History of Australia

The comparative method is a valuable tool for understanding labour history in Australia and the UK. This paper defines comparative labour history and examines the various benefits and problems of comparative research. The article then looks at the use of comparative labour history in Australia and UK. It argues that comparative analysis plays a marginal role in both labour historiographies due to a strong empiricist tradition. This tradition also mitigates against a sophisticated discussion of both concepts and comparative method. Where comparative method is used, there is a bias towards 'Anglo-Saxon' countries partially due to limited non-English language skills. Among UK historians who focus on the UK, academic links with many parts of the former British Empire, including the USA, are stronger than they are with Europe. When Australian labour historians have adopted a comparative approach, it focuses on 'settler societies' such as Canada and the USA, where there is a common interest in general questions such as the 'frontier' and more specific issues such as scientific management and the Industrial Workers of the World. The article concludes by arguing that comparative labour history has to take into account the streams of cultural transfer between nationally constituted labour movements to produce better results.

Testing Citizenship, Regulating History: The Fatal Impact

industry, older university presses appear to be retreating from publishing Australian history altogether. The demise of Cambridge's Studies in Australian History Series is a case in point. Today, PhD theses (however topical or brilliant) seldom make that difficult transition to a monograph and even well established authors (what the industry calls the 'big names' of the profession) are invited to return their manuscript with a hefty publication subsidy. In short, Australian history doesn't 'sell': the market (we are told) is too small (too 'fickle', too 'discouraged') to make publication commercially viable. If Australian history is in decline, that decline is by no means universal. Some titles in some areas are doing extraordinarily well and war it seems, is amongst the best sellers. Of course, the quality of these titles varies enormously. Oxford University Press has taken the initiative by commissioning a scholarly and well-regarded series on Australian military history. Several of these titles have been written by academics affiliated with either ADFA (the Australian Defence Force Academy) or the Australian War Memorial. Military history was also a facet of Cambridge's aforementioned Australian History Series and again it is instructive that one of the few titles to run to a reprint in that series was Jeffrey Grey's Military History of Australia. At the other end of the spectrum is what publishers call the more 'populist' market, the spate of

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgements A project of this scale and comprehensiveness is necessarily a team effort. The Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, and the Humanities Division of the University of Otago have, again, provided sponsorship for the post-election Workshop—the important first step in the writing and discussion processes. The Workshop, held at University House, the Australian National University (ANU) in January 2008, was also supported by the School of Social Science, in the ANU's Arts Faculty, and the Political Science Program, in the ANU's Research School of the Social Sciences. The editor is also grateful to the Advisory group, comprising political scientists from across Australia including Dean Jaensch (Flinders University), Carol Johnson (University of Adelaide), James Jupp (ANU), Elaine Thompson (Macquarie & UNSW), John Warhurst (ANU) and Dennis Woodward (Monash University); the group assisted with the refereeing process. In the four previous volumes of this post-election study series, John Warhurst has been a co-editor and we have alternated the chief editor's role. His decision to retire from the ANU left a gap which the Advisory team is partially filling. Sonya Welykyj, also from the ANU, provided valuable administrative support to the editor. The editor is especially grateful to Richard Nile at Murdoch University for facilitating the publication of the Academy Workshop papers in two special issues of his new journal; and to Catherine Raw and her excellent production team at Taylor and Francis for their efficiency in dealing with such a large number of submissions. The editor is also grateful to the University of Otago, via its research cluster funding for supporting this venture; more recently, Deakin University has provided a congenial environment for the final stage. Notes 1. ‘Special issue: Kevin 07 – The 2007 Australian Election Part I’, Australian Cultural History, 2009, vol 27, no 2. 2. Marian Simms, ‘Preface’, Australian Cultural History, 2009, vol 27, no 2, p 79. 3. Carol Johnson, ‘The ideological contest’, Australian Cultural History, 2010, vol 28, no 1, pp 7–14. 4. ibid. 5. John Wanna, ‘Business and unions’, Australian Cultural History, 2010, vol 28, no 1, pp 15–22. 6. Marian Simms, ‘The leaders and the press’, Australian Cultural History, 2010, vol 28, no 1, pp 23–30. 7. John Warhurst, ‘Religion’, Australian Cultural History, 2010, vol 28, no 1, pp 31–7. 8. Kevin Rudd, ‘Faith in Politics’, The Monthly, 22–30 October 2006. 9. Geoffrey Craig, ‘The leaders and the mass media’, Australian Cultural History, 2010, vol 28, no 1, pp 39–46. 10. ibid., p 45. 11. Peter Chen and Lucas Walsh, ‘The e-election campaign’, Australian Cultural History, 2010, vol 28, no 1, pp 47–54. 12. ibid. 13. Haydon Manning and Robert Phiddian, ‘Political cartoons’, Australian Cultural History, 2010, vol 28, no 1, pp 55–67. 14. ibid. 15. Murray Goot, ‘Underdogs, bandwagons or incumbency? Party support at the beginning and end of Australian election campaigns, 1983–2007’, Australian Cultural History, 2010, vol 28, no 1, pp 69–79. 16. Nick Economou, ‘Victoria’, Australian Cultural History, 2010, vol 28, no 1, pp 81–6. 17. Narelle Miragliotta and Campbell Sharman, ‘Western Australia’, Australian Cultural History, 2010, vol 28, no 1, pp 87–93. 18. ibid. 19. Tony McCall, ‘Tasmania’, Australian Cultural History, 2010, vol 28, no 1, pp 95–102. 20. Dean Jaensch, ‘Northern Territory’, Australian Cultural History, 2010, vol 28, no 1, pp 103–6. 21. Malcolm Mackerras, ‘Australian Capital Territory’, Australian Cultural History, 2010, vol 28, no 1, pp 107–12. 22. Dennis Woodward and Jennifer Curtin, ‘Rural and regional Australia’, Australian Cultural History, 2010, vol 28, no 1, pp 113–19. 23. ibid.

The first issue of Labour History, then called the Bulletin of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, appeared in January 1962. There were to be two more produced in 1962, one in May and one in November. This commemorative note looks at these first three issues and the circumstances surrounding their publication. Bob Gollan and other labour historians established the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History in a lecture room at the University of Queensland in Brisbane in May 1961. The meeting was held against the background of a Congress of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science (ANZAAS). British labour historians formed a similar society in 1960 and the visit to Australia of its inaugural president, Asa Briggs, encouraged the Australians to form their own society. Australia's political and intellectual environment also assisted the foundation of the Society. The conservative ascendency in Australian post-war politics heightened the need for historians to assist the labour movement by examining the 'lessons of history' and highlighting the positive contribution of labour to Australian society. Further the decline of the Communist Party in Australia and Britain had resulted in the disarray of the Left. The weakening of ideological divisions also encouraged dialogue between Marxist and non-Marxist labour historians. The Australian society provided a focal point for labour historians and drew in political scientists and industrial relations practitioners.2 As Robin Gollan later noted, 'the Labour History Society was a kind of popular front, politically and intellectually'.3 While the use of 'labour' rather than Tabor' in the name of the Society reflected a preference for the English rather than US spelling, there was a desire avoid the Society being viewed as an 'offshoot' or 'adjunct' of the Australian Labor Party.4 The Society was based at the Australian National University (ANU) and published the first issue of its journal, the Bulletin of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, in January 1961. An important objective of the Bulletin was to combat the 'yawning chasm' of writings on Australian labour history. The founders of the Bulletin did not see it as a rival to established journals such as Historical Studies, but as covering an underdeveloped niche in Australian history. The Bulletin also provided an important medium for information on the Society's activities. There was an interest in developing a bulletin for Society news and a separate academic journal, but this was viewed as beyond the Society's resources. Eric Fry, from the History Department at the ANU, was the editor of the first three issues.5 In the first issue of the Bulletin, Gollan, the inaugural president of the Australian Society, reviewed the state of Australian labour history. He expressed concern about its narrow limits the emphasis on biography and political history. However, he noted that there was still work to be done even here. For example, there were no suitable biographies of trade union leaders. Gollan called for a broader approach that included the social history of the working class, class relations, the history of popular culture and histories of major trade unions.6 VII

'War has been one of the defining forces in Australian history ... Participation in war, whether actively in the armed forces or on the home front, or in opposition to a particular war, has shaped the lives of successive generations of Australians in the twentieth century. Today ... questions relating to defence do not usually seize the attention of the media, but the Department of Defence remains one of the largest single consumers of the annual federal budget, and Anzac Day continues to hold a special place in the Australian calendar.'These words introduced the first edition of The Oxford Companion to Australian Military History in 1995. More than a decade later much has changed. Australian forces are currently employed in widely dispersed operations around the world, in particular in Iraq, Afghanistan, Timor Leste and the Solomon Islands, and questions of defence, broadly understood, have once again become a matter of public debate and controversy.This substantial new edition of the Companion builds on the strength of the first edition. Many of the original entries have been retained, some with minor emendations or additions, while others have been rewritten in the light of recent scholarship. There are also many new entries on topics that were omitted from the first edition, either because they did not seem to warrant inclusion or simply because they were overlooked, while others have assumed a new significance in the light of developments since 1995. In all cases the editors have sought to retain the original aim of combining information, some of it technical, with analysis, and to do so in a manner that will make the Companion accessible and useful both to the general reader and to the specialist.

When Mark Salber Phillip’s suggested that history could be written as a type of combinational genre, with traditional empirical elements and fictional, literary elements working together to create temporal distance between the reader and the events, he saw this as a way of forcing us to look more broadly at the meanings of history, rather than focusing on a singular event. Using his claim that history cannot be understood as a singular form, but rather as "a cluster of overlapping and competing genres" that press the reader to a new degree of involvement in a story, it can be argued that an understanding of Australian history and its people, is enhanced by the experience of reading Australian speculative histories (Phillips 2003 218). Two valuable examples of these speculative histories are Clare G. Coleman’s Terra Nullius (2017) and Terry Pratchett’s The Last Continent (1998). Both are atypical engagements with Australian history that examine influences on Australian cultural behaviour and evolution through re-imagined interactions with the nation’s history, environment and mythologies.

This issue of <i>Australian Historical Studies</i> is the final one in our editorial tenure ofthe journal from 2015 to 2018. During this time, it has been a privilege to publisha range of fascinating articles in Australian history, and to support new historicalwork that examines Australias place in the world, and the international, transnational and localised connections that have shaped national historical experiences.This includes special issues and focused forums on topics such as The Pacific, OralHistory and Australian Generations, Big Data and Australian History, EconomicHistory and History and Heritage. We are delighted then that this issue featuresa forum on New Histories of Sexuality. It also includes a Commentary on thecalls for truth-telling about the history of Indigenous Australians under colonisation that underpins the Uluru Statement from the Heart, issued by the FirstNations Constitutional Convention on 26 May 2017.

Garfield Edward John Barwick, born on 22 June 1903, is undoubtedly one of the most important Australians of the century. As counsel, Barwick had an important role in the landmark cases in the High Court and the Privy Council in the 1940s and the 1950s. As Attorney-General for the Commonwealth through 1958 to 1963, he was involved in initiatives in matrimonial causes, company law and trade practices. Sir Garfield's career also included service as Minister for External Affairs (1961-1964).This book of his recollections and reflections has a clarity and force which come in part from its simplicity of style and in part from the personality of the author. It provides an important historical record of Sir Garfield's view of a number of key events in Australian history — especially Australian legal history. It also provides insight into the philosophy and values of this influential Australian lawyer.

This article reviews Australian religious history from 1981 to 2000. It extends an earlier review, also published in the Journal of Religious History, which provided an initial survey of Australian religious history from 1960 to 1980. The review is published in two parts. The first part discusses survey histories, bibliographies and reference works, religion in «non-religious» Australian history, Aboriginal religions and missions, Judaism and other non-Christian religious traditions. The second part covers Christianity: Catholicism, Anglicanism, Non-Anglican Protestantism, and Eastern Orthodoxy. Overall, there has been a great deal written since 1980, but not all of it can be considered meritorious. The review includes suggestions for future research.

The political and constitutional crisis which culminated in the dismissal of the Whitlam Government on 11 November 1975 is the most dramatic event in Australian political history. It had profound political implications: it enhanced the influence of the Senate; significantly affected public perceptions of the office of Governor-General, the role of constitutional conventions, and even the future of the monarchy; and arguably hardened political behaviour and contributed to public cynicism regarding government and politicians. However, while it is undoubtedly ‘one of the few genuinely interesting events in Australian history’, the suggestion that it had ‘more important implications for the conduct of a democratic state in Australia than federation itself’ is surely overstated. As Malcolm Fraser has noted, the conscription referendums of 1916–17 and the Australian Labor Party Split in the 1950s had more profound political effect than ‘the Dismissal’. Outline of the events The Whitlam Labor Government was elected on 2 December 1972, the first Labor Government for twenty-three years. Its majority in the House of Representatives was 9 seats, but it was in a minority of 26 to 34 in the Senate. Since the DLP and one Independent generally supported the Coalition and two Independents generally supported the Government, the Coalition enjoyed an effective Senate majority of at least 4 (32:28). The general election of December 1949, which brought the Menzies Coalition Government to power, had also faced a hostile Senate, being in a minority of 26 to 34.

This paper examines presentations of Australia's non-European history at heritage tourist attractions. It focuses on Pearl Luggers, a tourist attraction which presents the history of pearling (diving for pearls) in Broome, Western Australia. The experiences provided for visitors at Pearl Luggers contrast the dark side of the early history of pearling (high death rates, the forced labour of Aborigines, use of Asian indentured workers for dangerous jobs and racist immigration policies) with the glamour and attractiveness of pearls and Broome as a tropical resort town. This paper uses the example of Pearl Luggers to consider how issues such as the treatment of Aborigines and the restrictions on Asian immigration which comprised the White Australia Policy are treated in interpretation at heritage tourism attractions in Australia. A number of studies have identified a strong tendency for Australian heritage attractions to ignore these issues, instead presenting a Eurocentric view of Australia's history and there are strong fears that growing tourism will whitewash Broome's distinct multicultural heritage. In contrast, there is now a growing trend for some attractions to take a broader perspective of Australia's history and culture.

"We Will Show the Country": Bringing History to Life

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Whose War Was It Anyway? Some Australian Historians and the Great War

It is easy to take the presence of migration histories in Australian museums for granted. After all, most Australians are descended from immigrants, Australia's cultural diversity is celebrated as a national strength, and museums must represent and explain that diversity in order to tell stories of the nation's past. However, it is only in the last 30 years that experiences of migration have become the subject of collections, exhibitions and even entire museums in Australia. In light of recent research and scholarly work, this article surveys how migration history is portrayed in Australian museums. It reveals that creators of migration exhibitions have constantly negotiated a tension between an inclusive and affirming ‘nation of immigrants’ story and the more difficult histories of conflict, difference and exclusion that characterise Australia's history of migration. Curatorial approaches to this tension have been shaped by changing political climates, public attitudes to migrants and multiculturalism, and community demands for representation in cultural institutions. International museological events, such as the opening of Ellis Island Immigration Museum in New York in 1990, have also been influential. When located within these institutional, social and political contexts, exhibitions of migration history in Australia can be understood through three broad and overlapping phases. The earliest exhibitions, beginning in the mid‐1980s, aimed to integrate minority migrant experiences into a pluralistic national story in order to overturn previous mono‐cultural narratives of national becoming. A second phase of exhibitions, from the mid‐1990s overtly democratised this ‘new’ migration narrative in an attempt to appeal to Anglo‐Celtic Australians who did not identify with multiculturalism. While elements of both approaches remain, in last decade Australian museums have begun to look beyond migrations to the nation and towards an exploration of transnational networks, personal belonging and dislocation, and the idea of home.