| Contents > Perceptions of Communism in Australia Reception and Rejection by Robert M V Dick |
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The resources enlisted by Menzies and the Liberal Party after almost three years, the latter two in Government, to deal with the perceived Communism threat even today, appear staggering. It had involved intense parliamentary debate over thirty-nine sitting days and for almost as long a period argued by trade unions and counsel before seven judges of the High Court, a double-dissolution of Federal Parliament, a general election and now a national referendum on 22 September 1951.(Webb, 1951, Preface) Prior to the referendum the Commonwealth Electoral Office had distributed 5 million pamphlets outlining the “Yes” and the “No” cases.
The referendum to amend the Constitution was not carried. In aggregate 50.6% voted “No” to the question and 49.4% said “Yes”. Interestingly the vote of members of the defence forces included in the aggregate result was different and more decisive – 68% voting “Yes” and 32% voting “No”.(Constitutional Change, Part 2 - History of Australian Referendum, Communism)
Menzies had the press behind him and early opinion polls indicated strong support for a “Yes” outcome. Even the most uncommitted observer could not escape the generally held Cold War tension. With such a massive effort why did Menzies fail albeit narrowly? There is little doubt that Menzies was convinced he was right in pursuing the dissolution and outlawing of the Communist Party in Australia. When introducing the first Dissolution Bill Menzies stated his position firstly repeated his original view against a communist ban and then why he changed:
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True, that was my view after the war. But events have moved. We are not at peace today, except in a technical sense. The Soviet Union…has made perfect the technique of the ‘Cold War’. It has accompanied it by the organisation of peace demonstrations designed, not to promote true peace, but to prevent or impair defence preparations in the democracies. We in this House and in this country…have witnessed the most threatening events in Eastern Europe, in Germany, in East Asia and in South-east Asia.(Martin, 1999, p. 143)
The stronger “Yes” vote by members of the defence forces may have been influenced by the position taken by the then Returned Sailors, Soldiers and Airmens League of Australia (RSSAILA). The League was itself earlier involved in a legal wrangle to give it the power to expel Communists from its membership thereby preventing them from gaining appointments to committees and councils.(Brady, 1950, p. 25) The League’s foreign policy was unequivocally “to fight Communism everywhere, a policy which has in effect become the foreign policy of Australia itself.”(Editorial, 1950, p. 4) But even this was not sufficient to swing the national result to a decisive “Yes”.
The influence exerted by the Catholic Church on the referendum result is difficult to pin down but is never-the-less a factor. Fitzgerald cites the pressure applied by some unions to Labor members of Parliament to earlier allow the passage of the Dissolution Bill which may be evidence of the Catholic anti-communist Movement influence. Santamaria as leader of the Movement, was initially against the banning of the Communist Party but changed his position with the North Korean invasion of South Korea.(Fitzgerald, 2003, p. 104)
The Movement’s journal News Weekly was consistently for the “Yes” campaign but interestingly the Catholic hierarchy with one exception (Archbishop Duhig of Brisbane) declaring that the referendum was a matter for an individual’s conscience. Archbishop Mannix privately expressed his opinion that banning the Communist Party was a bad idea.(Fitzgerald, 2003, p. 106)
Fitzgerald places the success of the “No” campaign at Dr Evatt’s feet. Evatt worked tirelessly in nationally urging a “No” vote and Martin agrees that Evatt was entitled to celebrate. Evatt had claimed that “the Australian people had rejected the Menzies campaign of unscrupulous propaganda and hysteria.”(Martin, 1999, p. 193) Menzies had several views on why the Referendum failed but probably the most likely factor, as he explained, that “in a Federation a distrust of the central authority and a dislike to the creating of additional central power” led to Constitutional changes being rejected.(Martin, 1999, p. 195)
Post war Australia saw an influx of migrants many from countries that had first-hand experience of Communism and were not keen to add to Party membership in Australia. Reconstruction and development including the first Australian Holden off the production line and the start of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme generated considerable jobs growth and prosperity. The period also saw the gradual fall in Communist Party membership which in 1949 was about half that of the Depression years. But the power of the Party was not in its numbers but in the positions in powerful unions that officials occupied. As it transpired, events outside Australia were to have more to do with the decline in membership. The allegiance and connection that Australian Communists had to a foreign dictatorship itself undergoing extensive change diminished the power and influence of the Party considerably.
The effort to outlaw the Communist Party in Australia provides strong evidence of the power of the perception of Menzies and the Liberal Party that the Communist Party threatened revolutionary change in Australia. There is also sufficient evidence that events outside Australia in Eastern Europe, Korea, China and in South East Asia would have supported that perception.
The other conclusion that might be drawn from the referendum decision not to change the Constitution is that even in the face of that substantial evidence, the Australian people were still of the opinion that the principle of freedom of opinion, must be maintained. This belief would be tested in the defection of the Soviet Diplomat Vladimir Petrov and subsequent Royal Commission into espionage that would erupt in 1954.
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| Contents > Perceptions of Communism in Australia Reception and Rejection by Robert M V Dick |