Category: Political history

This is a lucid and interesting story by Keith Harvey: From university activist in the Democrat Club at Monash University in the early 1970s, gradual attraction to the ideals and works of the National Civic Council (NCC), conversion to Catholicism, marriage, children, recruitment to the anti-communist union cause, union work, including the Victorian Trades Hall Council (VTHC) in 1977-78 (it did not end well), then the Federated Clerks Union (FCU) to retirement, and attraction to the ideals of the Australian Labor Party in coalition with Christians concerned with social justice.

There were two periods in recent British Labour history where leaving the party was a more than usually troubling question for a lifelong supporter to consider.

This essay suggests that Burkean ideas apply to the Australian labour tradition7 and help illuminate that tradition as well as enabling the explication of competing ideas that sit outside, sometimes in competition and sometimes as complementary.

Australia’s greatest Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, entered the office with expectations that were precarious and low. His 1979 Boyer Lectures on ABC radio were wide ranging and lightweight. Ideas were kite flown as if they were wistful suggestions untied to each other and unmoored to earth.

All parties exist to win. I felt from the beginning of the campaign that there was no great mood for change, despite the shambles of the last three years. I expected, though, at the start that we would narrowly win because of the mess the government was in, not due to us.