Afternoon Light

Have you heard of G.K. Chesterton? One of the most prolific authors of the early 20th century, Chesterton has recently been experiencing a revival. With humorous, inciteful, and even prophetic views on ‘everything’ - including politics, religion, the press, economics and more, it is easy to see why. Chesterton was one of Menzies’s many favourite authors, whom he used to refer to as ‘that laughing...

Were you aware that Australia was the first country in the world to hold an open competition to design its national flag? Or that the seventh point was added to the flag’s Federation Star when Australia acquired the territory of Papua, an integral part of modern-day PNG? Ahead of Australian National Flag Day on 3 September – an annual commemoration marking the anniversary of the date in 1901 on wh...

Australians will soon vote on whether to constitutionally enshrine an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, but do we even accurately recall when Indigenous Australians received the vote? Many incorrectly assume this was a product of the 1967 referendum, but Warren Mundine points out that as a New South Welshman his grandfather was on the electoral roll in 1913. Learn more about the long, often tragic a...

When Robert Menzies was first induced to switch to Federal politics in 1934, he hesitated because he had significant reservations about spending a large amount of time in the national capital. He observed that ‘Canberra is not attractive, either personally or professionally, for obvious reasons, but I feel that the Commonwealth Parliament must still attract the services of men who are interested i...

The Treasury portfolio is generally considered the second most important ministerial position, behind only that of Prime Minister. However, despite the onerous nature and great responsibility of the posting, on several occasions the Prime Minister of the day has allocated themselves as Treasurer. This occurred with Joseph Lyons, whose government focused on combatting the devastating effects of the...

The Menzies era saw a number of important economic reforms including the creation of the Reserve Bank, signing of the 1957 Commerce Agreement with Japan, and the granting of the first export license for iron ore. Nevertheless, there was a settled agreement about a certain level of state involvement in the economy that was to come unstuck with ‘stagflation’ in the 1970s. The fall of the ‘Australian...

Australia has often been described as a secular nation, however up until quite recently it is debatable whether that has been the case. While the government has never imposed a religion and the constitution legally bars it from doing so, the Australian people themselves have often been quite devout. What distinguishes Australia historically is religious toleration and ecumenicalism. In the 19th ce...

Since the record-breaking run of Robert Menzies, there have been 14 leaders of the Liberal Party of Australia. Each of them has been influenced in various ways by the party’s founder, as they try to take up the essential task of upholding the principles of Australian liberalism (which indeed is a political tradition which long predates Menzies himself). In this special series of the Afternoon Ligh...

Since the record-breaking run of Robert Menzies, there have been 14 leaders of the Liberal Party of Australia. Each of them has been influenced in various ways by the party’s founder, as they try to take up the essential task of upholding the principles of Australian liberalism (which indeed is a political tradition which long predates Menzies himself). In this special series of the Afternoon Ligh...

When the Australian Commonwealth was formed in 1901, the Constitution left education as a matter for the States and Australia had only a handful of tertiary institutions. However, as the nation grew to maturity the importance of having an educated populace grew with it. It was Menzies who first appreciated the central role that Australia’s universities could play in the national story, as he intro...

The first Liberal leader to win a Federal election outright was not Robert Menzies, it was in fact a little-remembered prime minister named Joseph Cook. Remarkably, Cook was also the first leader of the NSW Labor party and his story reveals the how and the why of the emergence of the Australian party system, and the philosophical lines of cleavage which continue to shape our nation. Born in an Eng...

Despite being the home of the central institution of Australian democracy, Canberra was long denied its own democratic rights. Initially envisaged as a seasonal town where people would only come when Parliament sat, even once it became a fully-fledged city and national showpiece, federal governments were keen to control it so they could fashion that showpiece how they pleased. It was only in the 1...

Enter any Australian bookshop over the last couple of decades, and you are likely to have been inundated with publications written by politicians trying to tell their life story, spill gossip and throw barbs at their colleagues. However, this was not always the case. For most of the 20th century Australian politicians were generally reluctant to write memoirs, and even when they did, someone as jo...

It was under Robert Menzies that Australia entered the nuclear age with the opening of the Lucas Heights Reactor in 1958. 65 years on, what looked to be the first step in a much bigger story remains practically the only step Australia has taken towards harnessing the potency of the atom to power our nation. As nuclear energy once again appears on the political radar, it is worth taking a look back...

Bob Santamaria is a key figure in the Menzies era. Despite being little known until the mid 1950s, Santamaria’s role as the driving force behind ‘the Movement’ helped to thwart communist influence in the Australian trade unions and precipitate the great Labor split. Though he became a highly visible public commentator in his later years, the man himself remains something of a mystery, having provi...

Since the record-breaking run of Robert Menzies, there have been 14 leaders of the Liberal Party of Australia. Each of them has been influenced in various ways by the party’s founder, as they try to take up the essential task of upholding the principles of Australian liberalism (which indeed is a political tradition which long predates Menzies himself). In this special series of the Afternoon Ligh...

Since the record-breaking run of Robert Menzies, there have been 14 leaders of the Liberal Party of Australia. Each of them has been influenced in various ways by the party’s founder, as they try to take up the essential task of upholding the principles of Australian liberalism (which indeed is a political tradition which long predates Menzies himself). In this special series of the Afternoon Ligh...

If one were to rank Australia’s most important Prime Ministers, Joseph Lyons would have to be high on the list. Not only did he lead the nation out of the Great Depression, but he was also responsible for readying the country for World War Two, presiding over five separate re-armament programs before passing away in office in 1939. Lyons’s personal journey is fascinating, as he not only went from...

The Korean War is in many respects the war that never ended. This year marks 70 years since the signing of the Armistice Agreement which ended the three-year conflict in which 339 Australians lost their lives serving as part of a United Nations force which defended South Korea from an invasion from the Communist North. The conflict was the first clear flare up of the Cold War in the Asia-Pacific a...

Since the record-breaking run of Robert Menzies, there have been 14 leaders of the Liberal Party of Australia. Each of them has been influenced in various ways by the party’s founder, as they try to take up the essential task of upholding the principles of Australian liberalism (which indeed is a political tradition which long predates Menzies himself). In this special series of the Afternoon Ligh...

Ebony Nilsson, ‘It Will Be Classified’ The Remarkable Story of Bill Marshall & ASIO’s Operatives in Australia The biographies of migrants – as individuals who move through countries, across borders and continents – can be difficult to piece together. There are often gaps in their backgrounds and stories which remain mysterious, or parts of their lives which are not explicable. This same is true of...

Robert Menzies’s relationship with the Australian media was complex. He had an intense dislike for journalists, for a long time struggled to gain traction in Sydney, and a media narrative played a key role in his downfall as prime minister in 1941. Nevertheless, no-one who had Menzies’s longevity in politics could succeed without having a certain degree of media savvy and important connections in...

The Menzies era was in many respects the golden age of the Department of External Affairs (now Foreign Affairs). The first Australian diplomatic postings outside of the British Commonwealth had been made by Menzies’s wartime government, so when he returned to power in 1949 Australia was still forging its diplomatic network. This adolescence and growth gave great opportunities for young, ambitious...

Just as the Second World War produced the United Nations, the First World War brought forth its immediate predecessor the League of Nations. Generally viewed as a failure hamstrung by the fact that America never joined and unable to forestall Axis aggression, the League nevertheless gave birth to many important international operations that were subsequently taken over by the UN and continue to th...

Robert Menzies had a great dislike for both journalists and biographers. In his memoir Afternoon Light, he decried contemporary history as little more than a ‘gossip column’ which could not be trusted to get the facts right. Nevertheless, early in his second stint as prime minister he reluctantly enlisted a brilliant writer named Allan Dawes to write a biography to help win over the Australian pub...