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THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
"Australia has once been perilously near to the brink of disaster. No nation, even Britain, has been in greater danger in invasion and yet lacked the resources to defend itself." - Former Labor Prime Minister John Curtin, 3rd of February, 1943
After enabling militia to serve in a limited capacity in the Pacific South West.
Conscription was very much against Labor Party policy.
After enabling militia to serve in a limited capacity in the Pacific South West.
Conscription was very much against Labor Party policy.
Recent History:
With no definitive winner of the Great War, the people of Australia have been left cynical towards the Crown's ability to defend her native sons and daughters from over 15,000 kilometres away - as the crow flies. And that's before you factor in how well conscripted members of the armed forces were put to use by British officers in highly questionable situations such as Gallipoli. Followed by the country being very much left to fend for itself as returning soldiers brought back the Spanish flu, which led to even more loss of life and between a quarter and a third of the population getting pneumonia.
The results were the Anzac nations of Australia and New Zealand realized they would be best served by uniting as a single nation so that Defence could be more effectively utilised, as both countries seemed to have mostly similar values and a somewhat shared history. The Statute of Westminster providing the autonomy required for the former colonies to act. Australia swung heavily to Nationalism. Under a new party comprising of many Commonwealth Liberal Party members, but with reputable Labor head Billy Hughes pushed to the front in a leadership capacity. Once known to all as an incredible British imperialist, he saw the need for greater self-determination and the means to protect itself as its own service to the auld country.
Australia offered the former Nation of New Zealand a questionable deal. They could either join as a single new state of New Zealand and receive only twelve senators, or it would be permitted to double its level of autonomy by entering Australia as two states - Northern New Zealand and Southern New Zealand - with the cost being the expectation of greater economic burden. New Zealand, also valuing greater autonomy after the events of the war jumped at the chance for larger representation in the Upper House - viewing this new expanded nation to be in the best long term interests of maintaining New Zealander and British ideals and culture in the Pacific. This decision has led to Republicans and Maori natives wondering if The Right Honourable William Massey, the Reform Party of New Zealand Prime Minister, had just swapped one yoke around the country's neck for another, and began some bitter sentiment towards what would come to be known as 'Mainlanders'. Massey did however manager to secure one final policy point - that Maori citizens would still maintain their right to vote (gained way back in the 1860s) under this new expanded Australian aegis. A right that thus far had not extended to the Aboriginal Australian populations. On the topic of Maori seats in parliament, Massey was basically told "You get twelve senators per state, how you divide them is up to the people of New Zealand." and was not granted any special treatment in the House of Representatives - as the House seats are to remain relative to the population. To get this through the Maori were granted two of the twelve senators in both the Northern and Southern Islands. Previously, Maori electorates made up about 1 in 20 of the general New Zealand parliament, or around 5%. This 5 percent was gone in the lower house of parliament, but replaced with roughly 16% of New Zealand's upper house vote. This sounded fine on paper, but Maori soon became disenfranchised as they were largely outnumbered in the Senate by Mainlander senators, and white nationalism began to spread in New Zealand's southern island where it was felt by many that the Maori were over-represented as over 80% of the Maori population lived in the North Island and both island were granted two Maori senators.
In addition to this, it was agreed upon by unwritten rule, that should an Australian reside over the seat of the Prime Ministership of the Commonwealth, there would sit a New Zealander in the position of Governor General and vice versa. With the importance of showing unity amonst the two held of paramount importance.
With New Zealand now on board, "the Little Digger" as Prime Minster Billy Hughes was affectionately known, turned to the task of expanding the defence force. As Australia was now "Eight States Girt By Sea", it became immediately obvious that the main priorities were maximising the Royal Australian Navy, and rapidly enlisting and training the next generation's fighting force. The former was acheived by sending back to Britain for current cutting edge naval ship designs, whilst simultaeously developing an engineering force who would be able to build them once designs were brought back by steamer. To train a fresh set of engineers he injected a large amount of money into a South Australian saddlery company who were looking to transition into the automotive industry and the Holden Motor Company was born. They rapidly expanded and trained a new workforce, and with the sizable investment the 48-215 was soon born, with 5 prototypes and just under a dozen pilot cars coming out before they were ready for mass-production, and whilst the mid-sized, three-speed sedan was somewhat derivative and not terribly impressive in and of itself. What was impressive was how quickly the engineers were able to produce a functioning car, and how much they were able to learn from their first attempt. Their second attempt, the FJ was an enormous hit and very quickly flooded the streets. Holden engineers and workers were the talk of the country, and the Australian government handpicked select engineers to work side-by-side with naval engineers to get to work on expanding the Royal Australian Naval fleet with budding ingenuity and innovation.
Also looking to expand on this development and innovation field, Billy Hughes pumped in money to develop a new agency responsible for scientific discovery and research - the CSIRO. With the outbreak of Spanish Flu following the war, it seemed too important to get left behind on the scientific front. He also saw great value in the trend towards aviation innovation, putting forward £10,000 reward for the first person to successfully fly from the United Kingdom to Australia in less than 30 days. After Hughes' tenure even further investment was put into the aviation industry in general as both hard and soft power - with the development of the CAC Wirraway, followed by the CAC Boomerang and the CA-25 Winjeel trainer which gave way to the CA-26 and CA-27 Sabres, as well as the nationalisation of Qantas.
Many leading economists suggest that it was sizable investments into the defense, aviation and automotive industries by Labor leaders like John Curtin and, after Curtin's death-in-office, Ben Chifley, along with mining, metal processing, textiles/clothing/footwear and chemicals which provided an environment of high production (yet less reliant on exports), full employment and the heavy stimulus which saw Australia through the Great Depression mostly unscathed - a unique situation for the country which often saw it's economy rocked so heavily by natural forces such as drought, flood and infestation from introduced species. It's heavily regulated and protectionist, with Labor Policy maintaing the stance towards the 'White Australia' policy of the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901, back during the original Federation of the country. "This country shall remain forever the home of the descendants of those people who came here in peace in order to establish in the South Seas an outpost of the British race." - John Curtin.
But the lines between the Labor Party and the Communist Party were becoming blurred. Years earlier the inauguration of the famed Sydney Harbour Bridge, a masterpiece of ingenuity that showcased Australian design, engineering, steel and construction industries, had been marred by The New Guard - A far right Nationalist movement who were strongly opposed to communists and New South Wales' Labor Premier Jack Lang in particular. A few left-leaning politicians would waver between stints at the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the Industrial Socialist Labor Party (ISLP). In 1947, the Liberal Party were able to exploit this as Labor Prime Minster Ben Chifley went too far, and attempted to nationalise the banks. The High Court found this unconstitutional, the press and middle class Australians saw it as a bridge too far towards communism and it opened up an opportunity for the National Liberal Party. Chifley did however manage to pass the Commonwealth Bank Acts of '45 which gave the government control over monetary policy and allowed them to establish the Commonwelth Bank of Australia.
The strikes in the waning years of the 1940s in both Queensland's rail and the coal industry brought unemployment and hardship. Chifley responded by barring rail workers on strike from obtaining unemployment benefits. And sent in army troops to break the coal strike. This was because Chifley viewed these strikes as efforts by the Communist party to splinter Labor support and supplant them as the party of the working man. National Liberal Party leader Robert Menzies exploited Red hysteria to portray the Labor party as soft on communism, pointing at recent banking policy. Chifley was in a difficult position, under attack from both the right and left, and was unable to thread the needle of making a successful argument to the Australian people that "to the contrary, Labor is a bulwark against communism" and that the most effective way of weakening the strength of the Communist party is to improve the conditions of the people. The Australian people didn't buy it, neither on the mainland now across the Tasman, and Bob Menzies was able to secure the election. With Chifley barely being able to cling to a senate majority.
Chifley proved to continue to be a thorn in Menzies side from the Senate, where he remained as Labor leader and often was able to confound the Prime Minister, passing Labor amendments or outright blocking legislation. Menzies chose to respond to this by riding his high popularity at the time, looking to trap Chifley in a double dissolution election by introducing a bill to ban the Communist Party of Australia. He expected Chifley to reject it, opening up the opportunity to attack Chifley once more as being soft on communism at the ensuing election. Instead, Chifley zagged and passed it with a re-draft, and allowed the High Court to kill the bill as invalid - six justices to one. Menzies was later able to get his double dissolution election however, as he introduced legislation to change Chifley's Commonwealth Banking Bill. However, some damage had been done in the public's eyes towards Menzies with his attempt to kill the Communist party, regardless of whether the people would be willing to vote for the Communist Party his decision struck at the Aussie ideals of "a fair go". Menzies high popularity barely saw him scrape through, but not without losing seats to Labor. He did however achieve his plan of knocking out Chifley and the Labor Senate majority, and was now free to start moulding his vision for Australia into the '50s.
With the Royal Australian Air Force and Royal Australian Navy seeing massive expansion, Bob Menzies turned to expand the Australian Army. Still smarting from the previous election, Menzies chose to do this in a way to avoid conscription where possible. Sensing growing dissatisfaction from the Aboriginal population due to the vast disparity in rights between Aboriginal, Torres Strait and Pacific Islander rights and Maori rights, Menzies passed legislation that would enable Aboriginal and Islanders voting rights in return for Military service. He also saw the benefit of strategic allied naval ports, and began diplomatic proceedings to further expand the Australian Commonwealth to other Pacific Neighbours. Fiji was the first nation to join, in return for six senate seats and the written condition that their population would always be rounded up for an additional seat in the House of Representatives. Samoa and Papua New Guinea began murmurings of their desire for independence (Samoa having been 'roped in' to the Commonwealth under New Zealand rule) and were given two senate seats each as they were viewed as 'territories' of Australia and New Zealand. Both also received the 'round up' Lower House stipulation and this degree of self-determination mostly kept things orderly. Tonga was a different proposition, but was happy for their status as a 'Protected State' of the United Kingdom be diverted to the regional Commonwealth of Australia, particularly after experiencing heavy losses due to the Spanish flu. They remained a constitutional monarchy of their own, with Australia holding right to veto over foreign policies and finances... but seldom, if ever actually exercising that right. That desire to be left to their own devices swung both ways, however. They have no say in greater Commonwealth politics. With fears spreading through mainland Australians that their politics were about to be overrun with representatives from the island Nations. In response Menzies made two changes. First, that any new additions would receive the 'round up' rule in the House of Representatives providing they existed as a 'whole' nation prior (no 'splintering' grouped island states in an attempt to garner more political influence), but would only be represented by three new general Pacific Islander senators. Secondly, in a blatantly cynical move, Bob Menzies awarded two senators to a thusfar unrepresented territory - the Australian Antarctic Territory. With no permanent population in Antarctica, these were basically filled by the government's whim. Whilst particularly unfair, since the people who are IN Antarctica at any moment in time and are capable of voting there, do so at the Government's discretion, it's not technically unconctitutional since they are still 'free' elections otherwise. Menzies has stripped back the 'White Australia' policy, to allow free movement between all parts of the Commonwealth for all who can prove 'birthright' residence within any of its shores. However, being the 1950s, travel is still prohibitively expensive for most.
The year is now 1955, Robert Menzies is still Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia, under his hand he now looks to direct the country into a new era of private enterprise and self-sufficiency. His Liberal Party controls both the Upper and Lower Houses, albeit by a slim margin. Now is the time for growth. The time for Australia to spread its wings and grow beyond it's quite heavily regulated economy, the time for Menzies show his power and grow his popularity amongst the Australian people.
Government
House of Representatives:
301 Seats - Proportional to Population, with former island nations getting 'rounded up' in seats.
Populations at 1955:
Australia (mainland and Tasmania) - Roughly 9.25 million
New Zealand - 2.13 million
Papua New Guinea - 2.09 million
Fiji - 335,000
Solomon Islands - 102,000
Samoa - 94,000
French Polynesia - 69,000
New Caledonia - 68,000
Vanuatu - 55,000
Cook Islands - 16,000
Senate (Sixty seven senators in total):
Mainland Australia (6 WA, 6 SA, 6 QLD, 6 NSW, 6 VIC, 2 NT, 2 ACT) - 34 senators
New Zealand - 12 senators
Tasmania (generally views self as 'mainland') - 6 Senators
Fiji - 6 senators
Samoa - 2 Senators
Papua New Guinea - 2 Senators
General Pacific Islanders - 3 senators
Australian Antarctic Territory - 2 Senators
Interesting points of difference and challenges:
After the war, Australia still cares greatly for the Crown... but is heavily into self-determinism and birthing a new Southern Commonwealth capable of taking care of its own interests.
This included looking to create a great Southern Royal Navy - which they have made good use of Britain's past naval supremacy to try and make up lost ground. Unfortunately, Britain's supremacy has started to sway since the invention of the submarine.
Australia has embraced the importance of the aviation industry, and is well aware that in that way lies the future. At this point, however, the main trait of Australian planes is reliability - and they rely heavily on pilot ingenuity to make up for deficits in areas like speed.
The population of Papua New Guinea feel heavily underrepresented and exposed. They have only two senators compared to New Zealand's twelve, despite having similar sized populations. The Aboriginal population also feels somewhat disenfranchised, with Maoris retaining rights that Aboriginals could only dream of from prior to joining the expanded Commonwealth. Maoris are disenfranchised as they have lost their 'Maori seats', and their senate influence (which was the trade-off benefit for losing those seats) has been diluted with the addition of fifteen other senators since they joined.
