“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.     

Changing Lenses: Conflict Analysis and Mexico's “Drug War”

U.S. policy toward Mexico has been influenced by a “drug war” frame that has left little rhetorical and operational room for creative multisectoral strategies to stem the violence and address its causes. This article proposes conflict analysis, a lens for viewing conflict that brings into focus a multilevel, integrative diagnosis of the violence in Mexico and supports recent evolutions in Plan Mérida toward a more holistic peacebuilding approach.     

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.     

“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.     

Soviet Repatriation Efforts among “Displaced Persons” Resettled in Australia, 1950–53

In the early 1950s, the Soviet Union made great efforts to persuade its former citizens among the “displaced persons” (DPs) resettled in Australia after the war to repatriate. They sent two undercover military intelligence men to Canberra to identify DPs who might be interested in returning, offer them free passages, and organize the repatriation. The result was a paltry dozen repatriations, out of the estimated 50,000 eligible DPs resettled in Australia. This strange story — hitherto completely unknown and reconstructed on the basis of recently opened Soviet classified material in the State Archive of the Russian Federation and ASIO files in the National Archives of Australia — adds a new angle to our understanding of Soviet‐Australian (and, in general, Soviet‐Western) relations at the height of the Cold War.     

“Keep Government Out of Business”: Bank Nationalisation,Financial Reform and The Private Trading Banks In The 1930s

During the early 1930s the private trading banks came under sustained attack from sections of the Australian Labor Party and the Country Party, and from supporters of Major C.H. Douglas. Repeated calls for bank nationalisation or “socialisation of credit” or “social credit” heightened tensions within the banks and conservative political circles. In response, the banks secretly funded a nationwide campaign in support of the Lyons government in the lead‐up to the 1934 federal election. While the campaign was successful, the outcome resulted in the establishment of a Royal Commission to investigate the banking sector. The Royal Commission's recommendations and the Lyons government's proposed banking legislation were about providing greater government control of the sector. Opposition from the Bank of New South Wales and its supporters during the late 1930s helped forestall the legislation. The onset of war and, in 1941, initiatives from the federal Curtin Labor government and the National Security (Wartime Banking Control) Regulations ended what was a decade‐long struggle waged by the trading banks against greater government control of the banking sector.     

“People the North”: Nation‐building in 1960s Australia

The People the North Committee, founded in Townsville in 1962, was true to its name. It wanted to treble the population of northern Australia in a decade. Putting people before profits, the committee insisted that Australians had a moral obligation to prolifically populate their northern lands. Neither the ambition nor the rationale was new. In fact, the People the North Committee was the last gasp of a grand demographic aspiration that went back more than a hundred years. Thereafter, through to the present day, proposals for northern development have prioritised economic over demographic gains: profits before people. This article examines the ambitions and advocacy of the People the North Committee, setting them in the longer historical trajectory of the aspiration to people the north. In doing so, it offers a window onto a neglected facet of the nation‐building project in Australia.     

“A Good‐Will Ship”: The Light Cruiser Köln Visits Rabaul (1933)

The concept of loyalty still holds a central space in many histories about New Guinean‐Australian relations, especially during the Second World War, and translates into demands by Australians that New Guineans recognize Australia's political system as “the best”. In this article about the visit of the first German navy cruiser to New Guinea after the First World War, I tell a story not about loyalties, but about contesting colonial claims, namely Australia's insistence on “loyalty”, and Germany's demand for a “return” of her colony. The visit of Köln in 1933 raises questions such as: How did Germans and Australians negotiate living together in the Mandated Territory of New Guinea? How were divisions, grief, tensions, and hostilities after the First World War dealt with? What separated them, what united them, and what role did New Guineans play in this complex relationship?     

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.     

“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.