“The Spirit of Sturdy Independence”: Robert Menzies' Language of Citizenship, 1942–52*

Empirical and theoretical studies have shown the development of both the idea and practice of Australian citizenship to be incremental and ad hoc. However, insufficient attention has been placed on the role political language has historically played in the formation and legitimation of such an ideal of citizenship. I contend that language has, in the absence of definition and explication, vastly shaped our past and present imaginings of the citizen. Within this superstructure, Australian Liberals have contingently and ideologically fashioned a language of citizenship emphasising duties and obligations. Robert Menzies provides the great example and it is his construction and use of language which I want to examine in detail as a coherent philosophy of citizenship as well as pointing to the historical limitations of language.     

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.     

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.     

“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.     

“The Politics of Political Advertising” in Australia and Britain, 1970–1989

The role of advertising in the production of political campaigns deserves more consideration than it has previously received. My study examines advertising agencies associated with election campaigns in the 1970s and 1980s, investigating their decisions to accept or reject political accounts. Focusing on Britain and Australia, and using a range of primary sources including the industry press, interviews and memoirs, I demonstrate that an agency's decision to accept a political account is always complex, contested and highly contingent. Accepting a political account may alienate clients and agency staff who support another party. Campaigns are labour‐intensive and may detract from an agency's core business. Involvement in a losing campaign can damage an agency's reputation, just as association with a successful one may attract clients. Agencies are often unsure how to approach political advertising where traditional techniques may not be suitable. Such concerns about accepting a political account will likely be put aside where an agency principal has close personal ties to a party or leader.     

The “Sin of Omission”? Radio Vatican and the anti‐Nazi Struggle, 1940–1942

Studies and articles have recently appeared condemning Pius XII and Vatican policy during World War II. Pius XII and the Vatican are charged with having committed "crimes of omission". The papacy is accused of having remained silent during the mass killings of the Jews and of passivity when no order was given to the national Churches to act in the Jews' defence. An examination of broadcasts from Vatican radio challenges such conclusions. These broadcasts show that Vatican radio exposed Nazi persecution of the Church and opposed collaboration with Nazism. Furthermore, Vatican radio also appealed to Christians to remain true to their faith's injunctions: to defend the sanctity of life and the unity of humankind. In so doing the Vatican pursued a policy of spiritual resistance to Nazi ideology and racism.     

“In the Corridors of Power”: How the Animal Movement Changed Australian Politics, 1979–1991

Foreshadowed by the anti‐war cause, women's and gay liberation struggles, and the conservation movement, and inspired by Peter Singer's 1975 book Animal Liberation, a fresh wave of animal activism emerged in Australia in the mid‐seventies. In the struggle for animal rights, campaigners used a range of methods, but what characterised the eighties was their lobbying. They engaged politicians, built alliances, and participated in the state. By doing so, they changed Australian politics: they extended the political agenda; influenced public policy; and reshaped the state bureaucracy to include new avenues for addressing animal protection. At the same time, their outcomes were limited, sometimes founded on compromise and failure. The property status of animals was a fundamental constraint that produced differentiated and contradictory policy outcomes. The degree to which the animal movement succeeded in reducing animal suffering is a contentious matter that divides minimalist and maximalist accounts. Ultimately, however, animal advocates were instrumental in advancing the basic animal protection framework evident in Australia today.     

“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.     

The Economics of the “Final Solution”*

The economics of the Holocaust is a many‐facetted subject that is an integral part of the Holocaust's history. This paper describes some of the results of the new research since 1990 and discusses the economic rationalities employed by the perpetrators in despoiling the Jews. Economic considerations accompanied the timing and pace of the expropriation of Jewish assets and their “Aryanization.” The new research also shows that there was widespread collaboration in the expropriation of the Jews by private interests both inside Germany and in German‐controlled Europe and that networks of bureaucrats and private interests joined to achieve Nazi goals. The combination of expropriation and mass murder was one of the aspects of the Holocaust that made it unique.     

“Leavening British Traditions”: Integration Policy in Australia, 1962–1972

During the period 1962–72 integration replaced assimilation as official government policy in dealing with migrants in Australia. Migrants were now encouraged to incorporate themselves into the dominant Anglo‐Celtic society but also to retain elements of their own culture. The policy emerged in response to the unravelling of Britishness and the incremental dismantling of the White Australia policy as the twin pillars of Australian national identity. The “new nationalism”, which stressed a more independent and home grown Australian image, arose as a possible replacement to British race patriotism towards the end of this period. At the same time whiteness was also broken down.     

“A Sacred Duty”: Red Army Women Veterans Remembering the Great Fatherland War, 1941–1945

Some 500,000 women fought with the Red Army in the Great Fatherland War, 1941‐1945. Based on a selection of women veterans’ memoirs published since the demise of the Soviet Union, this article looks at what these women choose to remember about the war, and how, and equally what they choose to forget or remain silent about. The paper seeks to illuminate shared or disparate collective and individual memory and experiences. A particular objective of the paper is to assess the degree to which these written recollections coincide with or deviate from the predominant patriotic, heroic, masculine paradigm of the Great Fatherland War and its historiography. The overall objective of the paper is to humanise the female faces behind the masculine mask of the Red Army at war against Nazism.     

For King,For Country: Changing “Good” Behaviour in Victoria, 1930s and 1950s

Far from being incidental, what is taught at primary school can reveal key beliefs about the world and its future held at a given period. I compare Victorian primary school curricula and reading resources of the 1930s and 1950s, attending particularly to references to war and cultural difference. I find that in the 1930s war was to be avoided by valuing cultural differences, whereas in the later decade the aim was effacement of difference through modernisation. I argue that this attitude to difference, combined with the imperialism and internationalism of the 1930s, engendered a moral form of identity in Victorian primary school children. In contrast, under the economic nationalism of the 1950s, children were taught to be good citizens taking little moral responsibility to those who were not Australian.     

“Absolutely Irresponsible Amateurs”: The Temporary Mixed Commission on Armaments, 1921–1924

Created in early 1921, the Temporary Mixed Commission on Armaments was a committee of eminent figures formed by the League of Nations to consider the problem of international disarmament in its widest aspects and to suggest potential initiatives, plans and solutions. What made it unique was that its members were specifically appointed as private individuals, unrestrained by formal instructions from governments. They were intended to be free to put forward ideas and opinions that seemed most likely to produce real progress but which might have created political turmoil if they had come from official representatives. To some contemporary observers this extraordinary degree of independence was tremendously appealing; to others, the lack of accountability on an issue of supreme importance to the national security of member states was desperately objectionable. In practice, much of the commission's work resolved into a battle between interventionist British members and resistant French members, led respectively by Lord Robert Cecil and Colonel Edouard Réquin, with its most prominent outcome being the failed 1923 draft Treaty of Mutual Assistance. A fascinating experiment in the possibilities of transnationalism within an international organization, the Temporary Mixed Commission on Armaments both exemplified the fluidity of the League of Nations in its early years and showed the limited results a transnational approach could achieve on as contentious an issue as disarmament.     

The “Thin Dividing Line”: Prime Ministers and the Problem of Australian Nationalism, 1972–1996

This paper is concerned with the way in which Australian prime ministers gave expression to an idea of “national community” in the post–1972 era. With the declining relevance of the British connection, the departure of “great and powerful” friends from the region, the imperative of engagement with Asia and the emerging concept of Australia as a “multicultural” society, one of the central challenges for these leaders has been whether or not they could offer an alternative myth of community which would preserve social cohesion in the new times. This raises an important historical question concerning Australian political culture at this time — what happened to the need for nationalism? By examining the speeches of Prime Ministers Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke and Keating, it can be seen that far from asserting an old–style, exclusive Australian nationalism, in most cases these leaders expressed great caution and hesitation towards the idea of nationalism itself.