Freedom's on the Wallaby

Abstract

One of the more fortunate consequences of the centenary of the Australian Labor Party in 1991 was the 'Freedom's on the Wallaby' exhibition, which was on show at the National Library of Australia, Canberra from October 8, 1991 until January 31, 1992. The exhibition contained material from the Library's own collections, as well as from other libraries around the country. There were books, pamphlets, newspapers, letters, minutes of meetings, posters, election dodgers and photographs included in the display. Trade union ribbons and banners, with their splashes of red, green and gold, provided it with much colour while the use of sound recordings, some original and some re-creations, to reveal particular episodes in the Party's history, was an appealing method of presentation. Evatt's speech to the electors during the 1951 referendum campaign over the banning of the Communist Party, in which he appeals for a 'No' vote on the grounds of fairness and British justice, was particularly moving. Delivered in the Labor leader's gravelly tones, it belongs, in its style and content, to a political world that we have lost. Whilst the curator of the exhibition, Michael Richards, did not attempt a comprehensive coverage of the Party's history, he assembled an impressive variety of materials dealing with many aspects of the history of Australia's oldest political party. The title of the exhibition captured one of its important dimensions. 'Freedom on the Wallaby' is the title of a poem by Henry Lawson published in the Brisbane Worker during the shearers' strike of 1891. As a statement of defiance in the face of tyranny, it has entered into Labor folklore: