DOCSLIB.ORG

Australian Government Administration in the Post-War Reconstruction Era

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Australian Government Administration in the Post-War Reconstruction Era The Seven Dwarfs and the Age of the Mandarins AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION IN THE POST-WAR RECONSTRUCTION ERA The Seven Dwarfs and the Age of the Mandarins AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION IN THE POST-WAR RECONSTRUCTION ERA EDITED BY SAMUEL FURPHY Published by ANU Press The Australian National University Acton ACT 2601, Australia Email: [email protected] This title is also available online at http://press.anu.edu.au National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Title: The seven dwarfs and the age of the mandarins : Australian government administration in the post-war reconstruction era / editor Samuel Furphy. ISBN: 9781925022322 (paperback) 9781925022339 (ebook) Subjects: Government executives--Australia--Biography. Civil service--Australia--History. Public administration--Australia--History. Reconstruction (1939–1951)--Australia--History. Postwar reconstruction--Australia--History. Federal government--Australia--History. Australia--Officials and employees--Biography. Australia--Politics and government--1945– . Other Creators/Contributors: Furphy, Samuel, editor. Dewey Number: 352.30994 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. The ANU.Lives Series in Biography is an initiative of the National Centre of Biography at The Australian National University, http://ncb.anu.edu.au/. Cover design by ANU Press Layout by ANU Press Printed by Griffin Press This edition © 2015 ANU Press Contents Illustrations . .vii Contributors . ix Acknowledgements . xiii Preface . xv J.R. Nethercote and Samuel Furphy Part I 1 . The Seven Dwarfs: A Team of Rivals . 3 Nicholas Brown 2 . The Post-War Reconstruction Project . 31 Stuart Macintyre 3 . Australia and the Keynesian Revolution . 53 Alex Millmow 4 . An Age of the Mandarins? Government in New Zealand, 1940–51 . 81 John R. Martin Part II 5 . Sir Frederick Shedden: The Forerunner . 113 David Horner 6 . Sir Roland Wilson – Primus Inter Pares . 125 Selwyn Cornish 7 . Coombs the Keynesian . 143 Tim Rowse 8 . Sir John Crawford and Agriculture and Trade . 169 David Lee 9 . Sir Allen Brown: An Exemplary Public Servant . 183 Sir Peter Lawler 10 . Sir Frederick Wheeler: Public Servant . 191 Ian Hancock 11 . Paul Hasluck with Dr Evatt at the United Nations . 209 Geoffrey Bolton 12 . John Burton: Forgotten Mandarin? . 219 Adam Hughes Henry 13 . Sir Arthur Tange: Departmental Reformer . 233 Peter Edwards 14 . Sir James Plimsoll: Mandarin Abroad . 241 Jeremy Hearder Illustrations Sir Robert Garran, c1930 xvii J.B. (Ben) Chifley, c1949 10 Robert Menzies, c1950 17 Sir Henry Bland, 1966 25 Sir Richard Randall, 1966 27 H.C. Coombs with Prime Minister Ben Chifley in London, 1946 35 John Dedman, 1941 37 Dr H.C. (Nugget) Coombs, 1942 41 Sir Douglas Berry Copland, 1951 54 Professor L.F. Giblin, portrait by Sir William Dobell, c1945 56 Peter Fraser, c1940 82 B.C. (Sir Bernard) Ashwin, c1955 86 Sir Frederick Shedden with Prime Minister John Curtin and 115 Mrs Curtin, 1944 Sir Roland Wilson, 1965 134 Dr H.C. (Nugget) Coombs, 1950 146 Sir John Crawford, 1967 171 Sir Allen Brown, 1958 184 Frederick Wheeler, 1959 194 Paul Hasluck, 1954 211 Dr H.V. Evatt at the United Nations, 1949 215 Dr John Wear Burton, c1951 222 Sir Arthur Tange, 1965 237 Sir James Plimsoll, 1965 243 vii Contributors Geoffrey Bolton is senior scholar in residence at Murdoch University (Chancellor 2002–06) and an emeritus professor at Edith Cowan University. He continues to research and write on Australian history, British Commonwealth history, and eighteenth and early nineteenth-century British and Irish history. His most recent book is Paul Hasluck: A Life (2014). Nicholas Brown is a professor of history in the Research School of Social Sciences at The Australian National University. He is the author of several books including Governing Prosperity: Social Analysis and Social Change in Australia in the 1950s (1995) and A History of Canberra (2014). He is currently working on a collaborative study of Sir John Crawford with Stuart McIntyre, David Lee, Frank Bongiorno, and Dennis Blight. Selwyn Cornish is an adjunct associate professor in the Research School of Economics at The Australian National University, and the official historian of the Reserve Bank of Australia. He is the author of The Evolution of Central Banking in Australia (2010), and (with William Coleman and Alf Hagger) Giblin’s Platoon: The Trials and Triumphs of the Economist in Australian Public Life (2006). Peter Edwards is an historian and biographer, who has published extensively on Australian and international history and politics. He is the author of Arthur Tange: Last of the Mandarins (2006), which won the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award for history and the Western Australian Premier’s Book Award for non-fiction. Samuel Furphy is a research fellow in the National Centre of Biography at The Australian National University, where he has worked as a research editor for the Australian Dictionary of Biography since 2010. His most recent book is Edward M. Curr and the Tide of History (2013), based on his doctoral research at the University of Melbourne. He is currently the recipient of an Australian Research Council early career research award. Ian Hancock is an historian and biographer and a former lecturer at Monash University and The Australian National University. A leading historian of the Liberal Party in Australia, he is the author of several political biographies and is currently completing a biography of a former Attorney General and leading barrister, Tom Hughes. He is also working with Nicholas Brown on a biography of Sir Frederick Wheeler. ix The Seven Dwarfs and the Age of the Mandarins Jeremy Hearder studied at Melbourne and Stanford universities before serving as an Australian diplomat for 38 years. His postings abroad were Vientiane, Dar es Salaam, Bangkok, Nairobi, Brussels, Harare (as High Commissioner), Suva (as High Commissioner), Chicago (as Consul General), and Wellington (as Deputy High Commissioner). He is the author of Jim Plim Ambassador Extraordinary: A Biography of Sir James Plimsoll (2015). Adam Hughes Henry completed a PhD thesis in the School of History, Research School of Social Sciences, at The Australian National University in 2012. A book based on his thesis, The Gatekeepers and Australian Foreign Policy, will be published in 2015. He is currently a visiting fellow in the ANU College of Asia & the Pacific, and a research associate in the Faculty of Arts and Design at the University of Canberra. David Horner is an emeritus professor in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at The Australian National University, where he has worked since 1990. Earlier he served for 25 years in the Australian Army. He is the author or editor of 32 books, including Defence Supremo: Sir Frederick Shedden and the Making of Australian Defence Policy (2000) and The Spy Catchers: The Official History of ASIO, Volume I: 1949–1963 (2014). Sir Peter Lawler joined the Department of Post-War Reconstruction in 1944 and transferred to the Prime Minister’s Department in 1950. He was deputy secretary from 1964 before serving as secretary of the departments of the Special Minister of State (1972–75) then Administrative Services (1975–83). From 1983, until his retirement in 1986, he was Ambassador to the Republic of Ireland and Ambassador to the Holy See. David Lee is director of the Historical Publications and Information Section of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. He has published several books on the history of Australian foreign policy, international history, and the history of the British Empire and Commonwealth. He is currently writing a history of mining in Australia after 1960, and working on a collaborative study of Sir John Crawford. Stuart Macintyre is an emeritus laureate professor of the University of Melbourne. He is the author of many books, including The History Wars (2003, with Anna Clark) and a co-editor (with Alison Bashford) of The Cambridge History of Australia (2013). His history of post-war reconstruction, Australia’s Boldest Experiment: War and Reconstruction, will be published in 2015. John R. Martin was a public servant for over 30 years in New Zealand, serving in the Department of Island Territories, the Treasury, the Department of Health, and the New Zealand Planning Council. He has also taught public policy at the School of Government at Victoria University of Wellington. x Contributors Alex Millmow is an associate professor of economics at Federation University, Ballarat, and a former officer of the Commonwealth Treasury. He has published extensively on Keynesian economics and is a founder and co-editor of the Journal of Economic and Social Policy. J.R. Nethercote is an adjunct professor at the Australian Catholic University, Canberra Campus. At different times he worked for the Public Service Board, the Royal Commission on Australian Government Administration, the Public Service Commission of Canada, and the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Public Administration. He edited the Canberra Bulletin of Public Administration for 20 years. Among the books he has edited or jointly edited are Parliament and Bureaucracy (1982), The Menzies Era (1995), The House on Capital Hill (1996) and Liberalism and the Australian Federation (2001). Tim Rowse is a professorial fellow at the University of Western Sydney. He has worked mainly within the history discipline, but his formal training is in government, sociology and anthropology. He is the author or editor of many books, including two on H.C. Coombs: Nugget Coombs: A Reforming Life (2002) and Obliged to be Difficult: Nugget Coombs’ Legacy in Indigenous Affairs (2000). xi Acknowledgements This book, and the conference that preceded it, was made possible by the generous support of several organisations, including the Public Policy Institute at the Australian Catholic University, the Australia and New Zealand School of Government, the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, the Economic Society of Australia, and the Museum of Australian Democracy.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Australian Democrats.[1]
    CHIPP, Donald Leslie (1925–2006)Senator, Victoria, 1978–86 (Austral... http://biography.senate.gov.au/chipp-donald-leslie/ http://biography.senate.gov.au/chipp-donald-leslie/ Don Chipp's Senate career almost never happened. Dropped from Malcolm Fraser's Liberal Party ministry in December 1975, he turned this career blow into an opportunity to fight for the causes in which he believed. The result of Chipp's personal and political upheaval was the creation of a third force in Australian politics, the Australian Democrats.[1] Donald Leslie Chipp was born in Melbourne on 21 August 1925, the first child of Leslie Travancore Chipp and his wife Jessie Sarah, née McLeod. Don's father Les was a fitter and turner who later became a foreman. With Les in regular employment during the 1930s, the Chipp family was cushioned from some of the harsher aspects of the Depression years. However, the economic downturn must have had some impact, because Don remembered his father saying to his four boys that 'When you all grow up, I want you to be wearing white collars. White collars, that's what you should aim at'. Chipp matriculated from Northcote High School at the age of fifteen, then worked as a clerk for the State Electricity Commission (SEC). He also began studying part-time for a Bachelor of Commerce at the University of Melbourne. In 1943, at age eighteen, he joined the Royal Australian Air Force, and spent much of the last two years of the Second World War undergoing pilot training within Australia. Discharged as a Leading Aircraftman in September 1945, Chipp took advantage of the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme which provided ex-service personnel with subsidised tuition and living allowances.
    [Show full text]
  • The Secret History of Australia's Nuclear Ambitions
    Jim Walsh SURPRISE DOWN UNDER: THE SECRET HISTORY OF AUSTRALIAS NUCLEAR AMBITIONS by Jim Walsh Jim Walsh is a visiting scholar at the Center for Global Security Research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He is also a Ph.D. candidate in the Political Science program at MIT, where he is completing a dissertation analyzing comparative nuclear decisionmaking in Australia, the Middle East, and Europe. ustralia is widely considered tactical nuclear weapons. In 1961, of state behavior and the kinds of Ato be a world leader in ef- Australia proposed a secret agree- policies that are most likely to retard forts to halt and reverse the ment for the transfer of British the spread of nuclear weapons? 1 spread of nuclear weapons. The nuclear weapons, and, throughout This article attempts to answer Australian government created the the 1960s, Australia took actions in- some of these questions by examin- Canberra Commission, which called tended to keep its nuclear options ing two phases in Australian nuclear for the progressive abolition of open. It was not until 1973, when history: 1) the attempted procure- nuclear weapons. It led the fight at Australia ratified the NPT, that the ment phase (1956-1963); and 2) the the U.N. General Assembly to save country finally renounced the acqui- indigenous capability phase (1964- the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty sition of nuclear weapons. 1972). The historical reconstruction (CTBT), and the year before, played Over the course of four decades, of these events is made possible, in a major role in efforts to extend the Australia has gone from a country part, by newly released materials Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of that once sought nuclear weapons to from the Australian National Archive Nuclear Weapons (NPT) indefi- one that now supports their abolition.
    [Show full text]
  • No 14, 1 February 1915
    !lumh. 14. 451 SUPPLEMENT TO THE NEW ZEALAND GAZET11E OF THURSDAY. JAN1JARY 28, 1915. Juhlisgtb hJJ :\utgoritu, WELLING1'0N, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1915. Public Service Entrance Examination, 1914-15. No. Name. Examination Centre. 31. Green, Robert Stewart lnveroargill. Education Department, 32. Barclay, Leslie Robert Wellington. Wellington, 18th January, 1915. 33. Haddow, Henry William Ughtred Auckland. HE following list contains the names of the candidates, 34. Alley, Roy Nicholas . Thames. T arranged in order of merit, that have passed the Public 35. Nightingale, Henry Spencer Christchurch. Service Entrance Examination held on the 18th November, 36. Francis, Archibald Gordon Auckland. 1014, and succeeding days. Smith, Cyril Alfred Hamilton. W. J. ANDERSON, Wesney, John Frederic Inveroargill. For Director of Education. 39. Phillipps, Arthur James .• Dunedin. 40. Whitehouse, Thomas Keith Ray. mond Thames. ND. Name. Examination Centre. 41. Dudson, Huntley Joseph Carterton. 1. Sutcliffe, Joseph Richard Palmerston North. 42. Phillips, Israel .. Auckland. 2. Heather, Stanley Duncan Bur- Auckland. 43. Bartlett, Gilbert George Nelson. goyne 44. Byrne, Norman Alexander Wellington. 3. Robb, George Douglas Auckland. 45. de Castro, Leopold Ransford Thames. 4. Carter, Harry Ga.rlin .. Auckland. 46. Smallfield, Percy Walton .. Auckland. 5. Wild, Geoffrey Victor .. Invercargil!. 47. Collins, Raymond James George .. Wellington. 6. Sanson, John Royden .. Rangiora.. 48. Collings, Alexander John .. Auckland. 7. Wilson, Rowland Paterson Wellington. 49. Ellis, Leonard Victor .. Dunedin. 8. Garrard, Derwent Raoul Auckland. Mellsop, Laurence Ethelbert Auckland. 9. Angus, William Murray Nelson. 51. Johnston, George Pitkethley Thames. 10. Lees, Cecil Edward Gisbome. 52. Parsons, Cecil Herbert Albert 11. Gifford, Edward John .. Nelson. Daniel .. Wellington. 12. Eyre, Lewis Godfrey .. Auckland. 53.
    [Show full text]
  • 04 Chapters 8-Bibliography Burns
    159 CHAPTER 8 THE BRISBANE LINE CONTROVERSY Near the end of March 1943 nineteen members of the UAP demanded Billy Hughes call a party meeting. Hughes had maintained his hold over the party membership by the expedient of refusing to call members 1a together. For months he had then been able to avoid any leadership challenge. Hughes at last conceded to party pressure, and on 25 March, faced a leadership spill, which he believed was inspired by Menzies. 16 He retained the leadership by twenty-four votes to fifteen. The failure to elect a younger and more aggressive leader - Menzies - resulted in early April in the formation by the dissenters of the National Service Group, which was a splinter organisation, not a separate party. Menzies, and Senators Leckie and Spicer from Victoria, Cameron, Duncan, Price, Shcey and Senators McLeary, McBride, the McLachlans, Uphill and Wilson from South Australia, Beck and Senator Sampson from Tasmania, Harrison from New South Wales and Senator Collett from Western Australia comprised the group. Spender stood aloof. 1 This disturbed Ward. As a potential leader of the UAP Menzies was likely to be more of an electoral threat to the ALP, than Hughes, well past his prime, and in the eyes of the public a spent political force. Still, he was content to wait for the appropriate moment to discredit his old foe, confident he had the ammunition in his Brisbane Line claims. The Brisbane Line Controversy Ward managed to verify that a plan existed which had intended to abandon all of Australia north of a line north of Brisbane and following a diagonal course to a point north of Adelaide to be abandoned to the enemy, - the Maryborough Plan.
    [Show full text]
  • John Gorton's Management of the American-Australian
    THE COLLAPSE OF AUSTRALIAN COLD WAR POLICY: JOHN GORTON’S MANAGEMENT OF THE AMERICAN-AUSTRALIAN ALLIANCE IN A TIME OF CRISIS Andrew Nicoll Mason-Jones 199946186 Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, The University of Sydney A thesis suBmitted to fulfil the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts 1 This is to certify that, to the best of my knowledge, the content of this thesis is my own work. This thesis has not been suBmitted for any degree or other purposes. I certify that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work and that all the assistance received in preparing this thesis and sources have Been acknowledged. ______________________________________________________________ Andrew Mason-Jones 2 This thesis is dedicated to my dad, Nicoll Mason-Jones, who served in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968. 3 Thesis ABstract Between 1968 and 1971 the Australian government, under the leadership of Prime Minister John Gorton, began to rethink its foreign and defence policy: from one that had as its central tenet a strong relationship with ‘great and powerful friends’ and fighting communism in Asia, to one that saw Australia withdraw from overseas military action in Vietnam and take on a greater degree of self-reliance. This rethink was thrust on Gorton by British and American announcements to play a lesser role in Southeast Asian affairs, announcements that meant, in effect, the collapse of Australia’s Cold War policy. Such changes in relation to British and American intentions to remain engaged in the region prompted a wave of unprecedented national soul-searching in Australia, a key part of which was the task of re-setting the coordinates of Australian defence policy towards a more self- reliant posture.
    [Show full text]
  • Scientists' Houses in Canberra 1950–1970
    EXPERIMENTS IN MODERN LIVING SCIENTISTS’ HOUSES IN CANBERRA 1950–1970 EXPERIMENTS IN MODERN LIVING SCIENTISTS’ HOUSES IN CANBERRA 1950–1970 MILTON CAMERON Published by ANU E Press The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200, Australia Email: [email protected] This title is also available online at http://epress.anu.edu.au National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Author: Cameron, Milton. Title: Experiments in modern living : scientists’ houses in Canberra, 1950 - 1970 / Milton Cameron. ISBN: 9781921862694 (pbk.) 9781921862700 (ebook) Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index. Subjects: Scientists--Homes and haunts--Australian Capital Territority--Canberra. Architecture, Modern Architecture--Australian Capital Territority--Canberra. Canberra (A.C.T.)--Buildings, structures, etc Dewey Number: 720.99471 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Cover design by Sarah Evans. Front cover photograph of Fenner House by Ben Wrigley, 2012. Printed by Griffin Press This edition © 2012 ANU E Press; revised August 2012 Contents Acknowledgments . vii Illustrations . xi Abbreviations . xv Introduction: Domestic Voyeurism . 1 1. Age of the Masters: Establishing a scientific and intellectual community in Canberra, 1946–1968 . 7 2 . Paradigm Shift: Boyd and the Fenner House . 43 3 . Promoting the New Paradigm: Seidler and the Zwar House . 77 4 . Form Follows Formula: Grounds, Boyd and the Philip House . 101 5 . Where Science Meets Art: Bischoff and the Gascoigne House . 131 6 . The Origins of Form: Grounds, Bischoff and the Frankel House . 161 Afterword: Before and After Science .
    [Show full text]
  • Sir Earle Christmas Grafton PAGE, PC, GCMG, CH Prime Minister 7 April to 26 April 1939
    11 Sir Earle Christmas Grafton PAGE, PC, GCMG, CH Prime Minister 7 April to 26 April 1939 Earle Page became the 11th prime minister following the death of Joseph Lyons. Page was deputy prime minister in the Lyons Government and Australia’s first ‘caretaker’ prime minister. Member of the Farmers and Settlers Association and New State League 1915-25. Member of the Country Party of Australia 1920-61. Member of House of Representatives representing Cowper (NSW) 1920-61; Treasurer 1923-29; Minister for Commerce 1934-39, 1940-41; Health 1937-38, 1949-56. Page ceased to be prime minister when the new United Australia Party leader, Robert Menzies, was elected to replace him. The UAP was the majority party in the coalition. Main achievements (1921-1956) Founder of the Country Party in 1920 and parliamentary leader of the party 1921-39. Entered agreement with ruling Nationalist Party to form Australia’s first coalition government 1923-29, and served as deputy prime minister in that government 1923-29. As Treasurer, Page initiated subsidies for rural exports, abolished Federal land tax and set up a rural credits department within the Commonwealth Bank. With Bruce, he created the Loan Council in 1924, which became statutory in 1929. Also served as deputy prime minister in coalition government with United Australia Party headed by Joseph Lyons in 1934. He founded the Australian Agricultural Council and led two trade delegations to London, 1936 and 1938. Served on Australian War Cabinet 1941 and Advisory War Council 1942-43, 1944-45, and the Pacific War Council in London 1942.
    [Show full text]
  • John Curtin a Tribute: Strengthening the Rule of Law and Australian Democracy
    Curtin University John Curtin a tribute: strengthening the rule of law and Australian democracy JCPML Anniversary Lecture presented by the Rt Hon Malcolm Fraser on 12 June 2008. It is now over 60 years since John Curtin died. The circumstances of his own upbringing in Victoria, the family’s move to Western Australia, his work within the union movement, his repeated attempts to enter Parliament, his opposition to conscription in the First War, his unification of the Labor Party in 1935, his wartime leadership, are all well documented. There is little that can be added that is fresh or new. He was persistent. He had a high sense of public duty. The office of Prime Minister cost his life. His health was never good. He worried about important decisions in a manner that was much to his credit. When, with a great sense of Australian purpose, he defied both Churchill and Roosevelt to bring Australian troops home for the defence of Australia, he agonised over the decision. He knew he was putting those troops at risk until they were safely in Australian ports. The long journey across the Indian Ocean was unprotected and subject to Japanese attack. He often walked in the evening or at night to allay his concerns, or at least to make it possible to live with them. Worry or concern about the consequences of major decisions did not deter him from taking those decisions. It all stands greatly to his credit, to his determination and his moral strength. It needs to be understood that, up to the time of the Second World War, Australia had no independent foreign policy.
    [Show full text]
  • John Curtin's War
    backroom briefings John Curtin's war CLEM LLOYD & RICHARD HALL backroom briefings John Curtin's WAR edited by CLEM LLOYD & RICHARD HALL from original notes compiled by Frederick T. Smith National Library of Australia Canberra 1997 Front cover: Montage of photographs of John Curtin, Prime Minister of Australia, 1941-45, and of Old Parliament House, Canberra Photographs from the National Library's Pictorial Collection Back cover: Caricature of John Curtin by Dubois Bulletin, 8 October 1941 Published by the National Library of Australia Canberra ACT 2600 © National Library of Australia 1997 Introduction and annotations © Clem Lloyd and Richard Hall Every reasonable endeavour has been made to contact relevant copyright holders of illustrative material. Where this has not proved possible, the copyright holders are invited to contact the publisher. National Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data Backroom briefings: John Curtin's war. Includes index. ISBN 0 642 10688 6. 1. Curtin, John, 1885-1945. 2. World War, 1939-1945— Press coverage—Australia. 3. Journalism—Australia. I. Smith, FT. (Frederick T.). II. Lloyd, C.J. (Clement John), 1939- . III. Hall, Richard, 1937- . 940.5394 Editor: Julie Stokes Designer: Beverly Swifte Picture researcher/proofreader: Tony Twining Printed by Goanna Print, Canberra Published with the assistance of the Lloyd Ross Forum CONTENTS Fred Smith and the secret briefings 1 John Curtin's war 12 Acknowledgements 38 Highly confidential: press briefings, June 1942-January 1945 39 Introduction by F.T. Smith 40 Chronology of events; Briefings 42 Index 242 rederick Thomas Smith was born in Balmain, Sydney, Fon 18 December 1904, one of a family of two brothers and two sisters.
    [Show full text]
  • William Mcmahon: the First Treasurer with an Economics Degree
    William McMahon: the first Treasurer with an economics degree John Hawkins1 William McMahon was Australia’s first treasurer formally trained in economics. He brought extraordinary energy to the role. The economy performed strongly during McMahon’s tenure, although there are no major reforms to his name, and arguably pressures were allowed to build which led to the subsequent inflation of the 1970s. Never popular with his cabinet colleagues, McMahon’s public reputation was tarnished by his subsequent unsuccessful period as prime minister. Source: National Library of Australia.2 1 The author formerly worked in the Domestic Economy Division, the Australian Treasury. This article has benefited from comments provided by Selwyn Cornish and Ian Hancock but responsibility lies with the author and the views are not necessarily those of Treasury. 83 William McMahon: the first treasurer with an economics degree Introduction Sir William McMahon is now recalled by the public, if at all, for accompanying his glamorous wife to the White House in a daringly revealing outfit (hers not his). Comparisons invariably place him as one of the weakest of the Australian prime ministers.3 Indeed, McMahon himself recalled it as ‘a time of total unpleasantness’.4 His reputation as treasurer is much better, being called ‘by common consent a remarkably good one’.5 The economy performed well during his tenure, but with the global economy strong and no major shocks, this was probably more good luck than good management.6 His 21 years and four months as a government minister, across a range of portfolios, was the third longest (and longest continuously serving) in Australian history.7 In his younger days he was something of a renaissance man; ‘a champion ballroom dancer, an amateur boxer and a good squash player — all of which require, like politics, being fast on his feet’.8 He suffered deafness until it was partly cured by some 2 ‘Portrait of William McMahon, Prime Minister of Australia from 1971-1972/Australian Information Service’, Bib ID: 2547524.
    [Show full text]
  • Keynes and Australia
    KEYNES AND AUSTRALIA Donald J Markwell Research Discussion Paper 2000-04 June 2000 Research Department, Reserve Bank of Australia, and New College, Oxford Reserve Bank of Australia A paper presented at a seminar at the Reserve Bank of Australia on 18 September 1985. Foreword This paper concerns itself with the various interactions between John Maynard Keynes and Australia. An unlikely topic perhaps, but the result is a gem – a paper that provides a fascinating insight into that period of huge economic and social turmoil from the end of World War I to just after World War II, when Keynes died. There is a broad sweep of topics here – from Keynes’s dealings with the Australian Prime Minister, William Morris Hughes, over demands for reparations against Germany after World War I, to Keynes’s opinions and influence on the handling of the Depression in Australia, to the early impact of Keynesian ideas in Australia, to Australia’s approach to the creation of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, of which Keynes was co-founder. The paper was presented at a seminar at the Reserve Bank fifteen years ago. It is being released now as a Research Discussion Paper, after a rather longer delay than usual, to make it available to a wide readership. Happy reading. David Gruen Head of Economic Research Department May 2000 I am grateful to the Economic Research Department for their recovery of this paper, and for allowing it to see the light of day. Fifteen years on, it would be written in a different style – but I would not wish to alter any of its conclusions.
    [Show full text]
  • Introducing John Joseph Curtin Australian Wartime Prime Minister
    Introducing John Joseph Curtin, Australian war time prime minister It is my pleasure and privilege today to introduce you to the life of John Joseph Curtin-known more fully as John Joseph Ambrose Curtin but more usually as simply John Curtin.1 From my perspective there has always been a fascination in the United States with the image of a person born in a log cabin and becoming president in the White House and many years ago I remember clearly writing a biography of Abraham Lincoln with just that image to help make the story meaningful even to Australian school children. Lincoln, I seem to recall, was born in a one room log cabin in Kentucky and moved first to Indiana and then to Illinois from where his political career spiralled. Curtin was not actually born in a single room log cabin but in a small but adequate weather board home with a shingles roof in a mining town {Creswick) in Victoria. If Lincoln will always be remembered for leading his country during the American Civil War Curtin will always be remembered for leading his country when for the first and only time in its history since European settlement in 1788 there were bombing raids from the air and sea and when the threat of invasion by a hostile force was very real. In my own home (I was six years old at the time) I s till recall the air raid shelters in our backyard and the blackout on our windows and, can I add, the party staged for us by the Americans in gratitude for the hospitality we showed their sailors and airmen while they were based in Perth, (also Curtin's home town by that time).
    [Show full text]