Barnard resigned from Parliament in June 1975 and was appointed Ambassador in Sweden. His place in Cabinet was taken by Bill Morrison who had been Barnard’s Minister Assisting (and earlier, Minister for Science). Morrison therefore needed little briefing about the full range of portfolio interests.

My own relationship with him was not new, but subject to a complete reversal of status. Morrison had been an officer in External Affairs subject to my authority. He had taken a specialised course in Slavonic studies in London. I had posted him to Moscow as First Secretary and Chargé (his second posting there). In that post he had attracted the attention of the Soviet system and, following our expulsion of a Soviet First Secretary from their Embassy in Canberra for espionage, the Soviet Union retaliated and declared Morrison persona non grata on a spurious charge of breaching diplomatic decorum. Barwick as Minister robustly defended Morrison’s reputation and rejected the Soviet claim. But the expulsion of Morrison proceeded.

What followed led me to issue a sharp instruction to Morrison. In the media excitement in Australia over the expulsion, Morrison was met by the media at all staging points of his exit. He so clearly enjoyed talking to the media and the light of publicity cast on him that I told him while en route to Australia to cool it or, more precisely, to shut up. While the Minister was dealing with Parliament, and I with the Russians and the media, with the truth of the matter as best we could ascertain it, it was necessary to avoid inadvertent conflict with what was being uttered by a distant voice off-stage. What I failed to detect was a budding politician enjoying being a public figure. He left the Department in 1969 after successfully contesting a Sydney seat for the Labor Party. He had had a remarkably rapid rise to the Ministry in the Whitlam Government, holding several portfolios.

As a subordinate of Morrison the Minister, what I had said to him in 1963 did not appear to have affected our official relations. Unlike most of his predecessors, he was well informed on international security and defence issues. He took me and others on the customary call on the Pentagon and other American officials. He investigated the US Coast Guard Service, prompted by the current strain on our naval patrol boat capabilities caused by the flow of ‘boat people’ into Australian waters. He also examined progress by the Americans with the light frigate programme.

Back at home, the Defence Reorganisation Bill was debated in the Senate in August and on 28 October the Governor-General approved the Act and directed that it be proclaimed and enter into force on 9 February 1976. But before then events were moving into a crisis for the Government.

Morrison’s 1975–76 budget sought an estimated 2.8 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product. It reflected the increased cost of Barnard’s earlier decisions on manpower and conditions of service, as well as the price inflation which Labor’s fiscal policies had generated throughout the economy. Nevertheless, an increase in capital equipment’s share was achieved.

But in late 1975 the Government was forced into finding ways of paying for government services as supply dried up under the Senate blockade. Treasury initiated a plan for paying members of the Services with vouchers, redeemable at banks. It was unworkable. An example of this was the situation in which wives and dependents of the Navy’s other rank seamen, away at sea, found themselves—unfamiliar with banking and fearful of what might happen next.

Before this bizarre, but constitutionally significant, situation developed further, 11 November arrived. I had no knowledge of the Prime Minister’s intentions or, indeed, of any of the political manoeuvres leading to that day. I attended the Remembrance Day service at the Australian War Memorial, returned to my desk briefly, and went to lunch, returning to my office before 2.00 pm. I remained in complete ignorance of what was going on at Yarralumla, and have since relied, years later, on the details provided by Paul Kelly in his book.^[10] While I was sitting at my desk catching up with accumulated papers, my secretary burst into the room to say that the Prime Minister had been dismissed and replaced by Malcolm Fraser. This seemed so improbable that I asked where she had received the information. ‘From my mum, listening to the radio,’ she said. I told her, no doubt with some acerbity, not to interrupt me in future with tales from her mother. Nonetheless, I switched on the radio. I heard Malcolm Fraser speaking from the Government benches. I do not recall whether I gave my secretary the apology for my disbelief that she undoubtedly deserved.