This slow, steady and dependable approach to financial management made Turner a valuable political commodity for the new government. At Australia’s second federal election, Deakin campaigned on the virtues of Turner’s caution as a financial manager, telling voters that Turner was not a man ‘to be carried away by madcap schemes of visionaries or utopians’.37 The Deakin government prevailed in the December 1903 election but fell the following year when the Labor Party withdrew its parliamentary support. This led to the world’s first ever national Labor government being commissioned, with party leader John Christian Watson forming an administration.
It has been asserted by some scholars, and by reportage at the time, that Watson asked Turner to stay on as treasurer in his government. But this alleged offer was never verified by Watson or Turner during their lifetimes. If it was made, it was not accepted, and Watson assumed the mantle of Australia’s first Labor treasurer, as well as its first Labor prime minister, while Turner joined his colleagues on the opposition benches.
The Watson government was fairly short-lived, with Free Trade Party leader George Reid getting the parliamentary upper hand and forming the next government. Reid wanted his government to be constructed on broad anti-Labor lines and invited Turner to return to the Treasury. Turner’s health had by this time declined and he refused. However, Reid tried again a few months later and Turner, encouraged by Deakin, became the first of five treasurers (so far) to serve in the role more than once.
This political continuity on Turner’s part was symptomatic of a couple of factors. Firstly, as has been established, the Treasury portfolio was largely a function of financial accounting rather than high economic policy—the fact that Reid and Turner had different views when it came to the big economic questions of the day was not a barrier to Turner’s continued occupancy of the Treasury portfolio. If Turner had been minister for customs, as opposed to treasurer, he would have found it much more difficult to retain his place in the government.
Secondly, the fact that Turner and Reid felt comfortable working together was symbolic of an emerging political divide. The growing strength of the Labor Party meant that whether you were a Protectionist or a Free Trader would soon no longer be the defining question of Australian politics. Rather, it would be whether you were Labor or anti-Labor. Reid’s willingness to have Turner as treasurer and Turner’s willingness to serve in Reid’s administration were precursors to the amalgamation of the Protectionist and Free Trade parties into the Commonwealth Liberal Party, an event also known as the Fusion, in 1907. It is important to note that, as the Protectionist leader, Deakin, while not wishing to serve in Reid’s Cabinet himself, had no objections to Turner serving in the ministry. Indeed, Turner said at the time that Deakin had ‘pressed him’ into accepting the role.38 Turner’s ability and willingness to survive political transitions, however, was almost at end.
Deakin was genuinely outraged by what he saw as the political interference in the High Court by the attorney-general in the Reid government, Sir Josiah Simon. (In an act of highly dubious probity by today’s standards, Barton, who had transitioned from the prime ministership to the High Court bench, had shown Deakin letters from the attorney-general to the chief justice.) More importantly, Deakin was worried that Reid might call an early election in an attempt to fuse the non-Labor parties under his own leadership, as opposed to Deakin’s. So on 24 June 1905, as a precursor to a move in parliament, Deakin gave a speech to his electors in Ballarat that was highly critical of Reid. Deakin told his audience that Reid ‘was asking those who sat with him in the House to give him a blank cheque, the details of which Mr Reid would fill in later’. Deakin said he was no longer prepared to write such a cheque.39
This was clearly an ominous sign for the future of the Reid government, which relied on Protectionist support to stay in office. Turner, the most senior Protectionist minister in the government, was not consulted by Deakin and was hurt by his actions. As Manning Clark describes it, ‘George Turner could not understand why dear, kind Mr Deakin should stick a harpoon in his back.’40
When Deakin moved a motion of no confidence in the government, every Protectionist member except for Turner and the other three Protectionist ministers voted for it. The motion was carried by forty-two votes to twenty-five, and Deakin subsequently assumed the prime ministership. Jaded by Deakin’s behaviour and still of poor health, Turner did not seek to continue as federal treasurer. And when Deakin called an election the following year, Turner did not contest it.
Afterwards
Turner was not particularly active after retiring from politics. He returned to being a solicitor in Collins Street, Melbourne, with his son George, who would tragically predecease his parents when he was killed in a railway accident in 1908. In 1907, Turner amalgamated his practice with Corr & Corr, which would grow into one of Australia’s largest legal firms (now Corrs Chambers Westgarth). From 1906, Turner was also chairman of commissioners of the State Savings Bank of Victoria, a job he was well suited to—Turner’s conservative approach and firm grasp of financial risk would have come in very handy for the bank eight decades later when it collapsed under the weight of imprudent lending.
Turner’s health, which had not been good during the later years of his political career, improved considerably in the early years of his retirement. However, a decade after relinquishing politics, at the age of sixty-five, he died of
