WI: Harold Holt did not vanish

What if Harold Holt did not disappear while swimming and served out his term as Australian Prime Minister. How would Australian history and politics be effected?
 
The knives were already out for poor old Holt. The other referendum proposal in 1967 (an end to the House-Senate nexus) was clobbered; Whitlam had clear ascendancy over him in Parliament; the Voyager inquiry just dragged on and on; and he had a whole pack of hugely ambitious and highly disloyal ministers, with McMahon leading but Hasluck close behind, and with McEwen despising everyone. Mungo MacCallum thinks the first attempt on the leadership would have been in 1968, and would have failed; I think the Tet Offensive, a bit of a non-event in our own history (due to Gorton's honeymoon), could have seriously crippled Holt's standing (since he was, of all the Liberal leaders, the one tied most securely to Vietnam). If Hasluck had stayed in Parliament, he would have been the natural successor, since no one liked McMahon.

There are two options from there: one, the destabilisation continues until 1969, when we finally get the much-speculated and heralded Whitlam '69 victory (the most thought-about 'if only' in Australian history), or Hasluck, a far more formidable figure than Holt, Gorton and McMahon put together, seizes the reins and keeps the Liberal Party firmly in control, forestalling Whitlam's rise to power indefinitely, leading to, perhaps, a progressive, socially liberal, reformist 1970s under the Liberal Party, with Don Chipp as the natural leader of Australia's youthful social reformers...
 
The knives were already out for poor old Holt. The other referendum proposal in 1967 (an end to the House-Senate nexus) was clobbered; Whitlam had clear ascendancy over him in Parliament; the Voyager inquiry just dragged on and on; and he had a whole pack of hugely ambitious and highly disloyal ministers, with McMahon leading but Hasluck close behind, and with McEwen despising everyone. Mungo MacCallum thinks the first attempt on the leadership would have been in 1968, and would have failed; I think the Tet Offensive, a bit of a non-event in our own history (due to Gorton's honeymoon), could have seriously crippled Holt's standing (since he was, of all the Liberal leaders, the one tied most securely to Vietnam). If Hasluck had stayed in Parliament, he would have been the natural successor, since no one liked McMahon.

There are two options from there: one, the destabilisation continues until 1969, when we finally get the much-speculated and heralded Whitlam '69 victory (the most thought-about 'if only' in Australian history), or Hasluck, a far more formidable figure than Holt, Gorton and McMahon put together, seizes the reins and keeps the Liberal Party firmly in control, forestalling Whitlam's rise to power indefinitely, leading to, perhaps, a progressive, socially liberal, reformist 1970s under the Liberal Party, with Don Chipp as the natural leader of Australia's youthful social reformers...

Have to say I agree with virtually everything you've said. I've often thought about an ATL with Whitlam winning the 1969 election, but I would assume someone's already done one of those on this site. It would be interesting to see the policy outcomes of the Whitlam govt if they weren't derailed by OPEC 73.

But perhaps even more interesting is continued Liberal hegemony into the 1970's. I wonder what would have happened to the ALP under such a ATL, would we see a virtually uninterrupted Liberal rule throught to the present day?
 
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