AUSTRALIANA Biography Politics

On a political level, Ben Chifley is a Labor icon who vies with John Curtin for the top place in the party’s pantheon of heroes. But like Curtin, he was admired across political boundaries. As prime minister from 1945-49, he established many of the policies that became an accepted part of Australian life: mass immigration, full employment, the Snowy Mountains Scheme, to name just a few. In contrast to our age of privatisation and economic rationalism, Chifley stood for a strong state sector able to moderate the excesses of capitalism. However, Chifley’s personal life had melancholic resonances. In his early childhood he was sent from his parents’ house to live a primitive rural life with his grandfather. His marriage was childless, to his bitter regret, and he was involved for much of it with another woman in whose company he was destined to die. Chifley is a gripping and essential political biography from David Day, author of John Curtin: A Life” and winner of the 2000 Queensland Premier’s Prize for History.

Ben Chifley was an engine driver from Bathurst who became a unionist and then moved into politics. With the death of John Curtin during World War 11 he became Prime Minister winning one election in 1946 and losing two more.

His most lasting achievments was his succesful passage of a referendum gaining power over social security and his refusal to let income tax laws revert to the states after the war. As a result the central government assumed an importance that it had only had during armed conflict and this has continued to today. In much the same way as occurred in Europe he committed the Australian Government to Keynesian demand managment and full employment.

On the negative side his approach to the 1949 election was probably responsible for casting the Labour Party into a long period of opposition. His ill judged attempt to nationalize the banks and his refusal to end petrol rationing had no real policy basis and needlessly alienated the electorate.

• xiv, 562, [24] p. of plates : ill., ports. ; 24 cm.

(light tanning) #1220/170824/161024 ISBN 10: 0732275334 ISBN 13: 9780732275334