A Turbulent Decade Social Protest Movements and the Labour Movement, 1965-1975 Edited by Beverley Symons and Rowan Cahill A Turbulent Decade Social Protest Movements and the Labour Movement, 1965-1975 Edited by Beverley Symons and Rowan Cahill Published by Sydney Branch, Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, 2005 PO Box 1027, Newtown, Sydney, 2042 © Sydney Branch, Australian Society for the Study of Labour History National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry A turbulent decade : social protest movements and the labour movement, 1965-1975. ISBN 0 909944 09 1. 1. Labor movement - Australia - History - 20th century. 2. Social change - Australia - History - 20th century. 3. Australia - Social conditions - 20th century. I. Symons, Beverley. II. Cahill, Rowan J., 1945-. III. Australian Society for the Study of Labour History. Sydney Branch. 331.80994 Layout: Southland Media Pty Ltd Printing: Southwood Press, Marrickville CONTENTS Acknowledgements..........................................................................................................iv Introduction: Rowan Cahill............................................................................................ v Conference Opening Comments: Greg Patmore......................................................... 1 Chapter 1: The Anti-Vietnam War and Anti-Conscription Movements: Mavis Robertson..........................................................................................................2 Bob Gould................................................................................................................... 6 Jack Cambourn............................................................................................................8 Charlie Bowers.............................................................................................................9 Noreen Hewett......................................................................................................... 11 Chapter 2: The Student, New Left and Counter-Culture Movements: Anthony Ashbolt...................................................................................................... 15 Greg Mallory.............................................................................................................18 Rowan Cahill.............................................................................................................21 John Percy.................................................................................................................. 22 Wendy Bacon............................................................................................................23 Hall Greenland......................................................................................................... 25 Gillian Leahy.............................................................................................................26 Panel Discussion....................................................................................................... 27 Chapter 3: Sexual Politics: The Women’s Liberation Movement: Suzanne Bellamy....................................................................................................... 30 Joyce Stevens..............................................................................................................32 Lyndall Ryan..............................................................................................................35 Chapter 4: Sexual Politics: Gay and Lesbian Rights: Craig Johnston......................................................................................................... 38 Robyn Plaister...........................................................................................................39 Sue W ills................................................................................................................... 41 Ken Davis.................................................................................................................. 43 Shane Ostenfeld....................................................................................................... 46 Chapter 5: Aboriginal Land Rights and Civil Rights: Brian Aarons..............................................................................................................50 Dulcie Flower............................................................................................................51 Lester Bostock...........................................................................................................55 Chapter 6: The Anti-Apartheid Movement: Audrey M cDonald...................................................................................................58 Meredith Burgmann............................................................................................... 59 Peter McGregor........................................................................................................ 61 John M yrtle..............................................................................................................64 Chapter 7: The Trade Union Movement: Changes, Struggles and Gains: Diane Fieldes.............................................................................................................67 Paul True....................................................................................................................70 Jack M undey.............................................................................................................71 Tom McDonald........................................................................................................ 74 Joe Palmada............................................................................................................... 77 Barrie Unsworth....................................................................................................... 79 Chapter 8: Conflict and Change in the Australian Labor Party, 1965-1972: Sue Tracey................................................................................................................. 82 Bruce Childs.............................................................................................................83 Graham Freudenberg.............................................................................................. 86 Suzanne Jamieson..................................................................................................... 89 Race Mathews...........................................................................................................92 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS During the weekend of September 22-23, 2001, the Sydney Branch of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History (ASSLH) conducted a Conference entitled ‘Social Protest Movements and the Labour Movement, 1965-1975’. The papers and talks presented there form the basis of this book. The Conference was organised by the following members of the Sydney Branch committee of the ASSLH: Rowan Cahill, Bob Gould, Julie Kimber, Greg Patmore, John Shields, Beverley Symons and Margaret Walters. The editors thank Beverley Symons for undertaking the task of transcribing and editing the Conference proceedings, the SEARCH Foundation for a small grant to assist with financing this task, and the Conference participants who gave permission for their contributions to be published here. INTRODUCTION The Conference, ‘Social Protest Movements and the Labour Movement, 1965-1975’, was held in Sydney on September 22-23, 2001. It took place eleven days after Muslim militants crashed hijacked airliners into the World Trade Centre in New York and into the Pentagon, and nine days after the Australian government, in consultation with the United States government, invoked relevant provisions of the ANZUS treaty equating an attack on the US as an attack on Australia’s peace and safety. Australia was heading for military involvement in a war against the hapless, impoverished nation of Afghanistan - a war that US President George W. Bush ominously termed ‘the first war of the twenty-first century’, as he pointed the finger at Islamic militant Osama bin Laden and made war against terrorism the focus of his Administration. Racism and hysteria gained ground in Australia. A spirit similar to Cold War McCarthyism gripped the nation; criticism of the US and its conduct in world affairs was deemed tantamount to siding with terrorism, in the same way during the 1950s and 1960s, that criticism of the US was deemed to equate with communism. Anti- Muslim graffiti appeared on the walls of Mosques and Islamic schools in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane; arson attacks were to follow. Australian Muslims, particularly women and children, were verbally and physically assaulted; radio talk-back programs enthusiastically aired anti-Muslim sentiments. For many Conference participants it was a time for sober reflection. The hysteria, fear and ignorance that characterised public discourse and reaction since September 11 was reminiscent of Cold War Australia, when truth was hard to find, information was not freely disseminated, and informed discourse was discouraged. The social protest movements of the 1960s and 1970s had their roots in opposition to these sorts of social and political forces and to the type of culture they engendered. The Conference was framed around, and between, two landmark years in Australian history. In 1965 the Liberal-Country Party coalition government of Sir Robert Menzies committed a battalion of troops to the war in Vietnam, dramatically increasing