Category: Whitlam Government
-
New article in Journal of Australian Studies: Policing Protest in the Australian Capital Territory
Just a quick post to let you all know that the latest issue of Journal of Australian Studies features my long awaited article on policing protest in the ACT in the early 1970s. The full title of the paper is ‘Policing Protest in the Australian Capital Territory: The Introduction and Use of the Public Order…
-
Public engagement ftw!
Two guest posts by yours truly have been published in the last two days. The first is on my research into the UK perspective on the dismissal of Gough Whitlam in 1975 and has been published by The Conversation. The second is on Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists and their view of Australia as…
-
The road to ‘The Dismissal’ in 1975: The British perspective
The Museum of Australian Democracy has announced that in commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of the dismissal of the Whitlam government, it will be tweeting the events of late 1975 leading up to 11 November. This will be a very interesting for those into in Australian history and helpful in understanding how the events in…
-
How the Aboriginal Tent Embassy challenged the government’s protest laws
Tomorrow is the 43rd anniversary of the establishment of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy outside (Old) Parliament House in Canberra. This post is about how the Tent Embassy challenged the protest laws enacted by the McMahon government the previous year, which sought to quash dissent outside the house of Federal Parliament. The McMahon government believed it…
-
UK High Commissioner Morrice James on the Whitlam Dismissal 1975
I have blogged in the past about the files at the National Archives in London revealing the British attitudes towards the ‘constitutional crisis’ of 1975, when Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was dismissed by the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr after the Liberals, under the leadership of Malcolm Fraser, refused to pass supply bills in the Senate.…
-
New post at The Conversation: ‘Student Protests Won’t Be The Last’
The Conversation has just published this piece by myself on yesterday’s demonstrations across Australia against the Liberals’ cuts to higher education and the introduction of higher fees, arguing that the Liberals have been fearful of student radicalism since the late 1960s. Incidentally, I am giving a paper tomorrow at Flinders University on the same topic.…
-
Research seminar, Friday May 23 – ‘Policing Protest in the Nation’s Capital’
This Friday morning I am presenting a paper at the Flinders University History Research Seminar Series. The paper is based on an article currently under review. Here is the abstract: This paper examines the reaction by the Australian Federal Government to the protest movements of the 1960-70s and their attempts to use public order legislation…
-
UK perspectives on the Whitlam dismissal: Some potential sources
11 November, as well as being Armistice Day, is well-known in Australian history for the dismissal of the Whitlam Government by the Governor-General John Kerr and the appointment of Malcolm Fraser as caretaker Prime Minister in 1975. Much has been written on ‘The Dismissal’ or the ‘Constitutional Crisis’ from the Australian perspective, with our knowledge…
New Historical Express 