Arthur Calwell
Encyclopedia
Arthur Augustus Calwell (28 August 1896 – 8 July 1973) Australia
n politician
, was a member of the Australian House of Representatives
for 32 years from 1940 to 1972, Immigration Minister in the government of Ben Chifley
from 1945 to 1949 and Leader of the Australian Labor Party
from 1960 to 1967.
. His father was a police officer of Irish descent, and both father and son were active in Melbourne's Irish community (including membership of the Celtic Club
). His mother was of Irish-American descent. A gifted high school student, Calwell was a devout Roman Catholic and joined the Australian Labor Party
in his youth. Lacking the financial resources to pursue a university education, Calwell read very widely, acquired substantial skill in speaking to audiences, and became a clerk in the Victorian
Public Service, in which he worked for the Department of Agriculture and the State Treasury. From 1927 to 1931 he served as President of the Victorian branch of the Australian Public Sector Association (the union representing himself and his colleagues).
, Calwell was elected President of the Victorian Labor Party in 1931. He was elected to the Australian House of Representatives
for the seat of Melbourne
in 1940. During World War II
, Calwell served as Minister for Information in John Curtin
's Labor government, and became well known for his tough attitude towards the Australian press and his strict enforcement of wartime censorship. This earned him the enmity of large sections of the Australian Press, and he was dubbed "Cocky" Calwell by his political foes, cartoonists of the period depicting him as an obstinate Australian cockatoo.
In 1945, Calwell became Minister for Immigration
in Ben Chifley
's post-war Labor government. Thus, he was the chief architect of Australia's post-war immigration scheme
at a time when many European refugees desired a better life far from their war-torn homelands, and he became famous for his relentless promotion of it. Calwell's advocacy of the program was crucial because of his links to the trade union movement, and his skillful presentation of the need for immigration. Calwell overcame resistance to mass immigration by promoting it under the slogan "populate or perish". This drew attention to the need, particularly in light of the recent war in the Pacific, to increase Australia's industrial and military capabilities through a massive increase in the population. In July 1947 he signed an agreement with the United Nations Refugee Organisation
to accept displaced persons from European countries ravaged by war.
Calwell was a staunch advocate of the White Australia Policy
: while Europeans were welcomed to Australia, Calwell was deporting many Malayan, Indochinese and Chinese wartime refugees, some of whom had married Australian citizens and started families in Australia. Calwell's enthusiasm and drive in launching the migration program was a notable feature of the second term of the Chifley government, and has been named by many historians as his greatest achievement (especially given the labour movement's hostility to earlier migration programs).
when the Chifley government was defeated by the Liberal Party
, led by Robert Menzies
. The following period in opposition was one of great frustration. Like many Labor parliamentarians and union officials at the time, Calwell was a Roman Catholic. The Australian Catholic Church was in this period fiercely anti-communist and had in the 1940s encouraged Catholic trade unionists to oppose communists within their trade unions. The organisations that co-ordinated Catholic efforts were called Industrial Groups. Calwell had originally supported the Industrial Groups in Victoria and continued to do so until the early 1950s. After Chifley's death in 1951 Dr H. V. Evatt
became the Labor
leader, and Calwell became his Deputy. Under Evatt, Labor's attitude towards the Industrial Groups began to change as Evatt suspected that one of their aims was to promote the Catholic element within the Labor Party. Calwell's friendship with many of the leaders of the Industrial Groups (known collectively as "Groupers"), led Evatt to privately question his loyalty. The two men thus had an increasingly difficult working relationship. This culminated in Evatt drafting, and delivering, the Labor Platform for the 1954 federal election
without consulting with Calwell. Labor was narrowly defeated at the polls and this deepened the rift between the two men.
Evatt's subsequent public attack on the "Groupers" and his insistence on their expulsion from the party placed Calwell in a difficult position. He was made to choose between the Evatt-led official Labor Party and the "Groupers" (who were mainly Catholic and Victorian). During a specially convened Labor Conference in Hobart in May 1955 the "Groupers" were expelled from the Labor Party and Calwell chose to stay within the party. Calwell's loyalty to the party was to cause him much personal and political anguish: he lost many of its oldest friends at this time, including the Archbishop of Melbourne, Daniel Mannix
, and was for a time denied communion at his parish church. Ironically this loyalty to the party did not prevent him from being deeply distrusted by the left-wing of the ALP, especially in his home state of Victoria, and for many years he had a stormy relationship with the state Labor Party. He never favoured the communist philosophy, and was eloquent in his attacks on communists, whom he once called "Pathological exhibits ... human scum ... paranoiacs, degenerates, morons, bludgers ... pack of dingoes ... industrial outlaws and political lepers ... ratbags. If these people went to Russia, Stalin wouldn't even use them for manure."
Evatt retired in 1960, and Calwell succeeded him as Leader, with Gough Whitlam
as his deputy. Calwell very nearly defeated Menzies at the 1961 federal election
, owing to widespread discontent at Menzies's deflationary economic policies, as well as the unprecedented (and temporary) endorsement of the ALP by the usually pro-Liberal Sydney Morning Herald
. While Labor scored a 15-seat swing and a bare majority of the two-party vote, Democratic Labor
preferences left Calwell two seats short of toppling the Coalition. Labor actually won 62 seats, the same as the Coalition. However, those were in the Australian Capital Territory
and Northern Territory
; at the time members from the territories did not count for purposes of forming a government.
After this, however, Menzies was able to exploit divisions in the ALP over foreign policy and state aid for Catholic schools to recover his position. Calwell opposed the use of Australian troops in Malaya
and opposed the establishment of American military communications bases in Australia. He also upheld the traditional Labor policy of denying state aid to private schools. At the 1963 election Menzies gained ten seats from Labor. Many thought that Calwell should retire, but he was determined to stay and fight.
Calwell made his strongest stand with his vehement opposition to Australia's military involvement in the Vietnam War
, and the introduction of conscription
to provide troops for the war, publicly saying that "a vote for Menzies was a blood vote". Unfortunately for Calwell, the war was initially very popular in Australia, and continued to be so after Menzies retired in 1966. The Labor Party suffered a crushing defeat in the 1966 election
, which Menzies' successor Harold Holt
fought on the Vietnam War issue. Labor lost nine seats while the Coalition won the largest majority government in Australian history at the time.
Calwell resigned as Labor leader in January 1967. It was clear by this time that his awkward, tactless image was no match for that of his charismatic and ambitious young Deputy Leader, the urbane, middle-class, university-educated Gough Whitlam
. In particular, Whitlam's clear mastery of the media gave him a huge advantage over Calwell, who looked and sounded substantially older than his 70 years. Calwell, an old-fashioned stump orator whose career was forged in the days of the raucous public meeting, had always come across badly on television compared with the smooth, avuncular and rich-voiced Menzies.
in Australia (the first being Prince Alfred in 1868). On 21 June 1966, Calwell addressed an anti-conscription
rally at Mosman
Town Hall in Sydney
. As he was leaving the meeting, and just as his car was about to drive off, a 19-year-old student named Peter Kocan
approached the passenger side of the vehicle and fired a sawn-off rifle at Calwell at point-blank range. Fortunately for Calwell, the closed window deflected the bullet, which lodged harmlessly in his coat lapel, and he sustained only minor facial injuries from broken glass. Calwell later visited Kocan in the mental hospital (where he was confined for ten years), and through a regular correspondence encouraged his eventual rehabilitation.
Outside of the political arena, Calwell was a devotee of the North Melbourne
Australian rules football
team - he was the first life member of the club. He was always devoted to the Roman Catholic Church
despite his many conflicts with Church leaders. He received a papal knighthood from Pope Paul VI
and was made a Knight Commander with Star of the Order of St Gregory the Great (KC*SG) for his life-long service to the Church.
. He was survived by his wife Elizabeth and his daughter Mary Elizabeth.
Notwithstanding Calwell's poor relations with the conservative press in Australia and his public battles against right-wing Catholics like Archbishop Mannix and B. A. Santamaria
, he maintained a cordial relationship with Menzies. Menzies, for his part, never lost his respect and outright personal liking for Calwell. He attended Calwell's obsequies, but (according to his biographer Allan W. Martin) became so overwhelmed by grief after arriving at the cathedral that he was actually unable to compose himself and leave his car.
.
Calwell later wrote:
In fact, Calwell did not refer in Parliament to two men called Wong. The full quotation is:
In his 1978 biography of Calwell, Colm Kiernan
wrote: "Was Calwell a racist? All Australians who upheld the White Australia policy were racist in the sense that they upheld a policy which discriminated against coloured migrants... Calwell never denied the discriminatory reality of the laws: 'It is true that a measure of discrimination on racial grounds is exercised in the administration of our immigration policy.' But he did not consider himself to be superior to any Asian." Calwell also said in Parliament: "I have no racial animosity." Kiernan further says: "Calwell had many friends among the Chinese community in Melbourne. This would have been impossible if he had been prejudiced against them. Anthony Wang, the first Chinese councillor of the City of Melbourne, has acknowledged Calwell's support and friendship. He liked the Chinese people so much that he learnt Mandarin in which language he could converse."
Kiernan is correct to observe that until the 1950s virtually all Australians supported the White Australian policy, that Calwell's views were entirely within the political mainstream at that time, and Calwell believed himself to be free of personal prejudice against people of other races. This is reflected by Calwell's comments in his 1972 memoirs, Be Just and Fear Not, in which he made it clear that he maintained his view that non-European people should not be allowed to settle in Australia. He wrote: "I am proud of my white skin, just as a Chinese is proud of his yellow skin, a Japanese of his brown skin, and the Indians of their various hues from black to coffee-coloured. Anybody who is not proud of his race is not a man at all. And any man who tries to stigmatize the Australian community as racist because they want to preserve this country for the white race is doing our nation great harm... I reject, in conscience, the idea that Australia should or ever can become a multi-racial society and survive."
Calwell's attitude to Indigenous Australians
should also be considered. In his memoirs he wrote. "If any people are homeless in Australia today, it is the Aboriginals, They are the only non-European descended people to whom we owe any debt. Some day, I hope, we will do justice to them."
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
, was a member of the Australian House of Representatives
Australian House of Representatives
The House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the Parliament of Australia; it is the lower house; the upper house is the Senate. Members of Parliament serve for terms of approximately three years....
for 32 years from 1940 to 1972, Immigration Minister in the government of Ben Chifley
Ben Chifley
Joseph Benedict Chifley , Australian politician, was the 16th Prime Minister of Australia. He took over the Australian Labor Party leadership and Prime Ministership after the death of John Curtin in 1945, and went on to retain government at the 1946 election, before being defeated at the 1949...
from 1945 to 1949 and Leader of the Australian Labor Party
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
from 1960 to 1967.
Early life
Calwell was born in MelbourneMelbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
. His father was a police officer of Irish descent, and both father and son were active in Melbourne's Irish community (including membership of the Celtic Club
Melbourne Celtic Club
The Melbourne Celtic Club is a social organisation for Melburnians of Celtic ancestry or descent.- Overview :Founded on 26 September 1887, the Club was originally a semi-political association, supportive of Irish Home Rule amongst Melbourne's sizeable Irish population; and championing the rights...
). His mother was of Irish-American descent. A gifted high school student, Calwell was a devout Roman Catholic and joined the Australian Labor Party
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
in his youth. Lacking the financial resources to pursue a university education, Calwell read very widely, acquired substantial skill in speaking to audiences, and became a clerk in the Victorian
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
Public Service, in which he worked for the Department of Agriculture and the State Treasury. From 1927 to 1931 he served as President of the Victorian branch of the Australian Public Sector Association (the union representing himself and his colleagues).
Political career
Active and energetic in the Labor PartyAustralian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
, Calwell was elected President of the Victorian Labor Party in 1931. He was elected to the Australian House of Representatives
Australian House of Representatives
The House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the Parliament of Australia; it is the lower house; the upper house is the Senate. Members of Parliament serve for terms of approximately three years....
for the seat of Melbourne
Division of Melbourne
The Division of Melbourne is an Australian Electoral Division of Victoria. It is represented by Adam Bandt of the Australian Greens.Created at Federation in 1900 the division was one of the original 75 divisions contested at the first federal election...
in 1940. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Calwell served as Minister for Information in John Curtin
John Curtin
John Joseph Curtin , Australian politician, served as the 14th Prime Minister of Australia. Labor under Curtin formed a minority government in 1941 after the crossbench consisting of two independent MPs crossed the floor in the House of Representatives, bringing down the Coalition minority...
's Labor government, and became well known for his tough attitude towards the Australian press and his strict enforcement of wartime censorship. This earned him the enmity of large sections of the Australian Press, and he was dubbed "Cocky" Calwell by his political foes, cartoonists of the period depicting him as an obstinate Australian cockatoo.
In 1945, Calwell became Minister for Immigration
Minister for Immigration and Citizenship (Australia)
In the Government of Australia, the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship is responsible for overseeing the Department of Immigration and Citizenship....
in Ben Chifley
Ben Chifley
Joseph Benedict Chifley , Australian politician, was the 16th Prime Minister of Australia. He took over the Australian Labor Party leadership and Prime Ministership after the death of John Curtin in 1945, and went on to retain government at the 1946 election, before being defeated at the 1949...
's post-war Labor government. Thus, he was the chief architect of Australia's post-war immigration scheme
Post war migrant arrivals, australia
In the immediate aftermath of World War II, Ben Chifley, Prime Minister of Australia from 1945 to 1949, established the Federal Department of Immigration and thereby launched a large scale immigration program...
at a time when many European refugees desired a better life far from their war-torn homelands, and he became famous for his relentless promotion of it. Calwell's advocacy of the program was crucial because of his links to the trade union movement, and his skillful presentation of the need for immigration. Calwell overcame resistance to mass immigration by promoting it under the slogan "populate or perish". This drew attention to the need, particularly in light of the recent war in the Pacific, to increase Australia's industrial and military capabilities through a massive increase in the population. In July 1947 he signed an agreement with the United Nations Refugee Organisation
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees , also known as The UN Refugee Agency is a United Nations agency mandated to protect and support refugees at the request of a government or the UN itself and assists in their voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement to...
to accept displaced persons from European countries ravaged by war.
Calwell was a staunch advocate of the White Australia Policy
White Australia policy
The White Australia policy comprises various historical policies that intentionally restricted "non-white" immigration to Australia. From origins at Federation in 1901, the polices were progressively dismantled between 1949-1973....
: while Europeans were welcomed to Australia, Calwell was deporting many Malayan, Indochinese and Chinese wartime refugees, some of whom had married Australian citizens and started families in Australia. Calwell's enthusiasm and drive in launching the migration program was a notable feature of the second term of the Chifley government, and has been named by many historians as his greatest achievement (especially given the labour movement's hostility to earlier migration programs).
Opposition
Calwell left office in 1949Australian federal election, 1949
Federal elections were held in Australia on 10 December 1949. All 121 seats in the House of Representatives, and 42 of the 60 seats in the Senate were up for election, where the single transferable vote was introduced...
when the Chifley government was defeated by the Liberal Party
Liberal Party of Australia
The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...
, led by Robert Menzies
Robert Menzies
Sir Robert Gordon Menzies, , Australian politician, was the 12th and longest-serving Prime Minister of Australia....
. The following period in opposition was one of great frustration. Like many Labor parliamentarians and union officials at the time, Calwell was a Roman Catholic. The Australian Catholic Church was in this period fiercely anti-communist and had in the 1940s encouraged Catholic trade unionists to oppose communists within their trade unions. The organisations that co-ordinated Catholic efforts were called Industrial Groups. Calwell had originally supported the Industrial Groups in Victoria and continued to do so until the early 1950s. After Chifley's death in 1951 Dr H. V. Evatt
H. V. Evatt
Herbert Vere Evatt, QC KStJ , was an Australian jurist, politician and writer. He was President of the United Nations General Assembly in 1948–49 and helped draft the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights...
became the Labor
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
leader, and Calwell became his Deputy. Under Evatt, Labor's attitude towards the Industrial Groups began to change as Evatt suspected that one of their aims was to promote the Catholic element within the Labor Party. Calwell's friendship with many of the leaders of the Industrial Groups (known collectively as "Groupers"), led Evatt to privately question his loyalty. The two men thus had an increasingly difficult working relationship. This culminated in Evatt drafting, and delivering, the Labor Platform for the 1954 federal election
Australian federal election, 1954
Federal elections were held in Australia on 29 May 1954. All 121 seats in the House of Representatives were up for election, no Senate election took place...
without consulting with Calwell. Labor was narrowly defeated at the polls and this deepened the rift between the two men.
Evatt's subsequent public attack on the "Groupers" and his insistence on their expulsion from the party placed Calwell in a difficult position. He was made to choose between the Evatt-led official Labor Party and the "Groupers" (who were mainly Catholic and Victorian). During a specially convened Labor Conference in Hobart in May 1955 the "Groupers" were expelled from the Labor Party and Calwell chose to stay within the party. Calwell's loyalty to the party was to cause him much personal and political anguish: he lost many of its oldest friends at this time, including the Archbishop of Melbourne, Daniel Mannix
Daniel Mannix
Daniel Mannix was an Irish-born Australian Catholic bishop. Mannix was the Archbishop of Melbourne for 46 years and one of the most influential public figures in 20th century Australia....
, and was for a time denied communion at his parish church. Ironically this loyalty to the party did not prevent him from being deeply distrusted by the left-wing of the ALP, especially in his home state of Victoria, and for many years he had a stormy relationship with the state Labor Party. He never favoured the communist philosophy, and was eloquent in his attacks on communists, whom he once called "Pathological exhibits ... human scum ... paranoiacs, degenerates, morons, bludgers ... pack of dingoes ... industrial outlaws and political lepers ... ratbags. If these people went to Russia, Stalin wouldn't even use them for manure."
Labor Leadership
Gough Whitlam
Edward Gough Whitlam, AC, QC , known as Gough Whitlam , served as the 21st Prime Minister of Australia. Whitlam led the Australian Labor Party to power at the 1972 election and retained government at the 1974 election, before being dismissed by Governor-General Sir John Kerr at the climax of the...
as his deputy. Calwell very nearly defeated Menzies at the 1961 federal election
Australian federal election, 1961
Federal elections were held in Australia on 9 December 1961. All 122 seats in the House of Representatives, and 31 of the 60 seats in the Senate were up for election...
, owing to widespread discontent at Menzies's deflationary economic policies, as well as the unprecedented (and temporary) endorsement of the ALP by the usually pro-Liberal Sydney Morning Herald
The Sydney Morning Herald
The Sydney Morning Herald is a daily broadsheet newspaper published by Fairfax Media in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1831 as the Sydney Herald, the SMH is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Australia. The newspaper is published six days a week. The newspaper's Sunday counterpart, The...
. While Labor scored a 15-seat swing and a bare majority of the two-party vote, Democratic Labor
Democratic Labor Party (historical)
The Democratic Labor Party was an Australian political party that existed from 1955 until 1978.-History:The DLP was formed as a result of a split in the Australian Labor Party that began in 1954. The split was between the party's national leadership, under the then party leader Dr H.V...
preferences left Calwell two seats short of toppling the Coalition. Labor actually won 62 seats, the same as the Coalition. However, those were in the Australian Capital Territory
Australian Capital Territory
The Australian Capital Territory, often abbreviated ACT, is the capital territory of the Commonwealth of Australia and is the smallest self-governing internal territory...
and Northern Territory
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...
; at the time members from the territories did not count for purposes of forming a government.
After this, however, Menzies was able to exploit divisions in the ALP over foreign policy and state aid for Catholic schools to recover his position. Calwell opposed the use of Australian troops in Malaya
Federation of Malaya
The Federation of Malaya is the name given to a federation of 11 states that existed from 31 January 1948 until 16 September 1963. The Federation became independent on 31 August 1957...
and opposed the establishment of American military communications bases in Australia. He also upheld the traditional Labor policy of denying state aid to private schools. At the 1963 election Menzies gained ten seats from Labor. Many thought that Calwell should retire, but he was determined to stay and fight.
Calwell made his strongest stand with his vehement opposition to Australia's military involvement in the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, and the introduction of conscription
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
to provide troops for the war, publicly saying that "a vote for Menzies was a blood vote". Unfortunately for Calwell, the war was initially very popular in Australia, and continued to be so after Menzies retired in 1966. The Labor Party suffered a crushing defeat in the 1966 election
Australian federal election, 1966
Federal elections were held in Australia on 26 November 1966. All 124 seats in the House of Representatives were up for election. The incumbent Liberal Party of Australia led by Prime Minister of Australia Harold Holt with coalition partner the Country Party led by John McEwen defeated the...
, which Menzies' successor Harold Holt
Harold Holt
Harold Edward Holt, CH was an Australian politician and the 17th Prime Minister of Australia.His term as Prime Minister was brought to an early and dramatic end in December 1967 when he disappeared while swimming at Cheviot Beach near Portsea, Victoria, and was presumed drowned.Holt spent 32 years...
fought on the Vietnam War issue. Labor lost nine seats while the Coalition won the largest majority government in Australian history at the time.
Calwell resigned as Labor leader in January 1967. It was clear by this time that his awkward, tactless image was no match for that of his charismatic and ambitious young Deputy Leader, the urbane, middle-class, university-educated Gough Whitlam
Gough Whitlam
Edward Gough Whitlam, AC, QC , known as Gough Whitlam , served as the 21st Prime Minister of Australia. Whitlam led the Australian Labor Party to power at the 1972 election and retained government at the 1974 election, before being dismissed by Governor-General Sir John Kerr at the climax of the...
. In particular, Whitlam's clear mastery of the media gave him a huge advantage over Calwell, who looked and sounded substantially older than his 70 years. Calwell, an old-fashioned stump orator whose career was forged in the days of the raucous public meeting, had always come across badly on television compared with the smooth, avuncular and rich-voiced Menzies.
Attempted assassination
Calwell is also notable for being only the second victim of an attempted political assassinationAssassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
in Australia (the first being Prince Alfred in 1868). On 21 June 1966, Calwell addressed an anti-conscription
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
rally at Mosman
Mosman, New South Wales
Mosman is a suburb on the Lower North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Mosman is located 8 kilometres north-east of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of the Municipality of Mosman.-Localities:In February...
Town Hall in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
. As he was leaving the meeting, and just as his car was about to drive off, a 19-year-old student named Peter Kocan
Peter Kocan
Peter Raymond Kocan , Australian author and poet, is remembered in Australia for his attempt to assassinate federal Opposition Leader Arthur Calwell in 1966.-Life and career:...
approached the passenger side of the vehicle and fired a sawn-off rifle at Calwell at point-blank range. Fortunately for Calwell, the closed window deflected the bullet, which lodged harmlessly in his coat lapel, and he sustained only minor facial injuries from broken glass. Calwell later visited Kocan in the mental hospital (where he was confined for ten years), and through a regular correspondence encouraged his eventual rehabilitation.
Retirement
By the time Calwell's political career ended he was the Father of the House of Representatives, having served as an MP for 32 years. He was frequently critical of Whitlam, especially since he knew that Whitlam intended abandoning the White Australia Policy.Outside of the political arena, Calwell was a devotee of the North Melbourne
North Melbourne Football Club
The North Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed The Kangaroos, is the fourth oldest Australian rules football club in the Australian Football League and is one of the oldest sporting clubs in Australia and the world...
Australian rules football
Australian rules football
Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...
team - he was the first life member of the club. He was always devoted to the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
despite his many conflicts with Church leaders. He received a papal knighthood from Pope Paul VI
Pope Paul VI
Paul VI , born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church from 21 June 1963 until his death on 6 August 1978. Succeeding Pope John XXIII, who had convened the Second Vatican Council, he decided to continue it...
and was made a Knight Commander with Star of the Order of St Gregory the Great (KC*SG) for his life-long service to the Church.
Death
At the 1972 election which brought Whitlam to the Prime Ministership, Calwell retired from Parliament. In July 1973, he died. He was given a state funeral at St Patrick's Cathedral, MelbourneSt Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne
St Patrick's Cathedral is the cathedral church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia, and seat of its archbishop, currently Denis J. Hart. The building is known internationally as a leading example of the Gothic Revival style of architecture.In 1974 Pope Paul VI...
. He was survived by his wife Elizabeth and his daughter Mary Elizabeth.
Notwithstanding Calwell's poor relations with the conservative press in Australia and his public battles against right-wing Catholics like Archbishop Mannix and B. A. Santamaria
B. A. Santamaria
Bartholomew Augustine "B. A." Santamaria, otherwise 'Bob' , was an Australian political activist and journalist and one of the most influential political figures in 20th century Australian history...
, he maintained a cordial relationship with Menzies. Menzies, for his part, never lost his respect and outright personal liking for Calwell. He attended Calwell's obsequies, but (according to his biographer Allan W. Martin) became so overwhelmed by grief after arriving at the cathedral that he was actually unable to compose himself and leave his car.
Calwell and racism
Calwell's remark in Parliament in 1947 that "Two Wongs don't make a White" is widely quoted. The remark was intended as a joke, being a reference to a Chinese resident called Wong who was wrongly threatened with deportation, and a Liberal MP, Sir Thomas WhiteThomas White (Australian politician)
Sir Thomas Walter White KBE DFC was an Australian politician.-Early life and World War I:White was born at Hotham, North Melbourne, Victoria and educated at Moreland State School. In August 1914, he began training as an officer in the Australian Flying Corps at Point Cook...
.
Calwell later wrote:
It is important to me, at least, to set out the facts about a remark I made in the House of Representatives on December 2, 1947, which has been so often misrepresented it has become tiresome. On that day I was asked a question by Rupert Ryan, brother-in-law of Lord Casey, on the deportation of Malayan seamen, Chinese and other people who had contravened our immigration laws. I said, amongst other things, that an error may have been made in the case of two men named Wong. The Department had served a deportation notice on one of them, but it was the wrong Wong. I then said, and I quote from Hansard: 'there are many Wongs in the Chinese community, but I have to say — and I am sure that the honorable Member for Balaclava will not mind doing so — that "two Wongs do not make a White"'.
It was a jocose remark, made partly at the expense of the member for Balaclava, who was at the time the Hon T W (later Sir Thomas) White. I expected that I would have been correctly reported, as I was in Hansard and that the initial letter 'W' on both the names 'Wong' and 'White' would have been written in capitals. But when the message got to Singapore, either because of some anti-Australian Asian journalist or perhaps because some Australian pressman with a chip on his shoulder, a Labor Party hater, the name of White was deliberately altered into a definition of colour, so as to read 'two Wongs don't make a white.' The story has lasted to this day. I have often answered questions about it from young Chinese students at universities in Melbourne and Sydney. I notice whenever reference is made to it in newspapers or periodicals, or whenever the quotation is used anywhere, the Singapore abomination is generally repeated. Latterly the true version is being printed.
There was never any intention in my mind to raise any question of colour. I have repudiated the whole story so often that I suppose there is nothing more I can do about it. But I put the facts on record in this book. Calwell, Be Just and Fear Not, 109.
In fact, Calwell did not refer in Parliament to two men called Wong. The full quotation is:
(Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, 2 December 1947)
"The [deportation] policy which I have just mentioned relates to evacuees who came to Australia during the war. This Chinese is said to have been here for twenty years, and obviously, therefore, is not a wartime evacuee. Speaking generally, I think there is some claim for him to be regarded as a resident of Australia, and I have no doubt his certificate can be extended from time to time as it has been extended in the past. An error may have been made in his case. The gentleman's name is Wong. There are many Wongs in the Chinese community, but I have to say — and I am sure that the Honourable Member for Balaclava will not mind me doing so — that "two Wongs do not make a White"."
In his 1978 biography of Calwell, Colm Kiernan
Colm Kiernan
Colm Padraic Kiernan was an historian and writer.- Historian :In 1964 Colm Kiernan was appointed foundation Lecturer in History at the University of Wollongong, Australia...
wrote: "Was Calwell a racist? All Australians who upheld the White Australia policy were racist in the sense that they upheld a policy which discriminated against coloured migrants... Calwell never denied the discriminatory reality of the laws: 'It is true that a measure of discrimination on racial grounds is exercised in the administration of our immigration policy.' But he did not consider himself to be superior to any Asian." Calwell also said in Parliament: "I have no racial animosity." Kiernan further says: "Calwell had many friends among the Chinese community in Melbourne. This would have been impossible if he had been prejudiced against them. Anthony Wang, the first Chinese councillor of the City of Melbourne, has acknowledged Calwell's support and friendship. He liked the Chinese people so much that he learnt Mandarin in which language he could converse."
Kiernan is correct to observe that until the 1950s virtually all Australians supported the White Australian policy, that Calwell's views were entirely within the political mainstream at that time, and Calwell believed himself to be free of personal prejudice against people of other races. This is reflected by Calwell's comments in his 1972 memoirs, Be Just and Fear Not, in which he made it clear that he maintained his view that non-European people should not be allowed to settle in Australia. He wrote: "I am proud of my white skin, just as a Chinese is proud of his yellow skin, a Japanese of his brown skin, and the Indians of their various hues from black to coffee-coloured. Anybody who is not proud of his race is not a man at all. And any man who tries to stigmatize the Australian community as racist because they want to preserve this country for the white race is doing our nation great harm... I reject, in conscience, the idea that Australia should or ever can become a multi-racial society and survive."
Calwell's attitude to Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....
should also be considered. In his memoirs he wrote. "If any people are homeless in Australia today, it is the Aboriginals, They are the only non-European descended people to whom we owe any debt. Some day, I hope, we will do justice to them."
Further reading
- Arthur Calwell, Labor's Role In Modern Society (1963)
- Arthur Calwell, Be Just And Fear Not (1972)
- Colm KiernanColm KiernanColm Padraic Kiernan was an historian and writer.- Historian :In 1964 Colm Kiernan was appointed foundation Lecturer in History at the University of Wollongong, Australia...
, Calwell (1978) - Arthur Calwell, I Stand by a White Australia (1949)
- G. Freudenberg, 'Calwell, Arthur Augustus', in Australian Dictionary of Biography