Andrew Fisher
Encyclopedia
Andrew Fisher was an Australia
n politician
who served as the fifth Prime Minister
on three separate occasions. Fisher's 1910-13 Labor
ministry completed a vast legislative programme which made him, along with Protectionist
Alfred Deakin
, the founder of the statutory structure of the new nation. The Fisher government legacy of reforms and national development lasted beyond the divisions that would later occur with World War I
and Billy Hughes
' conscription
push.
Fisher's second Prime Ministership in 1910 represented a number of firsts: it was Australia's first federal majority government
; Australia's first Senate
majority, and the world's first Labour Party majority government at a national level. At the time, it represented the culmination of Labour's involvement in politics. Passing 113 acts, the 1910-13 government was a period of reform unmatched in the Commonwealth until the 1940s. Serving a collective total of four years and ten months, Fisher is second to Bob Hawke
as Australia's longest serving Labor Prime Minister.
'Labour' was renamed to 'Labor' during 1912 at the instigation of King O'Malley
.
, East Ayrshire
, Scotland
. He was the second of eight children of Robert Fisher and Jane Garvin. Fisher's education consisted of some primary schooling, some night schooling, and the reading of books in the library of the cooperative
his father had helped to establish. At the age of 10 he began work in a coal mine. He worked six days a week for 12 hours a day. He then had a 4km trek to go to night school. At 17 he was elected secretary of the local branch of the Ayrshire Miners' Union,
the first step on a road to politics. The union called a strike in 1881 to demand a 10 per cent increase to wages, but this was to prove ultimately unsuccessful and Fisher lost his job as a result. After finding employment at another mine, he once again led miners to strike for higher wages in 1885. This time, he was not only sacked but also blacklisted.
Unable to find work, Fisher and his brother migrated to Queensland
in 1885. Despite leaving his homeland, Fisher is said to have retained a distinctive Scottish accent for the rest of his life. Here, Fisher worked as a miner, first in Burrum and then in Gympie
. He became an engine driver (a role involving the operation of machinary to raise and lower cages in the mine shaft) after attaining the necessary qualifications in 1891. In the same year, he was also elected to be the president of an engine drivers union, He was also active in the Amalgamated Miners Union, becoming President of the Gympie branch by 1891.
. In 1893, he was elected to the Queensland Legislative Assembly
as Labour member for Gympie
and by the following year had become Labour's deputy leader in the Legislative Assembly. In his maiden speech, he pushed for a 50 per cent cut in military spending and declared support for federation. Another policy area that captured his attention during this term was the employment of workers from the Pacific Islands in sugar plantations, a practice that Fisher and Labour both strongly opposed. He lost his seat in 1896 after a campaign in which he was charged by his opponent Jacob Stumm
with being a dangerous revolutionary and an anti-Catholic, accusations that were propagated by the newspaper Gympie Times.
The 1896 establishment of the Gympie Truth, a newspaper that he was to part-own, was part of his response. Intended as a medium to broadcast Labour's message, the newspaper played a vital role in Fisher's return to parliament in 1899. This time, he was the beneficiary of a scare campaign, in which conservative candidate Francis Power was consistently painted by the Gympie Truth as being a supporter of black labour and the alleged economic and social ills that accompanied it. In that year he was Secretary for Railways and Public Works in the seven-day government of Anderson Dawson
, the first parliamentary socialist government in the world.
The state Labour parties and their MPs were mixed in their support for the Federation of Australia
. However Fisher was a firm federationist, supporting the union of the Australian colonies and campaigned for the 'Yes' vote in Queensland's 1899 referendum. Fisher stood for the electorate of Wide Bay
at the inaugural 1901 federal election and won the seat, which he held continuously for the rest of his political career. At the end of 1901 Fisher married Margaret Irvine, his previous landlady's daughter.
Labour improved their position at the 1903 election, gaining enough seats to be on par with the other two, a legislative time colloquially known as the "three elevens". When the Deakin government resigned in 1904, George Reid
of the Free Trade Party
declined to take office, resulting in Labour taking power and Chris Watson
becoming Labour's first Prime Minister for a four month period in 1904. Fisher established and demonstrated his ministerial capabilities as Minister for Trade and Customs
in the Watson Ministry
. The fourth Labour member in the ministry after Watson, Hughes, and Lee Batchelor
, Fisher was promoted to deputy leader of the party in 1905.
At the 1906 election, Deakin remained Prime Minister even though Labour gained considerably more seats than the Protectionists. When Watson resigned in 1907, Fisher succeeded him as Labour leader, although Hughes and William Spence
also stood for the position. Fisher was considered to have a better understanding of economic matters, was better at handling caucus, had better relations with the party organisation and the unions, and was more in touch with party opinion. He did not share Hughes' passion for free trade or that of Watson and Hughes for defence (and later conscription). In political terms he was a radical, on the left of his party, with a strong sense of Labour's part in British working-class history.
At the 1908 Labour Federal Conference, Fisher argued for female representation in parliament:
With a majority of seats in the Labour-Protectionist government, Labour caucus by early 1908 had become restive as to the future of the Deakin minority government. With the Deakin ministry in trouble, Deakin talked to Fisher and Watson about a possible coalition, and following a report agreed to it providing Labour had a majority in cabinet, that there was immediate legislation for old-age pension
s, that New Protection was carried and that at the following election the government would promise a progressive land tax. No coalition was formed, however the pressure from Labour brought about productive change by Deakin: he agreed to a royal commission
into the post office, old-age pensions were to be provided from the surplus revenue fund and £250,000 set aside for ships for an Australian Navy. New Protection was declared invalid by the High Court in June, Fisher found the tariff proposals of Deakin unsatisfactory, while caucus was also dissatisfied with the old-age pension proposals. Without Labour support the Deakin government fell in November 1908.
Fisher formed his first and only minority government
and the First Fisher Ministry
. The government amended the Seat of Government Act providing for the new federal capital to be in the Yass
-Canberra
area, passed the Manufacturers' Encouragement Act to provide bounties for iron and steel manufacturers who paid fair and reasonable wages, ordered three torpedo boat
destroyers, and assumed local naval defence responsibility and placed the Australian Navy at the disposal of the Royal Navy
in wartime.
Fisher committed Labour to amending the Constitution to give the Commonwealth power over labour, wages and prices, to expanding the navy and providing compulsory military training for youths, to extending pension
s, to a land tax, to the construction of a transcontinental railway
, to the replacement of pound sterling
with Australian currency and to tariff
s to protect the sugar industry. In May 1909, the more conservative Protectionists and Freetraders merged to form the Commonwealth Liberal Party
, while the more liberal Protectionists joined Labour. With a majority of seats, the CLP led by Alfred Deakin
ousted Labour from office, with Fisher failing to persuade the Governor-General Lord Dudley
to dissolve Parliament.
, Labour gained sixteen additional seats to hold a total of forty-two of the seventy-five House of Representative seats, and all eighteen Senate seats up for election to hold a total of twenty-two out of thirty-six seats. This gave Labour control of both Houses and enabled Fisher to form his Second Fisher Ministry
, Australia's first federal majority government
, Australia's first Senate majority, and the world's first Labour Party majority government. The 113 acts passed in the three years of the second Fisher government exceeded even the output of the second Deakin government over a similar period. The 1910-13 Fisher government represented the culmination of Labour's involvement in politics, it was a period of reform unmatched in the Commonwealth until the 1940s.
Fisher carried out many reforms in defence, constitutional matters, finance, transport and communications, and social security, achieving the vast majority of his aims in his first government, such as establishing old-age and disability pensions, a maternity
allowance and workers compensation
, issuing Australia's first paper currency, forming the Royal Australian Navy
, the commencement of construction for the Trans-Australian Railway
, expanding the bench of the High Court of Australia
, founding Canberra
and establishing the government-owned Commonwealth Bank. Fisher's second government also introduced uniform postal charges throughout Australia, carried out measures to break up land monopolies, put forward proposals for more regulation of working hours, wages and employment conditions, introduced free medical treatment and inspection for children in state schools, and amended the 1904 Conciliation and Arbitration Act to provide greater authority for the court president and to allow for Commonwealth employees' industrial unions, registered with the Arbitration Court.
Fisher wanted additional Commonwealth power in certain areas, such as the nationalisation of monopolies. The 1911 referendum
asked two questions, on Legislative Powers and Monopolies. Both were defeated with around 61 per cent voting 'No'. An additional six questions were asked at the 1913 referendum
, on Trade and Commerce, Corporations, Industrial Matters, Trusts, Monopolies, and Railway Disputes. All six were defeated with around 51 per cent voting 'No'. At the 1913 election
, the Commonwealth Liberal Party
, led by Joseph Cook
, defeated the Labor Party by one seat.
, however, and in 1914 Cook, frustrated by the Labor controlled Senate's blocking of his legislation, recommended to the new Governor-General Sir Ronald Munro Ferguson that both houses of the parliament be dissolved and elections called. This was Australia's first double dissolution
election, and the only one until the 1951 election
. The First World War
had broken out in the middle of the 1914 election
campaign, with both sides committing Australia to the British Empire. Fisher campaigned on Labor's record of support for an independent Australian defence force, and pledged that Australia would "stand beside the mother country to help and defend her to the last man and the last shilling." Labor won the election with another absolute majority in both houses and Fisher formed his Third Fisher Ministry
.
Fisher and his party were immediately underway in organising urgent defence measures for planning and implementing Australia’s war effort. Fisher visited New Zealand during this time which saw Billy Hughes
as acting Prime Minister for two months. Fisher and Labor continued to implement promised peacetime legislation, including the River Murray Waters Act 1915, the Freight Arrangements Act 1915, the Sugar Purchase Act 1915, the Estate Duty Assessment and the Estate Duty acts in 1914. Wartime legislation in 1914 and 1915 included the War Precautions acts (giving the Governor-General power to make regulations for national security), a Trading with the Enemy Act, War Census acts, a Crimes Act, a Belgium Grant Act, and an Enemy Contracts Annulment Act.
In October 1915, the journalist Keith Murdoch
reported on the situation in Gallipoli
at Fisher's request, and advised him, "Your fears have been justified". He described the Dardanelles Expedition as being "a series of disastrous underestimations" and "one of the most terrible chapters in our history" concluding:
Fisher passed this report on to Hughes and to Defence Minister George Pearce
, ultimately leading to the evacuation of the Australian troops in December 1915. The report was also used by the Dardanelles Commission
on which Fisher served, while High Commissioner in London.
Fisher resigned from the Prime Ministership and Parliament on 27 October 1915 after being absent from parliament without explanation for three sitting days. Three days later Labor Caucus unanimously elected Billy Hughes
leader of the Federal Parliamentary Party. A Wide Bay by-election
was held to elect a new MP to that seat.
Fisher served as Australia's second High Commissioner to the United Kingdom from 1 January 1916 to 1 January 1921. Fisher opposed conscription which made his dealings with Billy Hughes difficult. Hughes asked Fisher for support by cable three weeks before the first referendum, but Fisher cabled back "Am unable to sign appeal. Position forbids." He subsequently refused to publicly comment on the issue. Hughes' 1916
and 1917 referendums
on conscription both had a No majority of around one per cent. Fisher visited Australian troops serving in Belgium and France in 1919, and later presented Pearce with an album of battlefield photos from 1917 and 1918, showing the horrendous conditions experienced by the troops.
The Dardanelles Commission
, including Fisher, interviewed witnesses in 1916 and 1917 and issued its final report issued in 1919. It concluded that the expedition was poorly planned and executed and that difficulties had been underestimated, problems which were exacerbated by supply shortages and by personality clashes and procrastination at high levels. Some 480,000 Allied troops had been dedicated to the failed campaign, with around half in casualties. The report's conclusions were regarded as insipid with no figures (political or military) heavily censured. The report of the Commission and information gathered by the inquiry remain a key source of documents on the campaign.
Fisher wanted to continue to serve as High Commissioner in London when his term expired in 1921, but Hughes did not permit it. Upon his return to Australia, there were attempts to secure Fisher a seat in parliament and lead the Labor Party once more, but he was not interested in doing so. In 1922 he returned to London and lived in retirement at South Hill Park, Hampstead
, for the remainder of his life. In his final years, Fisher gradually succumbed to the effects of dementia, such that he would ultimately lose the ability to even sign his own name. He caught a severe bout of influenza in September 1928 and died a month later. He is buried at Fortune Green Cemetery in West Hampstead.
At the end of the First World War, France
awarded him the Légion d'honneur
, but he declined it; he did not like decorations of any kind and adhered to this view throughout his life. The federal electorate of Fisher
was named after him. A Canberra suburb, Fisher
, was also created in his memory, with its streets reflecting a mining theme in honour of Fisher's occupation before entering public life. Ramsay MacDonald
, Britain's first Labour
Prime Minister, unveiled a memorial to Fisher in Hampstead Cemetery in 1930. A memorial garden was also dedicated to Fisher at his birthplace in the late 1970s.
In 1972 he was honoured on a postage stamp
bearing his portrait issued by Australia Post
.
In 2008 Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
launched a biography titled Andrew Fisher, written by David Day. In turn, Rudd was presented with an item that once belonged to Fisher - a slightly battered gold pen engraved with Fisher's signature, which had been held in safekeeping for 80 years.
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...
who served as the fifth Prime Minister
Prime Minister of Australia
The Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia is the highest minister of the Crown, leader of the Cabinet and Head of Her Majesty's Australian Government, holding office on commission from the Governor-General of Australia. The office of Prime Minister is, in practice, the most powerful...
on three separate occasions. Fisher's 1910-13 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...
ministry completed a vast legislative programme which made him, along with Protectionist
Protectionist Party
The Protectionist Party was an Australian political party, formally organised from 1889 until 1909, with policies centred on protectionism. It argued that Australia needed protective tariffs to allow Australian industry to grow and provide employment. It had its greatest strength in Victoria and in...
Alfred Deakin
Alfred Deakin
Alfred Deakin , Australian politician, was a leader of the movement for Australian federation and later the second Prime Minister of Australia. In the last quarter of the 19th century, Deakin was a major contributor to the establishment of liberal reforms in the colony of Victoria, including the...
, the founder of the statutory structure of the new nation. The Fisher government legacy of reforms and national development lasted beyond the divisions that would later occur with World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and Billy Hughes
Billy Hughes
William Morris "Billy" Hughes, CH, KC, MHR , Australian politician, was the seventh Prime Minister of Australia from 1915 to 1923....
' 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...
push.
Fisher's second Prime Ministership in 1910 represented a number of firsts: it was Australia's first federal majority government
Majority government
A majority government is when the governing party has an absolute majority of seats in the legislature or parliament in a parliamentary system. This is as opposed to a minority government, where even the largest party wins only a plurality of seats and thus must constantly bargain for support from...
; Australia's first Senate
Australian Senate
The Senate is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the House of Representatives. Senators are popularly elected under a system of proportional representation. Senators are elected for a term that is usually six years; after a double dissolution, however,...
majority, and the world's first Labour Party majority government at a national level. At the time, it represented the culmination of Labour's involvement in politics. Passing 113 acts, the 1910-13 government was a period of reform unmatched in the Commonwealth until the 1940s. Serving a collective total of four years and ten months, Fisher is second to Bob Hawke
Bob Hawke
Robert James Lee "Bob" Hawke AC GCL was the 23rd Prime Minister of Australia from March 1983 to December 1991 and therefore longest serving Australian Labor Party Prime Minister....
as Australia's longest serving Labor Prime Minister.
'Labour' was renamed to 'Labor' during 1912 at the instigation of King O'Malley
King O'Malley
King O'Malley was an Australian politician. He was a member in the South Australian House of Assembly from 1896 to 1899, and the Australian House of Representatives from 1901 to 1917. O'Malley was also Minister for Home Affairs in the second and third Fisher Labor ministry...
.
Early life
Fisher was born in Crosshouse, a mining village near KilmaursKilmaurs
Kilmaurs is a village in East Ayrshire, Scotland. It lies on the Carmel, 21.1 miles south by west of Glasgow. Population recorded in 2001 Census, 2601- History :...
, East Ayrshire
East Ayrshire
East Ayrshire is one of 32 council areas of Scotland. It borders on to North Ayrshire, East Renfrewshire, South Lanarkshire, South Ayrshire and Dumfries and Galloway...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. He was the second of eight children of Robert Fisher and Jane Garvin. Fisher's education consisted of some primary schooling, some night schooling, and the reading of books in the library of the cooperative
Cooperative
A cooperative is a business organization owned and operated by a group of individuals for their mutual benefit...
his father had helped to establish. At the age of 10 he began work in a coal mine. He worked six days a week for 12 hours a day. He then had a 4km trek to go to night school. At 17 he was elected secretary of the local branch of the Ayrshire Miners' Union,
the first step on a road to politics. The union called a strike in 1881 to demand a 10 per cent increase to wages, but this was to prove ultimately unsuccessful and Fisher lost his job as a result. After finding employment at another mine, he once again led miners to strike for higher wages in 1885. This time, he was not only sacked but also blacklisted.
Unable to find work, Fisher and his brother migrated to Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
in 1885. Despite leaving his homeland, Fisher is said to have retained a distinctive Scottish accent for the rest of his life. Here, Fisher worked as a miner, first in Burrum and then in Gympie
Gympie
Gympie may refer to:* Gympie, a city in Queensland, Australia** Gympie Airport** Electoral district of Gympie** Gympie Region, its local government authority* Gympie Gympie , a stinging plant...
. He became an engine driver (a role involving the operation of machinary to raise and lower cages in the mine shaft) after attaining the necessary qualifications in 1891. In the same year, he was also elected to be the president of an engine drivers union, He was also active in the Amalgamated Miners Union, becoming President of the Gympie branch by 1891.
Queensland Parliament
In 1891, Fisher was elected as the first president of the Gympie branch of the Labour 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...
. In 1893, he was elected to the Queensland Legislative Assembly
Queensland Legislative Assembly
The Queensland Legislative Assembly is the unicameral chamber of the Parliament of Queensland. Elections are held approximately once every three years. Voting is by the Optional Preferential Voting form of the Alternative Vote system...
as Labour member for Gympie
Electoral district of Gympie
The district of Gympie is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of Queensland The electorate is centred on the city of Gympie and stretches north to Rainbow Beach and as far south to Pomona....
and by the following year had become Labour's deputy leader in the Legislative Assembly. In his maiden speech, he pushed for a 50 per cent cut in military spending and declared support for federation. Another policy area that captured his attention during this term was the employment of workers from the Pacific Islands in sugar plantations, a practice that Fisher and Labour both strongly opposed. He lost his seat in 1896 after a campaign in which he was charged by his opponent Jacob Stumm
Jacob Stumm
Jacob Stumm was an Australian politician. Born in Frankfurt am Main in Germany, he migrated to Australia as a child and was educated at state schools in Toowoomba before becoming a Hansard reporter, a journalist and the proprietor of the Gympie Times. He also invested in dairying and goldmining...
with being a dangerous revolutionary and an anti-Catholic, accusations that were propagated by the newspaper Gympie Times.
The 1896 establishment of the Gympie Truth, a newspaper that he was to part-own, was part of his response. Intended as a medium to broadcast Labour's message, the newspaper played a vital role in Fisher's return to parliament in 1899. This time, he was the beneficiary of a scare campaign, in which conservative candidate Francis Power was consistently painted by the Gympie Truth as being a supporter of black labour and the alleged economic and social ills that accompanied it. In that year he was Secretary for Railways and Public Works in the seven-day government of Anderson Dawson
Anderson Dawson
Andrew Dawson , usually known as Anderson Dawson, was an Australian politician, the Premier of Queensland for one week in 1899...
, the first parliamentary socialist government in the world.
Federal Parliament
Federation of Australia
The Federation of Australia was the process by which the six separate British self-governing colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia formed one nation...
. However Fisher was a firm federationist, supporting the union of the Australian colonies and campaigned for the 'Yes' vote in Queensland's 1899 referendum. Fisher stood for the electorate of Wide Bay
Division of Wide Bay
The Division of Wide Bay is an Australian Electoral Division in Queensland. The division was one of the original 75 divisions contested at the first federal election...
at the inaugural 1901 federal election and won the seat, which he held continuously for the rest of his political career. At the end of 1901 Fisher married Margaret Irvine, his previous landlady's daughter.
Labour improved their position at the 1903 election, gaining enough seats to be on par with the other two, a legislative time colloquially known as the "three elevens". When the Deakin government resigned in 1904, George Reid
George Reid (Australian politician)
Sir George Houstoun Reid, GCB, GCMG, KC was an Australian politician, Premier of New South Wales and the fourth Prime Minister of Australia....
of the Free Trade Party
Free Trade Party
The Free Trade Party which was officially known as the Australian Free Trade and Liberal Association, also referred to as the Revenue Tariff Party in some states and renamed the Anti-Socialist Party in 1906, was an Australian political party, formally organised between 1889 and 1909...
declined to take office, resulting in Labour taking power and Chris Watson
Chris Watson
John Christian Watson , commonly known as Chris Watson, Australian politician, was the third Prime Minister of Australia...
becoming Labour's first Prime Minister for a four month period in 1904. Fisher established and demonstrated his ministerial capabilities as Minister for Trade and Customs
Minister for Trade (Australia)
The Australian Minister for Trade has been Dr. Craig Emerson since 14 September 2010.-Portfolio:Currently the Minister for Trade administers the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade jointly with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, although prior to 1987 there was a separate Department of Trade...
in the Watson Ministry
Watson Ministry
The Watson Ministry was the third Australian Commonwealth ministry, and ran from 27 April 1904 to 17 August 1904. It was the first federal ministry formed by the Australian Labor Party.----...
. The fourth Labour member in the ministry after Watson, Hughes, and Lee Batchelor
Lee Batchelor
Egerton Lee Batchelor, known as Lee Batchelor, , Australian politician, was the 2nd leader of the South Australian branch of the Australian Labor Party, a member of the First Australian Parliament, and the first member for the Federal Division of Boothby in South Australia, from 1903 to 1911...
, Fisher was promoted to deputy leader of the party in 1905.
At the 1906 election, Deakin remained Prime Minister even though Labour gained considerably more seats than the Protectionists. When Watson resigned in 1907, Fisher succeeded him as Labour leader, although Hughes and William Spence
William Spence
William Guthrie Spence , Australian trade union leader and politician, played a leading role in the formation of both Australia's largest union, the Australian Workers Union, and the Australian Labor Party.-Early life:...
also stood for the position. Fisher was considered to have a better understanding of economic matters, was better at handling caucus, had better relations with the party organisation and the unions, and was more in touch with party opinion. He did not share Hughes' passion for free trade or that of Watson and Hughes for defence (and later conscription). In political terms he was a radical, on the left of his party, with a strong sense of Labour's part in British working-class history.
At the 1908 Labour Federal Conference, Fisher argued for female representation in parliament:
With a majority of seats in the Labour-Protectionist government, Labour caucus by early 1908 had become restive as to the future of the Deakin minority government. With the Deakin ministry in trouble, Deakin talked to Fisher and Watson about a possible coalition, and following a report agreed to it providing Labour had a majority in cabinet, that there was immediate legislation for old-age pension
Pension
In general, a pension is an arrangement to provide people with an income when they are no longer earning a regular income from employment. Pensions should not be confused with severance pay; the former is paid in regular installments, while the latter is paid in one lump sum.The terms retirement...
s, that New Protection was carried and that at the following election the government would promise a progressive land tax. No coalition was formed, however the pressure from Labour brought about productive change by Deakin: he agreed to a royal commission
Royal Commission
In Commonwealth realms and other monarchies a Royal Commission is a major ad-hoc formal public inquiry into a defined issue. They have been held in various countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Saudi Arabia...
into the post office, old-age pensions were to be provided from the surplus revenue fund and £250,000 set aside for ships for an Australian Navy. New Protection was declared invalid by the High Court in June, Fisher found the tariff proposals of Deakin unsatisfactory, while caucus was also dissatisfied with the old-age pension proposals. Without Labour support the Deakin government fell in November 1908.
First government 1908–09
Minority government
A minority government or a minority cabinet is a cabinet of a parliamentary system formed when a political party or coalition of parties does not have a majority of overall seats in the parliament but is sworn into government to break a Hung Parliament election result. It is also known as a...
and the First Fisher Ministry
First Fisher Ministry
The First Fisher Ministry was the seventh Australian Commonwealth ministry, and ran from 13 November 1908 to 2 June 1909.Australian Labor Party...
. The government amended the Seat of Government Act providing for the new federal capital to be in the Yass
Yass, New South Wales
Yass is a town in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia in Yass Valley Shire. The name appears to have been derived from an Aboriginal word, "Yarrh" , said to mean 'running water'....
-Canberra
Canberra
Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...
area, passed the Manufacturers' Encouragement Act to provide bounties for iron and steel manufacturers who paid fair and reasonable wages, ordered three torpedo boat
Torpedo boat
A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast naval vessel designed to carry torpedoes into battle. The first designs rammed enemy ships with explosive spar torpedoes, and later designs launched self-propelled Whitehead torpedoes. They were created to counter battleships and other large, slow and...
destroyers, and assumed local naval defence responsibility and placed the Australian Navy at the disposal of the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
in wartime.
Fisher committed Labour to amending the Constitution to give the Commonwealth power over labour, wages and prices, to expanding the navy and providing compulsory military training for youths, to extending pension
Pension
In general, a pension is an arrangement to provide people with an income when they are no longer earning a regular income from employment. Pensions should not be confused with severance pay; the former is paid in regular installments, while the latter is paid in one lump sum.The terms retirement...
s, to a land tax, to the construction of a transcontinental railway
Transcontinental railroad
A transcontinental railroad is a contiguous network of railroad trackage that crosses a continental land mass with terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks can be via the tracks of either a single railroad, or over those owned or controlled by multiple railway companies...
, to the replacement of pound sterling
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
with Australian currency and to tariff
Tariff
A tariff may be either tax on imports or exports , or a list or schedule of prices for such things as rail service, bus routes, and electrical usage ....
s to protect the sugar industry. In May 1909, the more conservative Protectionists and Freetraders merged to form the Commonwealth Liberal Party
Commonwealth Liberal Party
The Commonwealth Liberal Party was a political movement active in Australia from 1909 to 1916, shortly after federation....
, while the more liberal Protectionists joined Labour. With a majority of seats, the CLP led by Alfred Deakin
Alfred Deakin
Alfred Deakin , Australian politician, was a leader of the movement for Australian federation and later the second Prime Minister of Australia. In the last quarter of the 19th century, Deakin was a major contributor to the establishment of liberal reforms in the colony of Victoria, including the...
ousted Labour from office, with Fisher failing to persuade the Governor-General Lord Dudley
William Ward, 2nd Earl of Dudley
William Humble Ward, 2nd Earl of Dudley, KP, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, KStJ, PC, TD, DL , styled Viscount Ednam before 1885, was a British Conservative politician...
to dissolve Parliament.
Second government 1910–13
At the 1910 electionAustralian federal election, 1910
Federal elections were held in Australia on 13 April 1910. All 75 seats in the House of Representatives, and 18 of the 36 seats in the Senate were up for election...
, Labour gained sixteen additional seats to hold a total of forty-two of the seventy-five House of Representative seats, and all eighteen Senate seats up for election to hold a total of twenty-two out of thirty-six seats. This gave Labour control of both Houses and enabled Fisher to form his Second Fisher Ministry
Second Fisher Ministry
The Second Fisher Ministry was the ninth Australian Commonwealth ministry, and ran from 29 April 1910 to 24 June 1913.Australian Labor Party*Hon Andrew Fisher, MP: Prime Minister and Treasurer*Hon Billy Hughes, MP: Attorney-General...
, Australia's first federal majority government
Majority government
A majority government is when the governing party has an absolute majority of seats in the legislature or parliament in a parliamentary system. This is as opposed to a minority government, where even the largest party wins only a plurality of seats and thus must constantly bargain for support from...
, Australia's first Senate majority, and the world's first Labour Party majority government. The 113 acts passed in the three years of the second Fisher government exceeded even the output of the second Deakin government over a similar period. The 1910-13 Fisher government represented the culmination of Labour's involvement in politics, it was a period of reform unmatched in the Commonwealth until the 1940s.
Maternity
Maternity or motherhood is the social and legal acknowledgment of the parental relationship between a mother and her child.It is specially related with the protection of the baby and the mother within and after the childbirth.-See also:...
allowance and workers compensation
Workers' compensation
Workers' compensation is a form of insurance providing wage replacement and medical benefits to employees injured in the course of employment in exchange for mandatory relinquishment of the employee's right to sue his or her employer for the tort of negligence...
, issuing Australia's first paper currency, forming the Royal Australian Navy
Royal Australian Navy
The Royal Australian Navy is the naval branch of the Australian Defence Force. Following the Federation of Australia in 1901, the ships and resources of the separate colonial navies were integrated into a national force: the Commonwealth Naval Forces...
, the commencement of construction for the Trans-Australian Railway
Trans-Australian Railway
The Trans-Australian Railway crosses the Nullarbor Plain of Australia from Port Augusta in South Australia to Kalgoorlie in Western Australia...
, expanding the bench of the High Court of Australia
High Court of Australia
The High Court of Australia is the supreme court in the Australian court hierarchy and the final court of appeal in Australia. It has both original and appellate jurisdiction, has the power of judicial review over laws passed by the Parliament of Australia and the parliaments of the States, and...
, founding Canberra
Canberra
Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...
and establishing the government-owned Commonwealth Bank. Fisher's second government also introduced uniform postal charges throughout Australia, carried out measures to break up land monopolies, put forward proposals for more regulation of working hours, wages and employment conditions, introduced free medical treatment and inspection for children in state schools, and amended the 1904 Conciliation and Arbitration Act to provide greater authority for the court president and to allow for Commonwealth employees' industrial unions, registered with the Arbitration Court.
Fisher wanted additional Commonwealth power in certain areas, such as the nationalisation of monopolies. The 1911 referendum
Australian referendum, 1911
The 1911 Australian Referendum was held on 26 April 1911. It contained two referendum questions.* Trade and Commerce * Nationalisation of Monopolies ...
asked two questions, on Legislative Powers and Monopolies. Both were defeated with around 61 per cent voting 'No'. An additional six questions were asked at the 1913 referendum
Australian referendum, 1913
The 1913 Australian Referendum was held on 31 May 1913. It contained six referendum questions.* Trade and Commerce * Corporations * Industrial Matters * Trusts ...
, on Trade and Commerce, Corporations, Industrial Matters, Trusts, Monopolies, and Railway Disputes. All six were defeated with around 51 per cent voting 'No'. At the 1913 election
Australian federal election, 1913
Federal elections were held in Australia on 31 May 1913. All 75 seats in the House of Representatives, and 18 of the 36 seats in the Senate were up for election. The incumbent Australian Labor Party led by Prime Minister of Australia Andrew Fisher was defeated by the opposition Commonwealth Liberal...
, the Commonwealth Liberal Party
Commonwealth Liberal Party
The Commonwealth Liberal Party was a political movement active in Australia from 1909 to 1916, shortly after federation....
, led by Joseph Cook
Joseph Cook
Sir Joseph Cook, GCMG was an Australian politician and the sixth Prime Minister of Australia. Born as Joseph Cooke and working in the coal mines of Silverdale, Staffordshire during his early life, he emigrated to Lithgow, New South Wales during the late 1880s, and became General-Secretary of the...
, defeated the Labor Party by one seat.
Third government 1914–15
Labor retained control of the SenateAustralian Senate
The Senate is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the House of Representatives. Senators are popularly elected under a system of proportional representation. Senators are elected for a term that is usually six years; after a double dissolution, however,...
, however, and in 1914 Cook, frustrated by the Labor controlled Senate's blocking of his legislation, recommended to the new Governor-General Sir Ronald Munro Ferguson that both houses of the parliament be dissolved and elections called. This was Australia's first double dissolution
Double dissolution
A double dissolution is a procedure permitted under the Australian Constitution to resolve deadlocks between the House of Representatives and the Senate....
election, and the only one until the 1951 election
Australian federal election, 1951
Federal elections were held in Australia on 28 April 1951. All 121 seats in the House of Representatives, and all 60 seats in the Senate were up for election, due to a double dissolution called after the Senate rejected the Commonwealth Bank Bill...
. The First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
had broken out in the middle of the 1914 election
Australian federal election, 1914
Federal elections were held in Australia on 5 September 1914. All 75 seats in the House of Representatives, and all 36 seats in the Senate were up for election in a double dissolution...
campaign, with both sides committing Australia to the British Empire. Fisher campaigned on Labor's record of support for an independent Australian defence force, and pledged that Australia would "stand beside the mother country to help and defend her to the last man and the last shilling." Labor won the election with another absolute majority in both houses and Fisher formed his Third Fisher Ministry
Third Fisher Ministry
The Third Fisher Ministry was the eleventh Australian Commonwealth ministry, and ran from 17 September 1914 to 27 October 1915.Australian Labor Party*Hon Andrew Fisher, MP: Prime Minister and Treasurer*Hon Billy Hughes, MP: Attorney-General...
.
Billy Hughes
William Morris "Billy" Hughes, CH, KC, MHR , Australian politician, was the seventh Prime Minister of Australia from 1915 to 1923....
as acting Prime Minister for two months. Fisher and Labor continued to implement promised peacetime legislation, including the River Murray Waters Act 1915, the Freight Arrangements Act 1915, the Sugar Purchase Act 1915, the Estate Duty Assessment and the Estate Duty acts in 1914. Wartime legislation in 1914 and 1915 included the War Precautions acts (giving the Governor-General power to make regulations for national security), a Trading with the Enemy Act, War Census acts, a Crimes Act, a Belgium Grant Act, and an Enemy Contracts Annulment Act.
In October 1915, the journalist Keith Murdoch
Keith Murdoch
Sir Keith Arthur Murdoch was an Australian journalist and the father of Rupert Murdoch, the CEO and Chairman of News Corp.-Life and career:Murdoch was born in Melbourne in 1885, the son of Annie and the Rev...
reported on the situation in Gallipoli
Battle of Gallipoli
The Gallipoli Campaign, also known as the Dardanelles Campaign or the Battle of Gallipoli, took place at the peninsula of Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire between 25 April 1915 and 9 January 1916, during the First World War...
at Fisher's request, and advised him, "Your fears have been justified". He described the Dardanelles Expedition as being "a series of disastrous underestimations" and "one of the most terrible chapters in our history" concluding:
Fisher passed this report on to Hughes and to Defence Minister George Pearce
George Pearce
Sir George Foster Pearce KCVO was an Australian politician who was instrumental in founding the Australian Labor Party in Western Australia....
, ultimately leading to the evacuation of the Australian troops in December 1915. The report was also used by the Dardanelles Commission
Dardanelles Commission
The Dardanelles Commission was an investigation into the disastrous 1915 Dardanelles Campaign. It was set up under the Special Commissions Act 1916....
on which Fisher served, while High Commissioner in London.
Fisher resigned from the Prime Ministership and Parliament on 27 October 1915 after being absent from parliament without explanation for three sitting days. Three days later Labor Caucus unanimously elected Billy Hughes
Billy Hughes
William Morris "Billy" Hughes, CH, KC, MHR , Australian politician, was the seventh Prime Minister of Australia from 1915 to 1923....
leader of the Federal Parliamentary Party. A Wide Bay by-election
Wide Bay by-election, 1915
A by-election was held for the Australian House of Representatives seat of Wide Bay on 11 December 1915. This was triggered by the resignation of former Labor Party Prime Minister and MP Andrew Fisher....
was held to elect a new MP to that seat.
High Commissioner
Australian plebiscite, 1916
The 1916 Australian plebiscite was held on 28 October 1916. It was the first non-binding Australian plebiscite, and contained one question concerning Military Service....
and 1917 referendums
Australian plebiscite, 1917
The 1917 Australian plebiscite was held on 20 December 1917. It contained one question.* Are you in favour of the proposal of the Commonwealth Government for reinforcing the Australian Imperial Force overseas?-The Plebiscite:...
on conscription both had a No majority of around one per cent. Fisher visited Australian troops serving in Belgium and France in 1919, and later presented Pearce with an album of battlefield photos from 1917 and 1918, showing the horrendous conditions experienced by the troops.
The Dardanelles Commission
Dardanelles Commission
The Dardanelles Commission was an investigation into the disastrous 1915 Dardanelles Campaign. It was set up under the Special Commissions Act 1916....
, including Fisher, interviewed witnesses in 1916 and 1917 and issued its final report issued in 1919. It concluded that the expedition was poorly planned and executed and that difficulties had been underestimated, problems which were exacerbated by supply shortages and by personality clashes and procrastination at high levels. Some 480,000 Allied troops had been dedicated to the failed campaign, with around half in casualties. The report's conclusions were regarded as insipid with no figures (political or military) heavily censured. The report of the Commission and information gathered by the inquiry remain a key source of documents on the campaign.
Fisher wanted to continue to serve as High Commissioner in London when his term expired in 1921, but Hughes did not permit it. Upon his return to Australia, there were attempts to secure Fisher a seat in parliament and lead the Labor Party once more, but he was not interested in doing so. In 1922 he returned to London and lived in retirement at South Hill Park, Hampstead
Hampstead
Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...
, for the remainder of his life. In his final years, Fisher gradually succumbed to the effects of dementia, such that he would ultimately lose the ability to even sign his own name. He caught a severe bout of influenza in September 1928 and died a month later. He is buried at Fortune Green Cemetery in West Hampstead.
Honours
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
awarded him the Légion d'honneur
Légion d'honneur
The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
, but he declined it; he did not like decorations of any kind and adhered to this view throughout his life. The federal electorate of Fisher
Division of Fisher
The Division of Fisher is anAustralian Electoral Division in Queensland. The division was created in 1949 and is named for Andrew Fisher, three times Prime Minister of Australia. It is located in the Sunshine Coast area north of Brisbane and includes the towns of Caloundra, Mooloolaba, Beerwah,...
was named after him. A Canberra suburb, Fisher
Fisher, Australian Capital Territory
Fisher is a suburb of Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia located in the district of Weston Creek. Fisher was named after Andrew Fisher , coal miner, founding member of the federal parliamentary Labor Party and Prime Minister of Australia for three terms between 1908 and 1915...
, was also created in his memory, with its streets reflecting a mining theme in honour of Fisher's occupation before entering public life. Ramsay MacDonald
Ramsay MacDonald
James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....
, Britain's first Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
Prime Minister, unveiled a memorial to Fisher in Hampstead Cemetery in 1930. A memorial garden was also dedicated to Fisher at his birthplace in the late 1970s.
In 1972 he was honoured on a postage stamp
Postage stamp
A postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...
bearing his portrait issued by Australia Post
Australia Post
Australia Post is the trading name of the Australian Government-owned Australian Postal Corporation .-History:...
.
In 2008 Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
Kevin Rudd
Kevin Michael Rudd is an Australian politician who was the 26th Prime Minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010. He has been Minister for Foreign Affairs since 2010...
launched a biography titled Andrew Fisher, written by David Day. In turn, Rudd was presented with an item that once belonged to Fisher - a slightly battered gold pen engraved with Fisher's signature, which had been held in safekeeping for 80 years.
Further reading
- Bastian, Peter (2009), Andrew Fisher: An Underestimated Man, University of New South Wales Press
- Day, David (2008), Andrew Fisher: Prime Minister of Australia, Fourth Estate
- Hughes, Colin AColin HughesColin Anfield Hughes is an Australian academic specializing in electoral politics and government.He received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from Columbia University and his Ph.D from the London School of Economics. In 1966, along with John S...
(1976), Mr Prime Minister. Australian Prime Ministers 1901-1972, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, Victoria, Ch.6. ISBN 0-19-550471-2