“Rediscovery”, “Reinvigoration” and “Redefinition” in Perpetuity: Australian Engagement with India 1983–2011

For the past twenty‐five years Australia's bilateral relationship with India has been typified by an ongoing process of “rediscovery”, irrespective of whether Labor or Liberal administrations have steered foreign policy. This article explores the reasons why this might be the case by analysing Australia's foreign policy approaches to India spanning the period 1983 to 2011. It interrogates various Labor and Liberal strategies that have been mobilised to “reinvigorate” the relationship and searches for reasons why they have only been partially successful in strengthening Australia's rapport with India. The authors draw upon discussions with strategic affairs editors of India's major daily newspapers and current affairs journals to gain insights into Indian impressions of Australia from a political and foreign policy perspective.     

Cuba: From “Dollarization” to “Euroization” or “Peso Reconsolidation”?

Since its “depenalization” in 1993, the U.S. dollar has become possibly a more significant component of Cuba's money supply than the old peso. What are the alternatives? The euro seems inappropriate, given the inevitability of eventual normalization of relations with the United States. More advantageous would be to restore the Cuban peso, though this would involve unifying the bifurcated economic structure and the dual monetary and exchange rate systems. The Cuban government has yet to announce its plans. This study argues that an appropriate mix of exchange rate, monetary, fiscal, and income or wage and salary policies should support a rehabilitation of the Cuban peso.     

An Australian “Historikerstreit”? Review Article

Frontier Conflict. The Australian Experience. Edited by Bain Attwood and S.G. Foster
Historical Records of Australia Series III Despatches and Papers Relating to the History of Tasmania, Vol. VIII, Tasmania, January-December 1829. Edited by Peter Chapman
The History Wars. By Stuart Macintyre and Anna Clark
Whitewash. On Keith Windschuttle's Fabrication of Aboriginal History. Edited by Robert Manne
The Fabrication of Aboriginal History. By Keith Windschuttle     

From “Queue Jumpers” to “Absolute Scum of the Earth”: Refugee and Organised Criminal Deviance in Australian Asylum Policy

The arrival of asylum seekers by boat in Australia is no longer represented as a threat by the Australian government because of characteristics of asylum seekers themselves, but is instead predominantly represented as threatening because of the involvement of transnational organised crime in the form of people smugglers. This progression, which is demonstrated by comparison of the approach of the Howard coalition government with that of the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments, is best understood by reference to conventional understandings of organised crime and irregular migration, and critical accounts of both phenomena. Understood in this way, organised crime and people‐smuggling discourses serve to externalise the asylum seeker “problem” and maintain punitive policies, inhibiting the development of effective regional responses to the issue.     

I,Diarist: Examining Australian Politics from the “Inside”

Political diaries can claim literary, political and intellectual significance, yet they have rarely been subject to serious or extended enquiry. In this article we offer the first comprehensive survey of the Australian political diary. We also analyse these writings in some depth, suggesting that, taken as a whole, the diaries reveal three Weberian “ideal types” of the politician: the “patrician”, the “professional”, and the “radical”. These ideal types are used to shed a new light on the functioning and limitations of parliamentary democracy in Australia.     

The “Morpeth Mind” and Australian Politics 1927–1934

The publication of the Morpeth Review between 1927 and 1934 was a milestone in the evolution of an authentic public sphere for Australian political intellectuals. The Review covered several areas of political and philosophical concern, ranging ideologically from Christian socialism and idealist liberalism, through market economics, to reactionary anti‐Bolshevism, within the editorial context of a strongly idealist liberalism inspired by the Oxford liberals of the early twentieth century, and both evangelical and sacramentalist Anglican Protestantism. Ernest H. Burgmann and Roy Lee used the magazine to develop a unique form of Anglican social and political activism and other members of an identifiable group of radical clergy also contributed. A.p. Elkin's writings on Indigenous politics are of particular interest as they can be viewed simultaneously as a turning toward the novel idea of Aboriginal citizenship, and at the same time as a restatement of Darwinist biological determinism and racialism, both lit by genuine compassion and affection for Aboriginal Australians.     

“Great and Powerful Friends of Yesteryear”: Australia's Dilemma with “East of Suez”, 1967–71

Great Britain's decision to withdraw its forces from Southeast Asia by the mid-1970s created uncertainty for those living in the region. The potential loss of British presence led Australia to attempt to discourage Britain from leaving, while also recsognising recognising the decision as an opportunity to re-evaluate Australia's strategic outlook in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Scholars have treated Asia and the Pacific as two regions with distinct experiences related to withdrawal. Some address changing Anglo-Australian relations but include little, or no, mention of the Pacific territories. Others, writing about the Pacific, focused more the individual paths taken by each island than on connecting the larger process of decolonisation in the Pacific to the one in Asia. This article pairs Australia's Strategic Basis of Defence papers with documentary evidence across multiple departments in Canberra to understand how British withdrawal from east of Suez connected Australian concerns about security in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. By connecting the two areas through Australian interests, the withdrawal from east of Suez can be understood as a catalyst for Australia's pursuit of a distinctive role within its neighbourhood.     

“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.     

“We are Human Beings,and have a Past”: The “Adjustment” of Migrants and the Australian Assimilation Policies of the 1950s

This article argues that the assimilation policy adopted by the Australian government during the 1950s was based on a denial of a migrant's past. The assumption that the migrant would readily merge into Australian cultural life ignored the ways in which past stories and memories shape the self. Through an analysis of the Good Neighbour Councils I explore the nature of assimilation that was based on a neglect of collective war memories of immigrant groups. This perspective is distinguished from that adopted by several theorists of the day such as W.D. Borrie and Jean Martin whose studies were less crude and one‐dimensional. The experiences of Greek migrants are examined to consider how Greek war stories could not often find expression or recognition in the assimilationist climate of the post‐war period.     

“We All Make Mistakes”: the Communist Party of Australia and Khrushchev's Secret Speech, 1956

This article examines the impact of the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on the Communist Party of Australia (CPA). Specifically it focuses on the reverberations of Khrushchev's “secret speech” within the CPA leadership for the first six months of 1956. It argues that, in contrast to the received wisdom, the response of the leadership was characterised by confusion rather than consistency, division rather than unanimity. This had implications for CPA members as they struggled to come to terms with the line of the leadership and the authenticity or otherwise of the New York Times version of Khrushchev's speech. The words of [Khrushchev's] speech were like bullets, and each found its place in the hearts of the veteran Communists. Tears streamed down the faces of men and women who had spent forty or more years, their whole adult lives, in the movement […]. 1     

From “Unstable” to “Stable” Minority Government: Reflections on the Role of the Nationals in Federal Coalition Governments

In contrast to some other jurisdictions, in Australia, governments relying on minor parties and independents to enact policies and especially to hold power, are readily characterised by oppositions and commentators as unstable, even chaotic and an undesirable deviation from the stability of majority parliaments. The almost unremarked exception is the Liberals' long and frequent reliance on the National Party and its predecessors to form government. This paper explores the role of the National Party in minority Coalition governments and considers why this form of minority government attracts so little comment, noting the inter‐party and intra‐party systems and strategies that give the appearance of stability.