 elections. Even so, he was the obvious heir apparent at Menzies's resignation in 1966. His easing of the White Australia policy reflected a desire to move Australia closer to Asia, and he travelled widely in the region.
As an enthusiastic believer in the need to support South Vietnam, he won a landslide victory in the 1966 election but came under increasing pressure from the growing protest movement against the Vietnam War. His commitment to go ‘all the way with LBJ’ (referring to the US president, Lyndon Baines Johnson) antagonised many Australians. Disputes within the Liberal– Country Party coalition also created pressures at this time. All these factors were discussed after Holt disappeared in rough surf at Cheviot Beach, Portsea, Victoria, in late 1967. Rumours of suicide circulated, as did a bizarre story that Holt was a Chinese spy and had been whisked away aboard a mini-submarine. The overwhelming likelihood is that he drowned. A swimming pool in his electorate was named after him and a memorial plaque placed under the waters of Cheviot Beach.
Kim Torney
How to cite this entry: Kim Torney "Holt, Harold Edward" The Oxford Companion to Australian History. Ed. Graeme Davison, John Hirst and Stuart Macintyre. Oxford University Press, 2001. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 3 February 2012
