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From Labor Action, Vol. 14 No. 5, 30 January 1950, p. 2.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The Australian Labor Party government, headed by Joseph B. Chifley, was recently defeated by a Liberal-Country Party coalition led by Robert G. Menzies. This labor defeat, together with a similar labor ousting in New Zealand, has been heralded (generally with great joy) in the daily press as a symbol of the coming defeat of all labor political forces, particularly of the British Labor Party: the great spirit of Anglo-Saxon pride, thrift, independence and ingenuity has revolted in the Antipodes and is spreading like wildfire over the globe so that by February 23, at the very latest, it will reach England and save the British people, as it saved the Australians, from regimentation, restrictions, scarcity and the dole.
This past week Philadelphia citizens were treated to a series of articles in the Evening Bulletin by staff writer Morley Cassidy, entitled The Upset Down Under. Cassidy’s articles were compiled from interviews with “the man in the street” in several sections of Australasia. The reader is left with no doubt that “the man” had certainly decided that “the street” led directly to some version of the Russian-style police state.
However, as in all the more competent and sophisticated anti-labor propaganda, there is a great deal more than a kernel of truth in the reports and it is important for those interested in the political action of labor to attempt to sift these reports and to see the causes for the defeat of the Australian Labor Party.
This writer recently had the opportunity to hear and question a representative of the Australian Labor Party and also an American unionist who has recently returned from a 14-year residence in Australia. Neither of these, familiar as they were with the Australian Labor Party, could name any one exclusive or dominant factor in the defeat.
One should remember that the defeat was far short of overwhelming, since Labor received 48 per cent of the popular vote while the conservative coalition (Liberal and Country) got 52 per cent. Parliamentary results were more one-sided because of a reapportioning of districts, with an increase from 75 to 128 seats in the lower house.
Factors contributing to the defeat were: the proposed nationalization of ALL banks (not nationalization in general), continued gasoline rationing (Laborites had previously promised to remove this), the appeal of the conservatives’ promise of increased child endowment, the feeling for “a change” (Labor has been in office since 1941), and difficulties which the Labor Party experienced in the field of labor-industrial strife (not the special issue dealing with the Communist Party-controlled unions).
Completely discounted were claims made by Cassidy that: it was a revolt against socialism or nationalization, a reaction against handouts, an anti-Communist rout (the Conservatives’ program calls for outlawing the CP, as it did in 1940), and the claim that irate housewives played a special role in support of the Conservatives.
The “irate housewife” claim is particularly interesting in view of the following facts:
The reaction to the proposed nationalization of ALL banks was admittedly puzzling. There has been a Commonwealth Bank set up by Labor in 1912. In 1945 Labor, by legislative action, returned the bank’s management to the hands of the governor. Private banks have existed side by side with the nationalized bank. Evidently all classes in Australia want a continuance of the present setup rather than the LP proposal. Probably the semi-frontier status of the country is an important factor.
Nationalization in Australia is very limited – much more limited than under the British Labor government. Where it exists it is usually side by side with private enterprise – as in banking, broadcasting and airways, The Labor Party preamble calls for substantial socialization and a number of efforts have met with a constitutional bloc – a states-rights provision on public-affected enterprise. This limitation applied even to social-security legislation and it was necessary for the Labor Party to conduct a referendum to amend the constitution and authorize the commonwealth to make laws with respect to social legislation. Thus Morley Cassidy’s claims in the Bulletin about the “nationalization jitters” seem far-fetched indeed.
No one talks of a “welfare state” in Australia but all political parties are for keeping and expanding social security. In the recent campaign the Laborites advanced the general slogan of “increased security” and the Liberal-Country bloc the more specific, and more popular, one of “increased child endowment.”
There were undoubtedly serious shortcomings of the Labor Party in the field of union-industrial disputes. The Court of Arbitration seems to be a notable failure as an instrument for labor. Its “decertification” of several CP-dominated unions has led to severe jurisdictional battles. No one seems satisfied with its “award rates” of pay.
The specific problems seem to be part of the general pattern of Labor Party difficulties everywhere: inability to move rapidly enough within the old social framework from an economy of scarcity toward abundance; and from workers’ non-participation in industrial planning to a “sense of participation,” and most important, to actual participation. There are the really knotty problems which the Australian Labor Party must face, particularly when it again comes into office, us pro-Labor spokesmen so confidently predict.
The defeat of the Australian Labor Party was labor’s loss – there, and here in the United States – but it neither guaranteed the unchallenged reign of “free enterprise” (as Cassidy would have us believe) nor removed from the world scene the possibility of a socialist alternative to barbarism and war.
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