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Clip description
Dame Enid Lyons and former prime minister Sir Robert Menzies discuss the strengths of Joe Lyons.
Curator’s notes
Joe Lyons was the first Australian prime minister to serve three successive terms. The reasons for his personal popularity are as uncomplicated as Lyons himself. His widow, Dame Enid Lyons, recalls his gift for conciliation and gentle persuasion.
Sir Robert Menzies, who succeeded Lyons as prime minister, remembers Lyons’s outstanding political skill. Menzies offers a frank assessment of Lyons: he was not the most intellectual or visionary of leaders, but one whose ability to ‘hear the House [of parliament]’ contributed to his long term in office. At the time this documentary was made, Menzies had just retired from office after 17 years as prime minister – a record unlikely to ever be broken.
The interviews in this clip are filmed in what now seems an old-fashioned, static style – mostly in close-up, with few edits – but this was the norm in the mid-1960s when this documentary was made. The choice of subjects more than makes up for it, as we are privileged to hear from two key players in Lyons’s life. It is particularly interesting to hear Menzies speak in such gentlemanly fashion about Lyons, as it is unusual today to hear politicians talk so generously about their political rivals.
