Sixty years ago – the 16th of August 1947 to be exact, on a frosty Saturday morning in Canberra – Ben Chifley, the Prime Minister and Treasurer, called a surprise meeting of Cabinet. He told his astonished colleagues that he was going to nationalise the banks. There was to be only one bank. Which bank? The government bank.
That same afternoon, while Australia was at the pub, the races or the footy, Chif sprung it on everyone else. A one-sentence press release. No explanation, no statement to Parliament, not even a hint at the previous election. Just “cop that, Australia”.
And that was to be just the start of it. Labor intended to take over the rest of industry once the banks had been destroyed. We were to have a command economy run from Canberra with the eager assistance of the ACTU which, in those days, had been white-anted by the Communists. The Labor Party itself, then, had a problem with Communist infiltration which almost destroyed it. Now you can see why I’m puzzled by Chif’s statue: funny place to put up a statue of a bloke who tried to kill off the business sector.
In his book, Chif’s Obsession, Ken Harris follows the lives of two fictional characters from the time they meet in 1923 as altar boys over a coffin at a requiem mass. By 1947 they had survived the Great Depression and the War. One is a labor member of parliament, and the other is a lawyer for a bank. They are mates. Like other Australians in those post-war year, their lives were turned upside down by Chif’s one-sentence announcement. He uses them and other fictional characters to try to bring to life the arguments and views of people at the time.
How did it finish up? It dragged on for two years. Labor controlled both houses of parliament so the legislation was passed and received royal assent. However the High Court declared it unconstitutional in 1948. Chif appealed and the Privy Council knocked him back, too, in 1949. There was a federal election soon afterwards. At last, the average punters could have their say; Labor was booted out and they stayed out for the next 23 years.
I wish I knew why Chif is still revered as a great prime minister. I think he was the most dangerous person to have occupied the office. But, even today, people go gooey-eyed at the mention of his name. Even a modern Labor leader like Kevin Rudd appears to find inspiration in Chif’s famous expression, ‘The Light on the Hill’.
Here’s something else to imagine. Get a pencil and paper and write down a list of the ways in which our Australia might differ from Chif’s Australia, if he had got his way.
I think Australia had a very lucky escape.
To get your own copy of Chif’s Obsession, visit Oscar & Friends Booksellers in Double bay or contact Ken Harris directly.
