“The Australian Women's Weekly” 13 September 1941

I was Fadden's secretary . . . Prime Minister was always "Artie" to everybody

by MARGARET STEELE, in an interview

With two other girls I set out from Melbourne to work my way around Australia - and found a Prime Minister.
We didn't know it at the time, when we anchored in Townsville with a letter of introduction to Mr. Arthur Fadden, public accountant, and I became his secretary.
But it took only a few days of working for this genial, quick-brained, six-foot tall young man to know that Mr. Fadden, already successful, was going places.

When I left at the end of six months (because I couldn't stand the northern climate, which affected not one whit my North Queensland-bred employer), it was with an even firmer conviction that people would hear more of popular Artie Fadden.
For Artie he was to everyone, just as he is even today in the uneasy chair of Australia's thirteenth Prime Minister.
Our Townsville acquaintances, inquiring how the "tourists from the south," as they called us, were getting on, would say to me: 'Working for Artie Fadden, are you? Well, you're lucky."
And although I've had a lot of jobs all over Australia since then, and worked for many employers, I've watched his career ever since.

For Artie he was to everyone, just as he is even today

He was a wizard with figures, and the outstanding taxation expert of the north. (Now he certainly knows its problems from both sides.)
The wonder was that he seemed to be able to make taxation a cheerful subject, and if there's anything guaranteed to take the smile off the average citizen's face it's the annual assessment.
But burly shirt-sleeved men, many of them owners of huge properties as far away as the Gulf country, would come to consult him on their problems.
They usually entered none too pleased, expressed in booming voices and Australian parlance what they thought of the subject in general, but invariably Mr. Fadden's disarming good humor sent them away with a chuckle over his latest anecdote.
His staff travelled as far north as Cairns and as far south as Bowen to audit the books of the sugar and cattle magnates.

Cool - comfortable

His office was one of the airiest in the stifling summer of Townsville, for, although a man of simple tastes not given to extravagance, he believed in making his staff comfortable.
Thus - though the men, including the boss, sat in shirt-sleeves with towels on the arms of their chairs and a piece of blotting paper to mop the brow - electric fans made it a much pleasanter office than most.

He was a wizard with figures, and the outstanding taxation expert of the north.

He had, too, the gift of making people like working for him, surely a useful quality in a Prime Minister.
I know that if he asked me to work longer than usual, or any other member of his staff for that matter, none of us minded. We felt we had a good spin if things were slack.
Mr. Fadden is a thoroughly self-made man. He left school at the age of 15, and became general rouse-about to a gang of cane cutters in the Mackay district. He boiled their billy and swept their sleeping quarters.
Later he got a job as office boy for the Pleystowe Mill, then applied for the job of assistant to the Town Clerk in Mackay.
At the age of 21 he was Town Clerk, and at 24 set up his own accountancy and tax agency firm in Mackay.
He had been an excellent cricketer, footballer, and runner, though at 36 he had little time for sports, although he played bowls.
The pleasantly situated bowling green was the coolest spot in Townsville, and a great meeting-place for the local business men.
By the time I knew him he was already a prosperous business man, married with four children. He was President of the Chamber of Commerce in Townsville, and was known throughout the north as a straight and honest man.
At that time he had never been out of Queensland. While I was there he had his first holiday trip to Sydney, and I remember the whole office was excited about the 1300-mile journey.
He never talked at that time about political ambitions, although a couple of years earlier he had been invited to contest a State electorate.
That was typical of him, as it was one of his strongest characteristics not to talk idly. He never made a statement unless he was sure of it.

He had, too, the gift of making people like working for him, surely a useful quality in a Prime Minister.

Passion for accuracy

He attacked everything with the same passion for accuracy as he did his figures. For instance, he occasionally came across an unfamiliar word in a newspaper or a book. I would then be enlisted to look it up in the three dictionaries and reference books he kept by him.
One dictionary wasn't enough. He wanted to be absolutely sure of it, and I often noticed him use the word later, when a suitable context arose.
I read of his entry into Federal politics in 1936 with interest, and when last year during Mr. Menzies' absence he became Deputy Prime Minister I wrote him a letter of congratulation, though saying that he would probably not remember me.
However, an answer duly arrived saying that he remembered me quite well, and thanking me.
To-day I am sure he carries with him the good wishes of everyone who knows him in North Queensland.
I have heard that he is Canberra's best mixer. That is not surprising, for in contrast to the unfortunate and oft-quoted remark that Mr. Menzies once made about himself, nobody can ever say that Artie Fadden is "too-damned superior."

He attacked everything with the same passion for accuracy as he did his figures.