Category Archives: Article

When the Australian ruling class embraced fascism

Originally published in Marxist Left Review 13, Summer 2017

When the Australian ruling class embraced fascism

Louise O’Shea

It is commonplace today to treat the far right and far left as mirror images of each other: both extreme, ideologically rigid, intolerant and similarly isolated from the sensible mainstream.

But history demonstrates that there is little truth to this characterisation. Behind a considerable veil of secrecy though it may be, the history of the Australian far right is one closely intertwined with that of the ruling apparatus: the political establishment, business circles, the military and police force. Continue reading

Before the Teals, the DLP rewrote politics

This article first appeared in The Canberra Times of 5 July 2022

Before the teals, the DLP rewrote politics

by Stephen Holt

The election of sixteen House of Representatives crossbench members, including six or so Teal independents, on 21 May 2022 signals a big shift in the underlying structure of Australian politics.

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Bob Hawke and Canberra’s ‘factional wars’

By Stephen Holt

(An edited version of this article appeared in The Canberra Times (Public Sector Informant) of 5 April 2022)

There is an intriguing reference to political shenanigans in Cold War Canberra in Troy Bramston’s new biography of Bob Hawke.

Bramston in an early chapter refers to a letter dated 24 October 1956. Written by Hawke, then residing in Canberra, to his parents back in Perth, the letter includes commentary by Hawke on, according to Bramston, “factional wars in the local Labor Party in Canberra”.

Bramston’s description prompted me to contact the John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library in Perth – which has a copy of the original letter – to see precisely what the future Prime Minister had to say about his fellow Canberrans. JCPML let me look at its copy. The resulting examination has turned up interesting information.

1956, the year that the letter was written, took in some big events for Hawke. He returned to Australia after having been a Rhodes Scholar at University College, Oxford. In March he married Hazel Masterson in Perth before moving to Canberra to take up a research scholarship at the Australian National University.

The research conducted by Hawke at the ANU focused on the conciliation and arbitration system which regulated relations between employer associations and trade unions.

Hawke engaged with the political side of trade unionism as well which required his becoming a rank and file member of the local Canberra branch of the Australian Labor Party.

Hawke detailed his initial response to grassroots Laborism in the national capital in the letter that he despatched to his parents on or after 24 October 1956.

Context is needed to better understand Hawke’s observations. The Labor Party was highly competitive and outwardly united when Hawke sailed for England in 1953. But by the time he returned in 1956 things were much different.

Labor, under the erratic federal leadership of Dr H V Evatt, was now hopelessly split on the issue of communism. Breakaway elements were in the process of forming the Democratic Labor Party which was dedicated, via preferences at the ballot box, to propping up the Liberal-Country Party coalition government led by Robert Menzies.

Normal Aussies in the 1950s did not include lengthy analyses of internal political bickering when writing to their parents but Hawke was never a normal Aussie. He knew that he was destined for national leadership. He had to understand and master all the political intricacies that that entailed.

In accordance with his destiny Hawke’s filial letter from Canberra included an unbroken two and a half page paragraph in which, in a stream of consciousness, he detailed how the big Labor split was impacting on the local party branch in Canberra.

Local Laborites, Hawke told his parents, were “agitated” by an attempt to create new ALP branches in Canberra. A proposal to break up the existing single branch was being fought over by two rival camps.

Hawke’s letter outlined the rival forces. “Groupers” (aka anti-Evatt people) controlled the existing Canberra Labor Party branch. Followers of Dr John Burton, who periodically advised Dr Evatt on policy issues, hoped to break their control by replacing the existing single branch with three new branches.

Hawke then summarised what ensued.

The Groupers had the numbers at a branch meeting (on 24 September) and blocked the proposed break up. Hawke, with trademark verbal thoroughness, supported the Groupers. His opinion, as passed on to his parents, was that “the present branch is by any standard a remarkably good one” characterised by an “extraordinarily high” level of discussion.

In a follow-up move Hawke (on 13 October) attended an unofficial private meeting organised by Burtonites at a private residence in O’Connor. Many of the attendees, Hawke noted, seemed genuine but Hawke did his best to ensure that “Burton’s henchmen” did not dominate the night’s proceedings.

Finally, just before writing his report to Perth, Hawke (on 22 October) attended a regular meeting of the existing party branch. He came away sensing that a deal to dampen down the infighting was in play. Both sides would be placated. To this end the existing single anti-Evatt branch would be downsized but there would be only one additional branch and not the two new branches that the Burtonites were demanding (this is in fact what happened).

Hawke was ready to assure his parents that he rejected “extremists of either wing” in the ALP. He was prepared to collaborate with the local anti-Evatt forces in Canberra because he considered that their nemesis Dr Burton was the less desirable of the two choices. While he had many “perfectly sound” views, Dr Burton, for Hawke, was a just a “political opportunist” who had to be blocked.

Hawke’s unfavourable opinion of Burton spread out to include distrust of Burton’s federal patron Dr Evatt. The factional content in Hawke’s report concluded with a comment to the effect that Evatt, as evidenced by his willingness to get involved in the then broiling controversy surrounding Professor Sydney Sparkes Orr and the University of Tasmania, was apt to do things that reflected badly on his judgement as a federal leader of the Australian Labor Party.

For their part the anti-Burton camp in Canberra – who were led by the redoubtable Professor L F Crisp from the Canberra University College – welcomed Hawke as a useful collaborator. Branch correspondence held at the National Library of Australia indicates that no hard feelings were generated by Hawke’s attending the informal meeting of critics in O’Connor. He had obviously attended either to express opposition or simply to observe what was happening, as befitted someone who after was still an academic researcher.

Early in 1957 Hawke became vice president of the downsized anti-Evatt Canberra ALP branch. He addressed its annual general meeting on the latest basic wage case being heard by federal conciliation and arbitration authorities.

Hawke’s involvement in local ACT Labor politics had now peaked. His focus after all was on industrial advocacy.

Hawke chose to leave the ANU and take up a position with the Australian Council of Trade Unions in Melbourne. He left Canberra – though not for good – in 1958.

So Hawke’s involvement in local Canberra politics was quite short lived.  His involvement was serious though and highlighted an enduring reality.

Faced with the clear right-wing versus left-wing differentiation in Canberra Laborism in 1956 Hawke opted for the right. When angling for the prime ministership two decades later he had to navigate a similar right-left situation.

The late seventies and early eighties saw a repeat of the Canberra gambit albeit on a much bigger scale. Hawke joined up with opponents of Labor’s Socialist Left faction, which included reaching an understanding with the famed New South Wales Right.

An accommodation with the right was fundamental to Hawke’s final ascendancy. What happened in Canberra in the spring of 1956, when he performed a similar manoeuvre, was a foretaste of important things to come, both for Hawke and for Australian politics as a whole.

Against this background political historians ought to be grateful that back in 1956 Hawke decided to detail his thinking about factionalism in the letter that he wrote to his parents in October of that fractious Canberra year.

Stephen Holt is a Canberra writer.

 

 

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Slavery in Australia – Convicts, Emigrants, Aborigines

Slavery in Australia – Convicts, Emigrants, Aborigines

KM Dallas

Kenneth McKenzie Dallas (1902- 1988) was a Tasmanian historian, teacher, writer and socialist. In September 1968, the Tasmanian Historical Research Association (THRA) published a collection of three articles by Dallas, each offering a different perspective on aspects of Australian history.
The third of the three: ‘Slavery in Australia – Convicts, Emigrants, Aborigines’ is perhaps the most controversial, some would say ahead of its time. He argues that the British colonial system was based on slavery. “That there are degrees of slavery does not alter the basic fact” (p 63).  The article is republished here with the kind permission of the THRA.

Dallas – Slavery in Australia – Convicts, Emigrants, Aborigines

 

 

The fallacy of remoteness

The fallacy of remoteness

KM Dallas

Kenneth McKenzie Dallas (1902- 1988) was a Tasmanian historian, teacher, writer and socialist. In September 1968, the Tasmanian Historical Research Association (THRA) published a collection of three articles by Dallas, each offering a different perspective on aspects of Australian history.
The second of the three: ‘The fallacy of remoteness’ is a critique of Geoffrey Blainey’s ‘Tyranny of Distance.’ Dallas argues that “The inland plains were a land of promise not a distance to be overcome” (p 55).  The article is republished here with the kind permission of the THRA.

Dallas – The fallacy of remoteness

Commercial Influences on the First Settlements of Australia

Commercial Influences on the First Settlements of Australia

KM Dallas

Kenneth McKenzie Dallas (1902- 1988) was a Tasmanian historian, teacher, writer and socialist. In September 1968, the Tasmanian Historical Research Association (THRA) published a collection of three articles by Dallas, each offering a different perspective on aspects of Australian history.

The first of the three: ‘Commercial Influences on the First Settlements of Australia’ challenges the belief that the British chose to colonise Australia because it needed a remote spot to dump its unwanted criminals. He argues instead that British colonial policy at the time was mainly driven by economic considerations arising from the rapidly expanding mercantile system.  The article is republished here with the kind permission of the THRA.

Dallas – Commercial influences on first settlement of Aust

Scullin and Curtin: Through a covid lens

by Stephen Holt

(A review of Liam Byrne’s new book Becoming John Curtin and James Scullin: The making of the modern Labor Party. The article was published in The Canberra Times of 7 July 2020 and is posted here with the permission of the author.)

On 14 December 1918 an election took place in the federal seat of Corangamite. It was held to choose a successor to the previous member J. C Manifold who had fallen victim to the influenza pandemic that was then sweeping the world. Continue reading

The Harco ‘Stay-Put’: Workers’ Control In One Factory?

Drew Cottle and Angela Keys

Factory occupations are rare in Australian labour history. While ‘work-ins’ and other forms of workers’ control have occurred in coalmines, power stations, on building sites and on the waterfront, they are almost unknown in factories. Their importance has always been a crucial part of the Left’s political programme and strategy to establish socialism. This paper will examine the Harco ‘stay-put’ as an example of workers’ control in one factory. It is a study of democracy from below where rank-and-file workers attempted to run things at a small metal-shop on Sydney’s urban fringe.

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DISCOVERIES OF COOK

 

by Humphrey McQueen

And in a charge of bubbles we go about,
Veering in towards drama and Cape Howe;
Eyried in mist we feel the brush of doubt
As stars congeal, the air thickens. There are warnings now.

Francis Webb, Disaster Bay (c.1970).

Whoever it was who reached what we now call Australia some 50,000 or so years ago they were not ‘discovering’ this continent in the sense employed with the re-expansion of Europe when the word gains several of its current connotations. More is involved in deciding whether it is appropriate to speak of ‘discovery’ than a gap of 50,000 years. Incompatible ways of living fall between a primary communalism and an emerging capitalism, one local in its satisfactions, as Lt James Cook assumed, the other global in the appetites he served.

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The Brisbane Line: An episode in capital history


by Drew Cottle

The Brisbane Line was a hotly contested idea during World War 2 which envisioned that the northern half of Australia might be abandoned in the event of an invasion by the Japanese.

Historian Drew Cottle takes a fresh look behind the controversy in this interesting article, originally published in the Journal of Australian Studies, January 2001.

It is reposted here with the kind permission of the author.

Cottle, Drew – The Brisbane line _ An episode in capital history

With friends like these

Tetchy relations between business and the Liberal Party are far from new

by Norman Abjorensen

A non-Labor government in Canberra might ordinarily expect solid support from business — even if only because it is self-interestedly preferable to the alternative, with its presumed tilt towards the unions. But it’s not quite as simple as that. History tells us that the Liberals’ relationship with the big end of town can be far from cosy.

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A socialist’s republic

The republic referendum – 20 years on

‘A socialist’s republic’ by Humphrey McQueen

November 2019 marks the 20th anniversary of the unsuccessful referendum on whether Australia should become a republic. Strange that such an important issue should have lain dormant for so long.

To mark the occasion we present Humphrey McQueen’s article ‘A socialist’s republic’ which originally appeared in ‘Republics of Ideas’ a collection of essays edited by Brad Buckley and John Conomos in 2001. The article is republished here with their kind permission.

The republic referendum was soundly defeated with the ACT the only jurisdiction voting in favour. Yet at the time, public opinion polls showed a majority of Australians supported a republic. So why did the referendum fail? Many would argue that the Yes campaign, headed by Malcolm Turnbull, foolishly split the Yes vote by insisting that Australia’s head of state should be chosen by Parliament rather than by direct election. This was a very divisive issue with memories of the Whitlam dismissal still fresh in the minds of many voters.

In his article Humphrey McQueen suggests that republicans would continue to vote No as long as the elected president retained the power to dismiss an elected government – which is precisely what the Turnbull-led Yes campaign wanted.

Link to the article here.

Clarrie O’Shea – The trade union leader who went to gaol

by John Merritt

This month (May 2019) marks the 50th anniversary of the gaoling of Victorian Tramways Union leader Clarrie O’Shea (1905-1988). 

O’ Shea was gaoled in 1969 by the notorious Sir John Kerr for refusing to hand over the union’s financial records.

His imprisonment sparked a massive strike wave across the country and effectively neutralised the punitive ‘penal powers’ which were then used to suppress union militancy.

This article, first published in Sept 2007 by the Canberra Historical Journal, draws on the author’s personal interviews with Clarrie in 1981. It mainly deals with Clarrie’s life rather than the political circumstances surrounding his imprisonment.

The events of 1969 are still relevant for today’s workers whose unions are similarly hamstrung by a raft of anti-union laws.

Click here to read the article. It is reproduced with the kind permission of John Merritt and the Canberra & District Historical Society. John Merritt is a former ASSLH Branch President.

Our Forgotten Prime Minister

Stephen Holt

Australian Prime Ministers get to have a federal electorate named after them after they die.

There are 22 deceased Australian Prime Ministers and after the latest redistribution there are, seemingly in line with this practice, 22 federal seats bearing the name of a deceased Prime Minister.

There is an anomaly though and it bears directly on our very latest Prime Minister. Continue reading

The ‘Spanish’ Influenza Pandemic in Australia, 1912-19

 

Humphrey McQueen

 (Originally published in Social Policy in Australia – Some Perspectives 1901-1975. Edited by Jill Roe. Cassell Australia 1976)

SIX MONTHS BEFORE the Armistice ended the Great War a new and more deadly scourge was unleashed upon the world. Popularly known as ‘Spanish’ flu it killed twenty million people within twelve months. Continue reading

Ghost of bankers past may come to haunt Shorten

Bob Crawshaw

(First published in The Canberra Times 21 April 2016)

You can almost hear the ghost of prime minister Ben Chifley applauding Bill Shorten’s calls for a royal commission into Australian banking. Yet while Chifley might approve of Shorten’s efforts, he would probably think they do not go far enough. Continue reading

What happened to Childe?

V. Gordon Childe (1892-1957) made himself the most influential Australian scholar in the humanities and social sciences. Forty years after his death, his ideas stimulate thinkers well beyond his own field of Prehistoric archaeology. Humphrey McQueen has returned to Childe’s writings to reflect on current disputes about facts, theorising and politics in the piecing together of our past. Continue reading

Strike Force

Strike Force

Humphrey McQueen

Our ‘right’ to strike has never been handed down from on high. Never will it be. Our right to strike is a precious gift which we win and hold for each other by putting it into practice. Continue reading

Chifley versus the banks

Chifley versus the banks

Nationalisation
The big banks won the last great war against government interference, 70 years ago.

Norman Abjorensen

Originally published in The Canberra Times 6 June 2017

The predictable howls of outrage from the big banks about the $6.2 billion levy imposed on them in the federal budget are unlikely to arouse any sympathy from the electorate, nor will the move do the government any foreseeable harm. But resistance will continue regardless – and the banks have a long history of winning. Continue reading