Menzies, Fadden and Moreton's 'Youthful' Captain: the fall and rise of Australian coalition-press relations, 1939-1945

Menzies, Fadden and Moreton's 'Youthful' Captain: the fall and rise of Australian coalition-press relations,
1939-1945

During the 1943 Australian election campaign at the height of World War II, Federal Opposition Leader Arthur Fadden carried his suitcases into Sydney’s Hotel Australia lobby and greeted labour-oriented journalist Edgar Holt, also
from Queensland, by saying: ‘I think they’ve left me for dead’. He appeared a lone, ‘rather melancholy’ figure as he predicted defeat for his unstable Coalition. As Queensland’s Member for Darling Downs, ‘Artie’ Fadden had generated positive news coverage only two years earlier, when he became the affable prime minister who brought a ‘practical’ approach and ‘sturdy’ voice to his broadcasts that resonated with wartime audiences. Yet the Coalition’s divisiveness contributed to relegating his administration to the Opposition benches after only 40 days. In 1943, although Fadden had conducted the most intense campaigning tour of any federal leader, he reluctantly accepted an unprecedented loss for the United Australia Party-Country Party (UAP-CP).

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