The Ancestry of the Australian Prime Ministership: “the blue ribbon of the highest possible ambition”

More than a century after the birth of the Commonwealth of Australia, the office of prime minister is the apex of the nation's political life. Yet little has been written about the antecedence and evolution of the office of prime minister. This article takes a step towards redressing this neglect by considering how the Westminster‐derived model of the prime ministership was conditioned by the nature and form of executive office in the Australian colonies in the second half of the nineteenth century. The experience of the colonial legislatures predisposed against fears of an overweening executive. The constitutional Conventions of the 1890s were dominated by seasoned colonial politicians with benign attitudes towards executive authority. Yet as delegates grappled with the challenge of marrying responsible government to a federal system, the form of executive was debated rather than treated as fait accompli. These deliberations hinted at their expectations for the prime ministership in a federated Australia: the office would be the most powerful and greatest political prize in the new nation. The article concludes by suggesting that the first Commonwealth decade was a transitional period for the prime ministership (with pre‐Federation patterns still evident) and identifying the Fisher Government of 1910–13 as heralding a shift to a more modern form of (party‐based) executive governance.     

The Electoral Poetics of James Scullin's Campaign against Alfred Deakin, 1906: Anticipating “Fusion”

In the 1906 federal election James Scullin, then an unknown grocer, challenged the sitting Prime Minister, Alfred Deakin, for his seat of Ballaarat. This article examines this important event in Scullin's under‐researched life story to consider the “electoral poetics” of electioneering in the early federation. Scullin's challenge to Deakin prefigured the defining realignment of Australian politics to come, the “Fusion” of 1909, and is indicative of Labor's new self‐conceptualisation as a potential government with a mission to fundamentally restructure Australian democracy. This article explores Scullin's work as an expositor of this mission, and its significance for his political life.     

“Secure in our Identity”: Regional Threat and Opportunity in Australian Election Discourse, 1993 and 1996

Anxiety about the Asia‐Pacific region has held an evocative place in the Australian imagination, and has featured in federal elections since Federation. This article explores discussions of regional opportunity and threat in the spoken campaign language of Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating, and his Liberal opponents, in the 1993 and 1996 elections. This language forms part of an ongoing project by Australian political leaders to provide voters with a secure identity by managing regional threat: from extending “civilisation” in the first half of the twentieth century; to the image of Australia as a benevolent stabilising force in an unstable region following the Second World War; and the contested frameworks of engagement and opportunity from the 1980s onwards. While specific constructions of regional threat have changed since federation, leaders' discursive reassurances have remained remarkably consistent over 110 years.     

From “Endemically Pro‐Israel” to Unsympathetic: Australia's Middle East Policy, 1967–1972

The hardening of Australian Middle East policy toward Israel in the early 1970s is often attributed to the election of Gough Whitlam as Prime Minister. Whitlam's December 1972 victory may well have opened a new, problematic chapter. But the evidence suggests that a deterioration in Australia‐Israel relations occurred gradually in the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War. This deterioration reflected changes in Australia's political leadership and change at the top of the Department of External Affairs (renamed Foreign Affairs in 1970). Individual decision‐makers such as Whitlam did play a significant role in determining Australian Middle East policy. As Prime Minister, Sir John Gorton was willing to put aside advice from External Affairs not to antagonise and risk disrupting trade relations with Arab states, and to offer heartfelt support for Israel. His successor Sir William McMahon vacillated under opposing influences of a department determined to secure Australia's trade interests on the one hand, and Australian Jewish leaders and Israel's envoys in Australia on the other. With the support of the Australian Jewish community, Israel sought to influence Australian political leaders — especially within the ALP — from turning away from Israel.     

“White Queensland”: The Queensland Government's Ideological Position on the Use of Pacific Island Labourers in the Sugar Sector 1880–1901

This article looks at the Queensland Government's attitudes towards the Pacific Island labour trade between 1880 and the time of Federation. Especially after the failure of the Griffith Government to abolish the Pacific Island labour trade during the 1880s, the dominant Queensland politicians of the late nineteenth century tended to pursue a paradoxical vision of a “White Queensland” in which the settlement and commercial aims of European Queenslanders were partially fulfilled by a barely acknowledged labour force of Pacific Islanders. It will be demonstrated that “White Queensland” was a powerful racial ideal similar yet subtly different to the White Australia policy pursued by the Commonwealth after 1901.     

John Howard's “Nation”: Multiculturalism,Citizenship, and Identity

This article identifies the specific concept of “nation” that informed John Howard's politics from his time as Liberal Party leader in the second half of the 1980s to the final years of his 1996–2007 prime ministership. It compares and contrasts the constitutive, procedural and multicultural models of nation to show Howard's continuing commitment to a constitutive understanding of the Australian nation. He endeavoured to give this understanding expression at the policy level by explicitly moving against the multicultural concept of nation that had informed Australian policy from the late 1970s. The Citizenship Test, introduced in his final year of office, is presented as the final move in this departure from multiculturalism.     

Strategic Othering: Framing Lebanese Migration and Fraser's “Mistake”

Australian Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Peter Dutton, has framed the mid‐1970s immigration of Lebanese affected by civil war as Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser's “mistake”. His remarks sparked controversy in the parliament and the media. The issue became a contest of frames between the Murdoch media, which supported the Minister's “mistake” frame and argued his right to “tell the truth”, and the Fairfax media, which viewed the Minister as being “racist” for “scapegoating” the Lebanese community. Along with archival documents, this article examines the context and coverage of the Minister's remarks, noting that the frames presented in the media “indexed” those adopted amongst political elites, while failing to re‐examine the historical record. This case study demonstrates the power of framing and the media's tendency to accept rather than challenge frames used by those in the political contest, with the result that errors in the representation of history were never corrected. This article draws on framing theory and indexing theory and concludes that the “mistake” frame for the Lebanese feeds into narratives that serve to “other” Muslim and Arab groups, fanning fears and mobilising a discourse of Islamophobia around the exclusion of “undesirable” immigrants on the basis of “cultural fit”.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this issue. Witnesses to a World Crisis: Historians and Histories of the Middle East in the Seventh Century. By James Howard‐Johnston Dampier's Monkey: The South Sea Voyages of William Dampier. By Adrian Mitchell 1835: the Founding of Melbourne and the Conquest of Australia. By James Boyce The Protectors: A Journey through Whitefella Past. By Stephen Gray A Different Inequality: The Politics of Debate about Remote Aboriginal Australia. By Diane Austin‐Broos Joseph Lyons: The People's Prime Minister. By Anne Henderson Anzac and Empire: George Foster Pearce and the Foundations of Australian Defence. By John Connor p. O.W: Australian Prisoners of War in Hitler's Reich. By Peter Monteath Australia's Pacific War: Challenging a National Myth. By Tom O'Lincoln Embodying Migrants: Italians in Postwar Australia. By Francesco Ricatti Mr Big of Bankstown: The Scandalous Fitzpatrick and Browne Affair. By Andrew Moore Labour and the Politics of Empire. By Neville Kirk Half a Citizen: Life on Welfare in Australia. By John Murphy, Suellen Murray, Jenny Chalmers, Sonia Martin and Greg Marston Michael Kirby: Paradoxes and Principles. By A.J. Brown A Private Life: Fragments, Memories, Friends. By Michael Kirby A Merciless Place: The Lost Story of Britain's Convict Disaster and How It Led to the Settlement of Australia. By Emma Christopher A People of One Book: The Bible and the Victorians. By Timothy Larsen God's Empire: Religion and Colonialism in the British World, c.1801–1908. By Hilary M. Carey After Ruskin: The Social and Political Legacies of a Victorian Prophet, 1870–1920. By Stuart Eagles Past into Print: The Publishing of History in Britain 1850–1950. By Leslie Howsam Captives and Corsairs: France and Slavery in the Early Modern Mediterranean. By Gillian Weiss All the Tsar's Men: Russia's General Staff and the Fate of the Empire, 1898–1914. By John W. Steinberg Belarus. The Last European Dictatorship. By Andrew Wilson Civil Society and Democratization in the Arab World: the Dynamics of Activism. By Francesco Cavatorta and Vincent Durac Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Experience of Non‐Violent Action from Gandhi to the Present. Edited by Adam Roberts and Timothy Garton Ash The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence. By Susie Linfield     

“To Make It Brilliantly Apparent to the People of Australia”: The Pilbara Cooperative Movement and the Campaign for Aboriginal Civil Rights in the 1950s

During the 1950s an Aboriginal mining cooperative in Western Australia's Pilbara attracted widespread interest as a model for addressing Aboriginal disadvantage throughout Australia. Individuals and organisations involved in the struggle for equal rights for Aboriginal people learned what they could of the ideology, operation and history of the cooperative, chiefly through the writing and speeches of its non-Aboriginal leader and spokesman, Don McLeod. They saw in the Pilbara cooperative a model of Aboriginal-directed change which contrasted markedly with the tutelary monocultural approach of individual “advancement” which characterised state and Commonwealth government assimilation policy at the time. The intense interest shown in the cooperative by the Victorian Council for Aboriginal Rights, in particular, provides evidence that throughout the 1950s campaigners sought alternative solutions to Aboriginal disadvantage to those proposed under assimilation policy.     

The Second AIF and the End of Empires: Soldiers' Attitudes Toward a “Free Asia”

Largely neglected within studies of Australian attitudes — and changing Australian attitudes — toward Asia throughout the twentieth century are the diverse views expressed by the single major group of Australians to encounter the region, namely the servicemen and women of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) who served the nation during the Pacific War 1941–1945. Within forums offered by soldier publications such as Salt, Australian troops were engaged in discussions about why the war had been fought (often with reference to the merits and ideals outlined within the Atlantic Charter, Declaration by United Nations and United Nations Charter). Central to such discussions were attitudes toward race, colonialism and Australia's role and future role in regional and world affairs. Importantly, well‐informed understandings of Asian affairs were crucial to discussions.     

“a carefully weighed plan with adequate safeguards for us”: Economic Policy and the Coordination of Australian-US Approaches to Japanese Aggression, 1939-41

The historical narrative of Australia's foreign and defence policy-making during the Pacific War tends to foreground the years 1941–42, characterising them as the turning point when the government realised that Britain alone could no longer protect Australia's regional security interests and turned to the United States of America for its salvation. This article makes a contribution to the alternative view, arguing that Australia was looking to the US well before Prime Minister John Curtin's famous “looks to America” proclamation. It does so with a focus on Australia's thinking and policy towards the engagement of the US in the years 1939-41, arguing that the coordination of its economic policy with the US, rather than seeking insight into high-level strategic planning, offered the nation the greatest opportunity to tie its security interests in the Asia-Pacific region with those of the US. In exploring the role of economic policy in Australia's preparation for war, this article offers new insight into the maturation of Australia's foreign policy apparatus.     

“And Poland is filed away with Samothrace”: Australian Responses to Poland's June 1956 Crisis

The suppression of Poznan June 1956 workers’ rebellion (Poznanski Czerwiec) by Polish authorities prompted immediate Australia‐wide demonstrations and protests by Polish émigrés who were supported by friends and allies in the Catholic Church and the Australian anti‐communist movement. Nation‐wide demonstrations in Australia and subsequent approaches by émigré Poles and supporters required a disinterested Australian government to develop a position on Poznan June events. Pressure on the Australian government for a response, potentially disruptive to its foreign policies, was applied only by elements within the Australian political scene that posed little threat to its future. Poznan June ‘56's effect on Australia takes place within the particular nature of Australian domestic politics where the June events were used to fan the flames of bitter rivalry within the labour movement by a strident anti‐communist faction seeking to restructure the Australian Labor Party in a manner consistent with its ideological predilections. In taking up the anti‐communist cause of the Polish émigrés, the Australian anti‐communist leadership claimed a moral high‐ground, but lacked sufficient commitment to use their considerable parliamentary advantage to pressure the Australian government to adopt a more muscular position towards Poland's government.     

Gorton and the Re‐Making of Political Tradition in Foreign Investment Policy

This article examines the Gorton government's tentative, but significant role in reshaping Australia's approach to overseas investment, focusing on the role of the Prime Minister himself. Prime Minister Gorton and his Cabinet ultimately accepted the need to pursue a more overt form of economic nationalism for political gain. This provided a basis for subsequent governments to offer more direct, national government intervention in foreign investment decision‐making to the Australian polity. Historical accounts and more recent assessments are drawn on to make this case and point to the legacy of Gorton and his government in the political management of foreign investment in Australia. The approach to foreign investment that emerged during Gorton's government demonstrated to subsequent governments the worth of developing a calibrated response that appeared to address populist concerns while still enabling substantive and increasing investment inflows.     

“Perfidy Afoot!” Connor,the IEA and the Loans Affair

When the International Energy Agency (IEA) was established out of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 1974, Australia was not among its founding members. Indeed, it was opposed to its formation and even contemplated voting in the OECD to block its establishment. A single negative vote under the “mutual agreement” rule would have done so. This paper, based on archival research, explores the reasons for this course of action and shows that the decision was linked to the resource nationalism at the time of Minister Rex Connor and his fear that supporting it might jeopardise his attempts to raise non-equity finance in the Middle East. This article shows that this previously unanalysed decision was connected to what became known as the “Loans Affair” that brought about Connor's demise and contributed to the downfall of the Whitlam Government.     

Performing Aboriginal Rights in 1951: From Australia's Top End to Southeast

In 1951, performers from Daly River and Tiwi Islands Aboriginal communities staged a corroboree strike. The musicians and dancers had routinely entertained visiting cruise ships in the Darwin Botanic Gardens, but now joined dockside workers to protest the jailing and exiling of two Aboriginal agitators Lawrence Wurrpen (Urban) and Fred (Nadpur) Waters. In Melbourne, the Australian Aborigines' League expressed solidarity with the Darwin strikes and protested the exclusion of Aboriginal voices from the Jubilee of Australian Federation. The League's leaders Doug Nicholls and Bill Onus produced a new work of musical theatre featuring east coast Aboriginal performers Fred Foster, Margaret Tucker, Georgia Lee, Harold Blair, and others in ‘Out of the Dark — An Aboriginal Moomba’. In this paper we examine political uses of performance in Australia's assimilation era, and show how Aboriginal agitators used music and dance to connect struggles for rights across Australia, and to keep cultural identity alive. In doing so we show how performance operated both as work and as assertion of cultural sovereignty.     

White Australia,Settler Nationalism and Aboriginal Assimilation*

This article examines policies of Aboriginal assimilation between the 1930s and the 1960s, highlights how different forms of settler nationalism shaped understandings of the Aboriginal future, and explores the impact of the shift from biological notions of Australian nationhood (white Australia) to culturalist understandings of national cohesion and belonging. Assimilation policies were underpinned by racist assumptions and settler nationalist imperatives. Aborigines of mixed descent were a special focus for governments and others concerned with Aboriginal welfare, “uplift” and assimilation. This is most evident in the discourse of biological absorption of the 1930s, but lived on in notions of cultural assimilation after the Second World War. One of the ongoing motivations for assimilation drew upon the nationalist message within “white Australia”: the need to avoid the development of ethnic or cultural difference within the nation‐state. The article highlights an ideological split among the advocates of individual assimilation and group assimilation, and uses the writings of Sir Paul Hasluck and A. P. Elkin to illustrate these two views.     

Parliament on “the Wireless” in Australia

Australia's parliament allowed the radio broadcast of proceedings in 1946, a decade after New Zealand, but well before the “Mother of all Parliaments” in 1978. In keeping with Australia's reputation as a pioneering democracy, early interest in broadcasting parliamentary debates can be traced to the 1920s. In the formative years of “wireless” it was imagined radio might close the gap between parliaments and the public. Proceedings of the New South Wales parliament were actually broadcast for several weeks during 1932 (and before the New Zealand parliament institutionalised this practice). Tasmania experimented with parliamentary broadcasting in 1934. Australia's embrace of parliamentary broadcasting in 1946 was less carefully planned than has been suggested. It was an opportunistic, caucus‐initiated Chifley government measure driven by a long‐held ALP concern about newspaper bias. It was however generally justified as reform to bring the people to their Parliament and, remarkably, did have bipartisan support.     

Anti‐Cartel or Anti‐Foreign? Australian Attitudes to Anti‐Competitive Behaviour before the First World War

More than a century elapsed between Australia's first legislative attempts to modify anticompetitive behaviour (the Australian Industries Preservation Act 1906) and its most recent efforts to criminalise price fixing (Trade Practices Amendment (Cartel Conduct and Other Measures) Act 2009). After a burst of activity in the first decade of Federation, the intervening years saw only sporadic interest by governments to promote competitive markets, with limited impact until the late 1960s. This paper assesses the first period of Australia's attempts to promote competition. It traces the political, economic and social environments of anticompetitive business behaviour in Australia from 1901 up to World War I. We suggest that Australia's initial forays into regulating cartels were motivated more by protectionist aims than by efforts to increase competition, which in part also explains the next half‐century of legislative apathy towards anti‐competitive legislation.     

“Cocksparrow Diplomacy”: Percy Spender,The Colombo Plan And Commonwealth Relations

Percy Spender, the Australian Foreign Minister in 1950, played a critical role in the establishment of the Colombo Plan. The programme was proposed by Commonwealth ministers in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in January 1950. In May, Spender hosted the first meeting of the Consultative Committee to work out the modalities for the aid programme. Using Canadian and British sources, the article re‐examines Spender's diplomacy at the Sydney conference. It demonstrates why his conduct elicited such strong condemnation from his fellow ministers and almost precipitated a crisis in Commonwealth relations. It argues that Spender antagonised Commonwealth ministers unnecessarily with his tactics without achieving the objectives he had set for himself. His diplomacy did not advance his vision of the aid programme; instead, the British vision of the Colombo Plan prevailed in Sydney.     

“Without Flinching”: Facing up to Race in Liberal Italy

This article examines the development of racial discourses in Italy during the process of unification and in the following years with respect to some of the fundamental issues experienced by and facing the new nation. Anthropologists and criminologists proselytised the new “science” purporting to have discovered a novel hermeneutic for how Italy should be imagined, moulded and propelled into the future. In this article, the test case provided for how race was engaged within the Italy emerging out of the process of unification is that of the “Assabesi”, six black inhabitants of the small tract of land Italy had acquired in Africa in 1869, who were brought to Italy and displayed at the 1884 National Exhibition held in Turin. As Italy embarked on a period of extended colonial expansion, the questions of race, otherness, citizenship and boundaries became ever more pressing. Through an examination of the vicissitudes and debates surrounding the Assabesi's sojourn in Italy, the article seeks to demonstrate that while racism was one option in how Italy's new black subjects could be categorised and eventually ruled, it always had to contend with powerful and sustained counter‐arguments.