A House Committee on Un-Australian Activities? An Alternative to the Dissolution Act

Abstract

Legislation introduced by Prime Minister Robert Menzies to ban the Communist Party of Australia in 1950 has been studied in great detail, but there has been little discussion about why Menzies considered that an outright ban was the best way to thwart the Communist Party. Australia did not, for example, follow the American example of public show trials, denunciations and informants, characteristics of the phenomenon known as McCarthyism. This article explores the decision to reject the American model by focusing on legislation that the Liberal Party drafted in 1948, but never introduced. It also details the internal division of the Liberal Party over communism and the conflicted nature of Menzies’ own views. As a consequence, Australia did not introduce the equivalent of the anti-communist state apparatus of the United States.

Notes

¹This article does not contend that it was this issue which won the election for the Liberal Party, and such an evaluation is outside the scope of this article. Other issues, such as a rejection of the Chifley government's plan for bank nationalisation, the continuation of wartime petrol rationing, and the handling of the 1949 coal strike, also played a role. Lee analyses the election in detail, though his assertion that Menzies concluded, following the coal strike, that his government (if elected) would need to take steps to ban the Communist Party is incorrect. As this article will show, this decision was taken by the Federal Liberal Party prior to the strike. David Lee, ‘The 1949 Federal Election: A Reinterpretation’, Australian Journal of Political Science 29, no. 3 (November 1994): 501–19.

²‘Australia First: “Obligation on Government”’, Sydney Morning Herald, 15 March 1946, 4.

³Percy Joske, Sir Robert Menzies: 1894–1978—A New, Informal Memoir (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1978), 169.

⁴S. Ricketson, ‘Liberal Law in a Repressive Age’, Monash University Law Review 3, no. 2 (November 1976): 111.

⁵George Winterton, ‘The Significance of the Communist Party Case’, Melbourne University Law Review 18, no. 3 (June 1992): 634.

⁶A. W. Martin, Robert Menzies: A Life, Vol. 2, 1944–1978 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1999), 81.

⁷Winterton, 634.

⁸Martin, Robert Menzies, 81.

⁹A. W. Martin, ‘Mr Menzies’ Anticommunism’, Quadrant (May 1996): 50–1.

¹⁰‘Communists Attacked: Ban Demanded’, Sydney Morning Herald, 8 March 1948, 4.

¹¹‘All Parties Might Align Against Reds’, Sunday Telegraph, 14 March 1948, 20.

¹²‘Communists Attacked: Ban Demanded’, 4.

¹³‘Czech War Leader Suicides: Leap from Flat Window’, Daily Telegraph, 11 March 1948, 1.

¹⁴‘Czech War Leader Suicides: Leap from Flat Window’, Daily Telegraph, 11 March 1948, 1.

¹⁵‘Czech Consul Resigns Post’, Daily Telegraph, 11 March 1948, 1.

¹⁶‘All Parties Might Align Against Reds’, 20.

¹⁷W. J. Hudson, Casey (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1986), 199; Gerard Henderson, Menzies’ Child: The Liberal Party of Australia, 1944–1994 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1994), 99.

¹⁸‘Liberal Party Declares for Ban on Communist Party’, Canberra Times, 12 March 1948, 4.

²¹Martin, ‘Mr Menzies’ Anticommunism’, 50.

¹⁹ Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates (hereafter CPD), House of Representatives (hereafter H of R), 7 April 1948, 607.

²⁰‘All Parties Might Align Against Reds’, 20.

²²The prevailing consensus from the literature on Menzies suggests that the conviction to ban the Communist Party was largely the result of Menzies’ visit to Berlin in December 1948 at the height of the Berlin blockade. Menzies was far more vigorous and outspoken in his advocacy of proscription on his return to Australia in January 1949. See Winterton, 635. See also Henderson, Menzies’ Child, 101. Martin, Menzies’ biographer, details the influence of the Berlin blockade on Menzies and the change in Menzies’ rhetoric upon returning to Australia. Martin, Robert Menzies, 91–100. Also Martin, ‘Mr Menzies’ Anticommunism’, 51–2. Lowe also suggests that it was Menzies’ time in England and visit to Berlin which hardened his resolve to fight communism, though he also attributes influence to the British Foreign Office, who showed Menzies a paper on events in Southeast Asia. David Lowe, Menzies and the ‘Great World Struggle’: Australia's Cold War 1948–1954 (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 1999), 30.

²³Ricketson, 119–20.

²⁴John Kennedy McLaughlin, ‘Cassidy, Sir Jack Evelyn (1893–1975)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 13 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1993), 387–8.

²⁵John Lewis Warhurst, ‘The Communist Bogey: Communism as an Election Issue in Australian Politics, 1949 to 1964’ (PhD thesis, Flinders University, 1977), 456.

²⁶Father Ryan was an active anti-communist who had sold forty-five thousand copies of a rebuttal to Dean Hewlett Johnson's Socialist Sixth of the World and would later publicly debate with Communist Party Central Committee member Edgar Ross on the topic ‘That Communism is in the best interests of the Australian people’. James Franklin, ‘Catholic Thought and Catholic Action: Dr Paddy Ryan MSC’, Journal of the Australian Catholic Historical Society 17 (1996): 44–55.

²⁷Warhurst, 178.

²⁸Laurence W. Maher, ‘Downunder McCarthyism: The Struggle Against Australian Communism 1945–1960: Part One’, Anglo-American Law Review 27 (1998): 346.

²⁹McLaren shows that Krygier joined a ‘research organisation doing anti-Communist Research specially on the Australian press’ which he claims was headed by Wentworth. It is likely that the organisation referred to is the Political Research Society. John McLaren, Writing in Hope and Fear: Literature as Politics in Postwar Australia (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 80.

³⁰The Captive Nations movement was an international émigré movement aimed at highlighting the plight of the communist countries of Eastern Europe. International groups such as the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations campaigned for the recognition of a Captive Nations Week. Eastern European émigrés in Australia formed the Captive Nations Week Committee in 1965. Wentworth was a long-time patron of this group, as well as receiving a presentation from the international Assembly of Captive European Nations in New York in 1961. Lachlan Clohesy, ‘Anti-Communism Undermined: The Uncomfortable Alliances of W. C. Wentworth’, in Labour History and Its People: Papers from the Twelfth National Labour History Conference, ed. Melanie Nolan (Canberra: Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, Canberra Region Branch, 2011), 322–36.

³¹Andrew Moore, Mr Big of Bankstown: The Scandalous Fitzpatrick and Browne Affair (Perth: UWA Publishing, 2011), 80–1. See also Andrew Moore, ‘A Mace to Swat Two Blow-flies: Interpreting the Fitzpatrick and Browne Privilege Case’, Australian Journal of Politics and History 55, no. 1 (March 2009): 32–45.

³²Moore, Mr Big, 2.

³³Moore, Mr Big, 166.

³⁴Peter Henderson, ‘Frank Browne and the Neo-Nazis’, Labour History 89 (November 2005): 73.

³⁵Peter Henderson, ‘Frank Browne and the Neo-Nazis’, Labour History 89 (November 2005): 73–4.

³⁶Rupert Lockwood, What Is in Document J? (Canberra: Freedom Press, 1954). Whilst Lockwood spells Coleman's first name as Lloyd, Loyd is in fact the correct spelling. See Licia Cattani, ‘Coleman, Loyd Ring (1896–1970)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 13 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1993), 464–5.

³⁷Henderson, ‘Frank Browne and the Neo-Nazis’, 73.

³⁸Articles of Association of the Political Research Society, Limited, 6 March 1945, in the Records of the Institute of Public Affairs, 1943–87, National Library of Australia (hereafter NLA), MS 6590, Box 18.

³⁹Warhurst, 457.

⁴⁰Warhurst, 180. Warhurst suggests that, despite these representations, it was political expediency which was the major factor in convincing Menzies to attempt to ban the CPA.

⁴¹Minutes of the Liberal Party State Council, 28 April 1948, in the Records of the Liberal Party of Australia, New South Wales Division, Mitchell Library (hereafter ML), MSS 2385, Box Y4621, Item 17.

⁴²Memorandum to Members of the Standing Committee on State Policy, 4 August 1948, in the Records of the Liberal Party of Australia, New South Wales Division, ML, MSS 2385, Box K53602, Item 8.

⁴³Minutes of the Liberal Party State Council, 28 April 1948, in the Records of the Liberal Party of Australia, New South Wales Division, ML, MSS 2385, Box Y4621, Item 17.

⁴⁴‘Liberals’ Move on Communists’, Sydney Morning Herald, 29 April 1948, 3.

⁴⁵‘Liberals’ Move on Communists’, Sydney Morning Herald, 29 April 1948, 3.

⁴⁶W. C. Wentworth and Jack Cassidy, The Communist Treason Bill 1948, in the Records of the Institute of Public Affairs, 1943–87, NLA MS 6590, Box 18, 1.

⁴⁷‘Molotov Now Demands the Limelight: Denounces Britain as Aggressor’, Canberra Times, 2 November 1939, 1.

⁴⁸Wentworth and Cassidy, 4–5.

⁴⁹Wentworth and Cassidy, 6–7.

⁵⁰Wentworth and Cassidy, 12.

⁵¹Wentworth and Cassidy, 10–11.

⁵²For the Mundt-Nixon Bill, see Ellen Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents (Boston: Bedford Books of St Martin's Press, 1994), 55. For its incorporation into the McCarran Act, see Walter Goodman, The Committee: The Extraordinary Career of the House Committee on Un-American Activities (London: Secker & Warburg, 1969), 291–2.

⁵³Wentworth and Cassidy, 9.

⁵⁴Wentworth and Cassidy, 9–11.

⁵⁵Wentworth and Cassidy, 13.

⁵⁸Minutes of the Liberal Party Federal Council, 28 September 1948, ML, MSS 2385, Box Y4639, Item 15.

⁵⁶Minutes of the Liberal Party State Council, 17 May 1948, ML, MSS 2385, Box Y4624, Item 16.

⁵⁷Carrick to State Secretaries, 3 September 1948, ML, MSS 2385, Box 4629, Item 2.

⁵⁹Federal Secretariat of the Liberal Party Research Bulletin, 2 April 1948, ML, MSS 2385, Box K53661, Item 12.

⁶⁰Federal Secretariat of the Liberal Party Research Bulletin, 2 April 1948, ML, MSS 2385, Box K53661, Item 12.

⁶¹Federal Secretariat of the Liberal Party Research Bulletin, 2 April 1948, ML, MSS 2385, Box K53661, Item 12.

⁶²Federal Secretariat of the Liberal Party Research Bulletin, 2 April 1948, ML, MSS 2385, Box K53661, Item 12.

⁶³Martin, ‘Mr Menzies’ Anticommunism’, 50.

⁶⁴Martin, ‘Mr Menzies’ Anticommunism’, 55.

⁶⁵Menzies reflected on his love for the law (the practice of which ‘was and remains my first love’) in 1967. He also praised the High Court's quality, which he considered was ‘unhesitatingly’ of a standard ‘adequate for the performance of its very great judicial responsibilities’. Robert Menzies, Afternoon Light: Some Memories of Men and Events (Sydney: Cassell, 1967), 316–21. Another work by Menzies reinforces his respect for the rule of law. Discussing the rejection of the Communist Party of Australia Dissolution Bill, he contended that the public accepted the High Court of Australia as an essentially non-political body. Menzies revealed the dilemma created by the need to preserve the secrecy of intelligence information and the considerations of this for the rule of law. He also accepts the limits that the High Court imposed on the Executive and his discussion on the decision generally reflects the detached demeanour of a legal practitioner, rather than a passionate defence of his policies. Robert Menzies, Central Power in the Australian Commonwealth: An Examination of the Growth of Commonwealth Power in the Australian Federation (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1967), 18–20, 69–73.

⁶⁶Ian Hancock, National and Permanent? The Federal Organisation of the Liberal Party of Australia 1944–1965 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2000), 97–8.

⁶⁷Ian Hancock, National and Permanent? The Federal Organisation of the Liberal Party of Australia 1944–1965 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2000), 97.

⁶⁸The Lowe Royal Commission began hearing evidence in June 1949, releasing its report in April 1950. Frank Cain and Frank Farrell, ‘Menzies’ War on the Communist Party, 1949–1951’, in Australia's First Cold War, 1945–1953: Vol. 1: Society, Communism and Culture, ed. Ann Curthoys and John Merritt (Sydney: George Allen & Unwin, 1984), 118–19.

⁶⁹ CPD, H of R, 11 August 1954, 207.

⁷⁰Menzies harboured an abiding dislike of Wentworth. This can be explained by reference to incidents such as Wentworth's support of striking wharf labourers in the 1938 Dalfram dispute (which burdened Menzies with the nickname ‘Pig Iron Bob’) and Wentworth's calls for Menzies to vacate the United Australia Party leadership in 1943, before running as an Independent against a UAP candidate. Lachlan Clohesy, ‘Australian Cold Warrior: The Anti-Communism of W. C. Wentworth’ (PhD thesis, Victoria University, 2010), 21–7. Former Liberal Don Chipp suggests, for example, that Menzies may have been against Wentworth's later proposals to standardise Australian rail gauges simply because Wentworth was associated with them. Don Chipp and John Larkin, Don Chipp: The Third Man (Adelaide: Rigby in association with Beckett Green, 1978), 57. If this relationship played a part in Menzies’ rejection of Wentworth's legislation, however, its influence appears to be minimal.

⁷¹‘“Pimping” in Civil Service Not Wanted’, Canberra Times, 24 March 1953, 4.

⁷²For an examination of the improper relationship between Wentworth and ASIO, see Lachlan Clohesy, ‘Cold War Collusion: ASIO and W. C. Wentworth’, in Labour History in the New Century, ed. Bobbie Oliver (Perth: Black Swan Press, 2009), 121–31. Schrecker contends that, had the influence of the FBI been known at the time, ‘McCarthyism’ would have instead been termed ‘Hooverism’ after FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Ellen Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1998), 203.

⁷³Federal Secretariat of the Liberal Party Research Bulletin, 2 April 1948, ML, MSS 2385, Box K53661, Item 12.