The Republic of Australia, 1947

Chiefly was not just the most radical PM Australia ever had he was probably the most radical any Anglosphere country had, imagine a racist Tony Benn with an Aussie accent.
 

kenmac

Banned
Which brings us to Saint Gough the divine. His fans will tell you he was deposed in a CIA plot precisely so he couldn’t make Australia a Republic, withdraw from Vietnam, end poverty and introduce the Age of Aquarius. In reality he initially became PM with a majority of eight seats, and that was further reduced to five seats in his second term. He was then dismissed and an election called that resulted in the largest swing against the Labor Party in post war history.

:D Very good.

 

Larrikin

Banned
Chiefly was not just the most radical PM Australia ever had he was probably the most radical any Anglosphere country had, imagine a racist Tony Benn with an Aussie accent.

A lot of the problem with the Chifley govt was one H.V. Evatt. For those who don't know Herbert Vere Evatt, he was the first in a long line of useless ratbag prats as SecGen of the UN. :D
 

Cook

Banned
Chiefly was not just the most radical PM Australia ever had he was probably the most radical any Anglosphere country had, imagine a racist Tony Benn with an Aussie accent.

I don’t think that’s fair. Chifley opened the country up to enormous numbers of immigrants after WW2. The Snow Mountains Scheme as well as irrigation and power dam projects in other states were build with large numbers of immigrants, Italians, Greeks, Hungarians, Poles and other East Europeans.

As far as many of his contemporaries were concerned such people were “Wogs”.
 
Okay he was slightly less racist than his predecessors but he was a firm supporter of the White Australia Policy.
 

Cook

Banned
Okay he was slightly less racist than his predecessors but he was a firm supporter of the White Australia Policy.

Chifley’s opening the door to immigrants from Europe is seen as the first stage in dismantling the Immigration Restriction Act. Prior to then the Act had been used to effectively halt almost all immigration from anywhere but the British Iles.

I am no fan of the man but give credit where credit is due.
 
Okay I'll give you that, by the standards of the time and the Labour party of the 1940's he was a beacon of tolerance.
 

Cook

Banned
Well you have to examine historical figures in the context and standards of their times.
 
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