Arthur Calwell
Arthur Calwell leader of the Australian Labor Party 1960-1967
Calwell grew up in Melbourne and attended St Joseph's College. After leaving school, he began working as a clerk for the Victorian state government. He became involved in the labour movement as an officeholder in the public-sector trade union. Before entering parliament, Calwell held various positions in the Labor Party's organisation wing, serving terms as state president and as a member of the federal executive. He was elected to the House of Representatives at the 1940 federal election, standing in the Division of Melbourne.
After the 1943 election, Calwell was elevated to cabinet as Minister for Information, overseeing government censorship and propaganda during World War II. When Ben Chifley became prime minister in 1945, he was also made Minister for Immigration. He oversaw the creation of Australia's expanded post-war immigration scheme, at the same time strictly enforcing the White Australia policy. In 1951, Calwell was elected deputy leader of the Labor Party in place of H. V. Evatt, who had succeeded to the leadership upon Chifley's death. The two clashed on a number of occasions over the following decade, which encompassed the 1955 party split. In 1960, Evatt retired and Calwell was chosen as his successor, thus becoming Leader of the Opposition.
Calwell and the Labor Party came close to victory at the 1961 election, gaining 15 seats and finishing only two seats shy of a majority. However, those gains were wiped out at the 1963 election. Calwell was one of the most prominent opponents of Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War, a stance that was not electorally popular at the time. In 1966, Calwell survived a leadership challenge from his deputy Gough Whitlam, survived an assassination attempt with minor injuries, and finally led his party to a landslide defeat at the 1966 election, winning less than one-third of the total seats. He was 70 years old by that point, and resigned the leadership a few months later. He remained in parliament until the 1972 election, which saw Whitlam become prime minister, and died the following year.
Views on South Africa
The bitter feelings that exist between the white and coloured residents of that unhappy country have been worsened by the divisions among the English and Afrikaner sections of the south african community. These devisions have existed since the Boer war between the English and Afrikaner communities, They go back to the time of the concentration camps for Boer women and children - the prolonged war and the introduction of Asian people - Chinese principally, as coolie labourers - to work.
It is notorious that the white community in South Africa is divided into two sections, These two groups not being able to reconcile their differences are confronted by 12,000,000 other people, against their 3,000,000 who feel that they are being deined elementary justice in their own land at a time when everybody throughout the world proclaims support for the charter of the United Nations. The only way in which the problem of association of white and coloured people can be solved, and such a society maintained: is by the policy of segregation.
Views on Democratic Socialism
We call ourselves the Australian Labor Party, and that word isn't just there as a geographical description, as if we were a branch of some other Labor party. The men who formed the party - not long after this school was fonded - had a vision of the type of society they thought could be built here, free from the feudal inequalities and industrial enormities of Europe. As queensland poet Bunton Stephens wrote last century.
"This is the only land beneath Heaven's roof, Where never yet hath manhood bent the knee, To man. The one sole continent whose sod. the feet of ruling knighthood ne'er hath trod." In any case, from the first, the Labor Party was imbued with a fierce Nationalism. And its other source of inspiration was the ideal of mateship, Let me read a store about a very great Australian, Dr. Evatt in one of his books:
"In the Paroo country, the old swaggy came to the Bringabbie hut, weak and ill. He was alone and had no money to buy food. Endeavouring to preserve his fast-failing strength he was intent on one thing, to vote for the Labor candidate. 'I was to give Hughie a vote' he said. 'I suppose it will be my last.' but half his journey to the lecotrate was still to be travelled and his condition was desperate. 'I have knocked around these creeks this many a year.' he said 'an I could never get a vote; but I did get a vote this time and when I got it, I said this belongs to Hughie Langwell.' That night the man died, his name was Martin Farell. The only papers found on him were his Union ticket and a receipt for the suscription to the Broken Hill strike fund." Heroism in us all...
You might say, the conditions which produced the early Labor Party, and men like martin Farell no longer exist, but a part always draws sustenance and inspiration from its traditions, just as much as a school - and these are our traditions. The idea implicit in that story - solidarity, localty, mateship - these are surely relevant to all times, because they bespeak the heroism latent in even the humblest of us. "Equality" which is itself best defined as the absence of privilege - the privilege conferred by power, wealth, social position or inheritance.
The Communist party, so far from being an ally of the Labor Party, is just as ideologically opposed to Labor in 1964 as it was when it was first formed in Australia in 1921. The Labor Party declared then there is an UN-BRIDGEABLE gulf between itself and the Communist Party. It has never changed that view and it never will. In the light of what I have said about our attitude to Communism and the attitude of Communists to us, I want to nail the monstrous lie of the National Civic Council's representatives that the Labor party, which they deserted nine years ago, is nothing but a 'Red instrument'
Further Reading
The Australian Tradition in Immigration by Arthur Calwell
I stand by White Australia by Arthur Calwell
