A "Civilised Amateur": Edgar Holt and His Life in Letters and Politics

Now largely forgotten, Edgar George Holt (1904–1988) was a leading journalist and public relations officer in the middle decades of twentieth–century Australia. This article examines his prominent journalistic career in the 1930s and 1940s, his presidency of the Australian Journalists' Association, and his work as the Liberal Party of Australia's public relations officer from 1950 to the early 1970s. The article explores the evolution of his cultural and political views, considering how a literary aesthete and poet came to be at the forefront of the 1944 newspaper strike and then an important player in Australian conservative machine politics and the emerging industry of political public relations.     

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.     

Casey: Four Decades in the Making of Australian Foreign Policy

Richard Casey was involved in shaping Australian foreign policy for over four decades. Casey's attitudes, ideas, policies and actions towards the rest of the world are therefore an important part of a Liberal tradition in Australian foreign policy. To examine Casey's place in the Liberal tradition this article explores Casey's positions on the great international issues of two periods: the 1930s and the 1950s. The conclusion of the article is that three key ideas shaped Casey's foreign policy, and therefore also lie at the centre of the Liberal tradition; firstly, a strong attachment to the idea of the English speaking alliance; secondly, a realist perspective on international affairs; and, thirdly, a consistent strand of anti-communism.     

Frederic Eggleston on International Relations and Australia's Role in the World

Frederic Eggleston was a prominent public intellectual whose reflections on international relations constitute one of the most important records by an Australian liberal thinker during the first half of twentieth century. Eggleston wrote extensively, and hopefully, about the capacity of international organisations to discipline the behaviour of nation-states; but his hopes were tempered in his writing also about the descent to wars, including the early Cold War period in which his support for American foreign policy grew stronger. His liberal outlook was also informed by his sense of Australia's Britishness, Australia's location in the Pacific, and Australia's future relations with Asian countries.     

The Evolution of Malcolm Fraser's China Policy

This article explores the evolution of Malcolm Fraser's views on China. While Gough Whitlam is fondly remembered as a trailblazer for normalizing Australia‐China relations, Fraser was a pioneer in rendering a sense of bipartisanship in Australia's China policy. Fraser was not initially a Sino‐enthusiast, however. He came from a background of staunch anti‐Communism and throughout the 1950s and 1960s believed that China posed a major threat to stability in the Asia‐Pacific. The Liberal Party fiercely opposed the Whitlam government's decision to normalise diplomatic relations with China in 1972. Following the Whitlam dismissal in 1975, Fraser became Prime Minister and, in what seemed to be an abrupt departure from the Liberal Party's position, thoroughly embraced relations with China. As Leader of the Opposition, Whitlam called out the hypocrisy of the Liberal Party's radical policy shift. This study examines the domestic and international dynamics that shaped Fraser's views on China and ultimate adoption of a successful China policy. This is the untold story of a crucial turning point in Australia‐China relations under the leadership of a conservative government, in which a strong relationship with China became a cornerstone of bipartisan Australian foreign policy.     

Brave New Liberal: Percy Spender

Percy Spender's pioneering work as External Affairs Minister is often held up as a significant contribution to Liberal policy-making and Australian foreign policy more generally. A closer look at his life and thinking illuminates some of the factors behind his policy-making. Some of the more prominent, shaping factors can be organised under the headings of his overseas travels before becoming External Affairs Minister at the end of 1949; his sense that the mid-twentieth period was one in which Asia suddenly played a big role; and his determination that Australians should be proactive in their relations in their region, rather than merely reactive in foreign policy.     

"Culture up to our Arseholes": Projecting Post-Imperial Australia

In December 1967, Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt announced his Government's intention to establish an ambitious new Council for funding the visual and performing Arts in Australia. Holt had formed the view that Australian culture was fundamentally deficient— that urgent measures (and money) were needed to project a more distinctive, mature, and culturally sophisticated Australian image at home and abroad. His ambition was taken up by his successor, John Gorton, who set up the Australian Council for the Arts in 1968 and its stablemate, the Australian Film Development Corporation. This essay considers the rationale behind the new government schemes to promote national culture, and argues that these processes need to be understood in terms of the demise of British emblems of civic identity and belonging in the 1960s. It examines the dilemmas faced by those charged with the task of projecting a distinctive new face of Australian culture for a post-imperial age. While there was a broad consensus about the need for a "new nationalism" in cultural policy, there was little agreement as to what that policy should entail. The idea of "Australian content" proved notoriously difficult to pin down, and aroused scepticism as to whether Australia could ever live up to the aesthetic standards of "real nationhood"—a scepticism that was most vividly conveyed by Barry McKenzie's typically crass observation that "back in Oz now we've got culture up to our arseholes".     

The Prime Minister and the Bomb: John Gorton,W.C. Wentworth and the Quest for an Atomic Australia

The efforts of the Liberal government led by John Gorton to acquire a locally built nuclear deterrent stretch back into the 1950s when Robert Menzies preferred to rely on the American or British nuclear umbrella for protection. Gorton took a different view and the advocates of an independent Australian nuclear capability rejoiced upon his elevation to the Liberal leadership. We argue that Gorton's ambitions advanced as far as they did in the latter 1960s due to the support, or urgings, from an informal coalition of scientists (particularly Philip Baxter) and discontented fringes of the parliamentary Liberal Party. In particular, the maverick backbencher, W.C. Wentworth, played a key role in mobilising support for Gorton's controversial quest to acquire an independent nuclear capacity.     

F.L. McDougall and the Origins of the FAO

This article evaluates the role of Frank Lidgett McDougall, Australian economist, businessman and public servant, in the creation of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). It traces McDougall's development from an advocate of preferential trade within the British Empire to his embrace of a broader, more internationalist, concept of nutrition. By the mid-1930s, McDougall's advocacy of policies to improve nutrition worldwide through "marrying health and agriculture" led to the Australian government's advocacy of such policies in the League of Nations. McDougall was successful in persuading Australian policy makers that proposals to improveworldwide nutritional levels were also in Australia's best interest, by increasing demand for Australian agricultural exports. Finally, McDougall's significant personal role in the establishment of the FAO is assessed as the culmination of his career as a major behind-the-scenes architect of public policy.     

The Department of External Affairs, the ABC & Reporting of the Indonesian Crisis 1965–1969

The Department of External Affairs took a keen interest in the manner in which Radio Australia reported events in Indonesia throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Radio Australia's high signal strength gave it a massive listening audience in the region. The attempted coup in Indonesia of 1965, its immediate aftermath, and the protracted power struggle that followed, triggered a period of cooperation and conflict between the Department and the Australian Broadcasting Commission over Radio Australia's reporting of events in Indonesia. During this time the Department received and acted upon advice from the Australian ambassador to Indonesia, Keith Shann, and, via Shann, received advice from the Indonesian Army on how it wanted the situation in Indonesia reported. This period is characterised by the Department's efforts to take over Radio Australia, and by cooperation between major western powers to coordinate information policy towards Indonesia. The Department also attempted to influence reporting of events in Indonesia by the Australian press and succeeded in convincing newspaper editors to report and editorialise in a manner sensitive to the Department's concerns.     

“Men who smell of fear”: The Menzies Government and Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence

This article uses international archival sources to examine Australian policy on the problem of Rhodesian independence during the 1960s. It demonstrates that until November 1965 the Australian government led by Sir Robert Menzies followed a finely balanced policy that was broadly supportive of Britain but also sympathetic to the Rhodesian Front. However, the Australian response to Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) revealed increasing bureaucratic conflict in Australian policy‐making and exposed the limits of Australian support for Britain in dealing with the international consequences of the UDI. Analysis of Australia's decision to not attend the Lagos Conference in January 1966 demonstrates the Menzies government's anxiety about the implications of racial issues for Australian domestic and foreign policies. This suggests that historians should pay more attention to the significance of Africa in Australian foreign relations during the Menzies era.     

Australian External Policy and the End of Britain's Empire1

The winding down of Britain's colonial empire in the 1950s and 1960s impacted upon Australian external policy in several ways. Australia had to build diplomatic capacity in order to manage relationships with numerous newly independent states. As many of these states were non-aligned in the Cold War context, Australia had to think afresh about the problems of regional security. Decolonisation also meant the transformation of the Commonwealth into a "nest of republics", a development that hastened the demise of the older sense of organic empire and, for Robert Menzies, compromised the quality of the Anglo-Australian relationship. The effect on Australia of Britain's post-colonial restrictive immigration policy compounded this process. So too did Britain's move towards Europe. In addition there were implications for Australia's policy towards the United Nations and towards its own dependent territories.     

Edward Gough Whitlam, 1916–2014: An Assessment of His Political Significance

Gough Whitlam’s political significance lies in the first instance in his leading the Australian Labor Party into office at federal level in December 1972 after 23 years in opposition. As prime minister he instituted wide-ranging domestic reforms expanding the involvement of the Commonwealth government into many areas affecting the lives of ordinary Australians. He faced a declining economic situation and a parliamentary opposition determined to impede his reforms; the blocking of supply in the Senate culminated in Whitlam’s dismissal by the governor-general on 11 November 1975. In foreign policy, Whitlam repositioned Australia as an active middle power. His opening to China coincided with the Sino-American normalisation, leading to a new direction in Australian foreign policy that gained momentum in subsequent years; the fundamentals of the Australian relationship with the United States remained intact. Whitlam was motivated by a vision of ‘positive equality’ in government services as the basis of social democracy. From a contemporary perspective there is less faith in the efficacy of government action than was the case with Whitlam. His government bears comparison with the great reform governments in the Australian Labor tradition, as well as in Canada, the United Kingdom, and even the United States.     

The Liberals and Vietnam1

How did the Menzies Governments of the early to mid 1960s arrive at the position of sending Australian troops to Vietnam? During the 1950s, Menzies, and especially his External Affairs Minister Richard Casey, developed an appreciation of the strategic significance of Indochina, but struggled to view the conflict in Vietnam in ways other than through Cold War lenses. By the 1960s too, Britain's capacity to demonstrate a lead for Australia in foreign policy for the region was diminishing with its power, and the Menzies Governments were mindful of the need to support an American preparedness to intervene in Southeast Asia against communist‐led forces. This logic became more compelling in the face of Indonesia's “Confrontation” with Malaysia from 1963. As a result, the Liberals were not reluctant to support US military intervention in the region, in Vietnam.     

Issues in Australian Foreign Policy January to June 2001

The first half of 2001 saw traditional issues dominating the foreign policy agenda, with both Australia's relationship with the United States and the policy of Asian engagement still holding centre stage. But those old issues generated fresh anxieties. In the United States, the incoming Bush administration displayed a genuine radicalism in its approach to foreign policy, and that raised concerns in many Western capitals — including Canberra — about a new mood of unilateralism in Washington. At the same time, the emergence of the thesis that Australia was becoming a "branch office economy", where key decisions were taken in the capital markets of New York and London, made the government noticeably more cautious and selective in its endorsement of globalisation. Further, the issue of Asian engagement grew steadily more complex: Australian policy-makers searched unsuccessfully for a new focus for the policy of Asian engagement, as Japan's economy wallowed and Indonesia's democratic government tottered.     

The Mythical Australian: Barry Humphries, Gough Whitlam and "New Nationalism"

Gough Whitlam's decision in 1974 to appear in Barry Humphries's film about a larrikin abroad, Barry McKenzie Holds His Own , marks a potent moment in Australia's post-imperial history — a moment when the politics of Australian theatre and the theatre of Australian politics directly coincided. In their different spheres, Humphries and Whitlam dramatised the waning British connection felt by Australians. Whitlam's own version of "new nationalism" was brash and confident enough to embrace the eccentricities and vulgarities of Humphries's satire. Yet Whitlam's "new nationalism", like Humphries's satire, was highly ambivalent. Humphries's first film, The Adventures of Barry McKenzie , was a direct product of the new nationalist enthusiasm that had brought Whitlam to power. Although it was savaged by the critics, the film was a box-office success. Intellectuals such as Patrick White, Manning Clark and Geoffrey Dutton lavished praise on Humphries and his satirical portrayal of Australian anxieties about culture and national identity. Humphries portrayed the underlying dilemma that Whitlam faced in refashioning the image of modern Australia: how to throw off the symbols of colonialism and find meaningful symbols to replace them. In the process, both the politician and the humourist rediscovered a particular and enduring affection for the mother country.     

“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.     

Commonwealthmen and Republicans: Dr. H.V. Evatt, the Monarchy and India

H.V. Evatt's foreign policy has attracted considerable historical attention, but his response as Australian External Affairs Minister to Commonwealth constitutional issues remains neglected. Evatt sought to retain India in the Commonwealth in 1948–49, but he insisted that India ought to recognise the king's prerogatives in its constitutional arrangements. He had developed his defence of the monarchy and its place in the empire in his writings of the inter-war years, and sought to apply these ideas in his Commonwealth diplomacy of the late 1940s. Evatt's failure to have these ideas accepted resulted from his attempt to impose an ideal of the relationship between the monarchy and the Commonwealth, derived from his understanding of the evolution of constitutional relations between the United Kingdom and the old dominions, to the very different context of Asian postwar decolonisation.     

Conservatives Divided: Defending Rhodesia Against Malcolm Fraser 1976-1978

Understanding the conflict between pro- and anti-Rhodesian government parliamentarians is the only way to understand how and why Australia struggled to formulate a coherent Rhodesia policy. It reveals the extent to which Malcolm Fraser had to struggle against his own party in this matter and adds needed nuance to this period. Fraser's opinion that Rhodesia was a racist and immoral project caused a schism in the Coalition parties. Despite Fraser's open antipathy towards Rhodesia, Rhodesia's interests in Australia were largely safeguarded. This reflects the reality that the Liberal and National Country Parties contained sizeable blocs of parliamentarians who openly and publicly saw Rhodesia as a fraternal country, not a dangerous pariah. They did not hold these beliefs passively and actively sought to resist any moves made by Fraser to damage Rhodesia and its interests. By following the development of Fraser's Rhodesia policy in the late 1970s the power of Rhodesia's allies in the Australian parliament becomes clear. Opposing Rhodesia was touted by Fraser as one of the greatest achievements of his government, yet the issue was divisive and caused bitter infighting.     

Political Parties,Australia and the U.S. Alliance: 1976-2016

ABSTRACT

What causes variation in the foreign policies of U.S. allies regarding their desired U.S. military role in their region and their troop commitments to U.S. military interventions? This paper addresses this question through documenting and explaining the sources of variation in Australia’s foreign policies regarding these issues over four decades. Treating the two major political parties in Australia and their respective leaders who self-select into them as endogenous, the paper argues that Australian foreign policy, whilst always supportive of the U.S. alliance, has systematically varied. This variation has correlated with the political party in power while the late Cold War and post-Cold War balances of power remained constant. While the Labor party has only been willing to send combat troops to large U.S. military interventions when the latter have a supporting United Nations Security Council Resolution, the conservative Liberal party has been willing to military intervene without this multilateral support. The Labor party, unlike the Liberal party, has also frequently proposed the formation and consolidation of multilateral regional institutions. These preferences render the U.S. to have been necessary for the Labor Party but sufficient for the Liberal party. Future Sino-U.S. armed conflict would provide a harder test of these hypotheses.