John Gorton

The Right Honourable Sir John Gorton GCMG AC CH
Official portrait, 1968
19th Prime Minister of Australia
In office 10 January 1968 – 10 March 1971
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Governors General	Lord Casey Sir Paul Hasluck
Deputy	John McEwen Doug Anthony
Preceded by	John McEwen
Succeeded by	William McMahon
3rd Leader of the Liberal Party
In office 9 January 1968 – 10 March 1971
Deputy	William McMahon
Preceded by	Harold Holt (1967)
Succeeded by	William McMahon
Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party
In office 10 March 1971 – 18 August 1971
Leader	William McMahon
Preceded by	William McMahon
Succeeded by	Billy Snedden
Leader of the Government in the Senate
In office 16 October 1967 – 1 February 1968
Prime Minister	Harold Holt John McEwen Himself
Preceded by	Denham Henty
Succeeded by	Ken Anderson
Cabinet Positions Minister for Defence In office 19 March 1971 – 13 August 1971 Prime Minister William McMahon Preceded by Malcolm Fraser Succeeded by David Fairbairn Minister for Education and Science In office 16 February 1962 – 28 February 1968 Prime Minister Robert Menzies Harold Holt John McEwen Himself Preceded by Office established Succeeded by Malcolm Fraser Minister for Works In office 18 December 1963 – 28 February 1967 Prime Minister Robert Menzies Harold Holt Preceded by Gordon Freeth Succeeded by Bert Kelly Minister for the Interior In office 18 December 1963 – 4 March 1964 Prime Minister Robert Menzies Preceded by Gordon Freeth Succeeded by Doug Anthony Minister for the Navy In office 10 December 1958 – 18 December 1963 Prime Minister Robert Menzies Preceded by Charles Davidson Succeeded by Jim Forbes
Member of the Australian Parliament for Higgins
In office 24 February 1968 – 11 November 1975
Preceded by	Harold Holt
Succeeded by	Roger Shipton
Senator for Victoria
In office 22 February 1950 – 1 February 1968
Succeeded by	Ivor Greenwood
Personal details
Born	John Grey Gorton (1911-09-09)9 September 1911 uncertain – Wellington, New Zealand, or Prahran, Victoria, Australia
Died	19 May 2002(2002-05-19) (aged 90) St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, Australia
Resting place	Melbourne General Cemetery
Political party	Liberal (1949–1975, 1993–2002)
Other political affiliations	Country (until 1949) Independent (1975–1993)
Spouses	Bettina Brown ​ ​ (m. 1935; died 1983)​ Nancy Home ​ ​ (m. 1993)​
Children	3
Education	Sydney Church of England Grammar School Geelong Grammar School
Alma mater	Brasenose College, Oxford
Signature
Military service
Allegiance	Australia
Branch/service	Royal Australian Air Force
Years of service	1940–1944
Rank	Flight Lieutenant
Unit	No. 61 Operational Training Unit RAF No. 232 Squadron RAF No. 77 Squadron RAAF No. 2 Operational Conversion Unit RAAF
Battles/wars	World War II

Sir John Grey Gorton (9 September 1911 – 19 May 2002) was an Australian politician, farmer and airman who served as the 19th prime minister of Australia from 1968 to 1971. He held office as the leader of the Liberal Party of Australia, having previously served as a senator for Victoria. He was the first and only member of the upper house of the Parliament to assume the office of prime minister.

Gorton was born out of wedlock and had a turbulent childhood. He studied at Brasenose College, Oxford, after finishing his secondary education at Geelong Grammar School, and then returned to Australia to take over his father's property in northern Victoria. Gorton enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force in 1940, and was a fighter pilot in Malaya and New Guinea during the Second World War. He suffered severe facial injuries in a crash landing on Bintan Island in 1942, and whilst being evacuated, his ship was torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese submarine.

Gorton returned to farming after being discharged in 1944, and was elected to the Kerang Shire Council in 1946; he later served a term as shire president. After a previous unsuccessful candidacy at state level, Gorton was elected to the Senate at the 1949 federal election.

Gorton took a keen interest in foreign policy, and gained a reputation as a strident anti-Communist. Gorton was promoted to the ministry in 1958, and over the following decade held a variety of different portfolios in the governments of Sir Robert Menzies and Harold Holt. He was responsible at various times for the Royal Australian Navy, public works, education, and science. He was elevated to the Cabinet in 1966, and the following year, he was promoted to Leader of the Government in the Senate.

Gorton defeated three other candidates for the Liberal leadership after Harold Holt's disappearance on 17 December 1967. He became the first and only senator to assume the office of Prime Minister, but soon transferred to the House of Representatives in line with constitutional convention.

His government continued Australian involvement in the Vietnam War, but began withdrawing troops amid growing public discontent. His government notably encouraged and fostered the re-establishment of the Australian film industry. Gorton retained office at the 1969 federal election in the Coalition’s 20th year in office, albeit with a severely reduced majority. After alienating his party’s right wing and following the resignation of Malcolm Fraser from his ministry, Gorton resigned as Liberal leader in March 1971 after a confidence motion in his leadership was tied, and was replaced by Billy McMahon. After losing the prime ministership, Gorton was elected deputy leader under McMahon and appointed Minister for Defence; he was sacked for disloyalty after a few months.

After the Coalition's defeat at the 1972 federal election, Gorton unsuccessfully stood as McMahon's replacement. He briefly was an opposition frontbencher under Billy Snedden, but stood down in 1974 and spent the rest of his career as a backbencher. Notably, during this period Gorton moved the motion which decriminalised homosexuality federally and in the territories.^[1] Gorton resigned from the Liberal Party when Fraser was elected leader and he denounced the dismissal of the Whitlam government; at the 1975 election he mounted an unsuccessful campaign for the Senate as an Independent in the ACT and advocated for a Labor win. He later spent several years as a political commentator, retiring from public life in 1981.

Gorton's domestic policies, which emphasised centralisation and economic nationalism, were often controversial in his own party, and his individualistic style alienated many of his Cabinet members. His political views widely varied and were incongruous, although he is generally regarded as having shifted further to the left over time after starting his parliamentary career on his party's hard right. Conservatively, he opposed Indigenous land rights, was opposed to an Australian Republic, was and at times fervently supported Australia developing nuclear weapons,^[2] but progressively, he staunchly supported drug decriminalisation, LGBT equality and reproductive rights. Evaluations of his prime ministership have been mixed; although he is generally ranked higher than either Holt or McMahon, Gorton is usually considered to have been a transitional prime minister who ultimately fell short of his potential for greatness.^[3]