Arthur Augustus Calwell (28 August 1896 - 8 July 1973)
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
n
politicianA politician or political leader is an individual who is involved in influencing public decision making. This includes people who hold decision-making positions in government, and people who seek those positions, whether by means of election, coup d'état, appointment, electoral fraud, conquest,...
, was a member of the
Australian House of RepresentativesThe House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the Parliament of Australia; it is the lower house, the upper house being the Senate.-Origins and role:The House is presided over by the Speaker....
for 32 years from 1940 to 1972, Immigration Minister in the government of
Ben ChifleyJoseph Benedict Chifley , Australian politician and 16th Prime Minister of Australia, was one of Australia's most influential Prime Ministers...
from 1945 to 1949 and Leader of the
Australian Labor PartyThe Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party.Known as the ALP for short, the party is the current governing party of Australia, since the 2007 federal election...
from 1960 to 1967.
Early life
Calwell was born in
MelbourneMelbourne is the capital city and most populous city of the State of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne city centre is the anchor of the larger geographical area and statistical division known as the Greater Melbourne metropolitan area – of which Melbourne is...
. 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 ClubThe Melbourne Celtic Club is a social organisation for Melburnians of Celtic ancestry or descent.- Overview :...
). His mother was of Irish-American descent. A gifted high school student, Calwell was a devout Roman Catholic and joined the
Australian Labor PartyThe Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party.Known as the ALP for short, the party is the current governing party of Australia, since the 2007 federal election...
in his youth. Lacking the resources to pursue a university education, Calwell became a clerk in the
VictorianVictoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales to the north, South Australia to the west, and Tasmania to the south, across the Bass Strait. Victoria is the most densely populated state, with over 70% of...
Public Service, in which he worked for the Department of Agriculture and the State Treasury.
Political career
Active and energetic in the
Labor PartyThe Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party.Known as the ALP for short, the party is the current governing party of Australia, since the 2007 federal election...
, Calwell was elected President of the Victorian Labor Party in 1931. He was elected to the
Australian House of RepresentativesThe House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the Parliament of Australia; it is the lower house, the upper house being the Senate.-Origins and role:The House is presided over by the Speaker....
for the seat of
MelbourneThe Division of Melbourne is an Australian Electoral Division of Victoria.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 IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Calwell served as Minister for Information in
John CurtinJohn Joseph Curtin , Australian politician and 14th Prime Minister of Australia, led Australia when the Australian mainland came under direct military threat during the Japanese advance in World War II. He is widely regarded as one of the country's greatest Prime Ministers...
'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 ImmigrationIn the Government of Australia, the Minister for Immigration is responsible for overseeing the Department of Immigration.The portfolio and department came into being in July 1945, during the last months of World War II. Previously, immigration affairs were handled by the Minister for Home Affairs ...
in
Ben ChifleyJoseph Benedict Chifley , Australian politician and 16th Prime Minister of Australia, was one of Australia's most influential Prime Ministers...
's post-war Labor government. Thus, he was the chief architect of Australia's
post-war immigration schemeIn 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 to accept displaced persons from European countries ravaged by war.
Despite his far-sighted immigration policies, Calwell was a staunch advocate of the
White Australia PolicyThe White Australia policy comprises various historical policies that intentionally restricted "non-white" immigration to Australia from 1901 to 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
1949Federal 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 PartyThe 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 competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...
, led by
Robert MenziesSir Robert Gordon Menzies, KT, AK, CH, FRS, QC , Australian politician, was the twelfth Prime Minister of Australia. His second term saw him become Australia's longest serving Prime Minister. He had a rapid rise to power as Prime Minister at the 1940 election which his party narrowly won...
. 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. EvattHerbert 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
LaborThe Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party.Known as the ALP for short, the party is the current governing party of Australia, since the 2007 federal election...
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 electionFederal 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 MannixDaniel Patrick Mannix , Irish-born Australian Catholic clergyman, Archbishop of Melbourne for 46 years, was 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.
Labor Leadership
Evatt retired in 1960, and Calwell succeeded him as Leader, with
Gough WhitlamEdward Gough Whitlam, AC, QC , known as Gough Whitlam , is a former Australian politician, representing the New South Wales seat of Werriwa, and 21st Prime Minister of Australia....
as his deputy. Calwell very nearly defeated Menzies at the
1961 federal electionFederal 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...
, due to widespread discontent at Menzies's deflationary economic policies and the unprecedented (and temporary) endorsement of the
Sydney Morning HeraldThe Sydney Morning Herald is a daily broadsheet newspaper published by Fairfax Media in Sydney, Australia. The newspaper's Sunday edition, The Sun-Herald, is published in tabloid format...
. The Coalition won 62 seats while Labor won 60.
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
MalayaThe Federation of Malaya , is the name given to a federation of 11 states that existed from 31 January 1948 until 16 September 1963. Comprising the nine Malay states and the British settlements of Penang and Malacca, it was eventually superseded by Malaysia.-History:From 1946 to 1948, the 11...
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 WarThe Vietnam War or the Second Indochina War was a Cold War military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1959 to 30 April 1975...
, and the introduction of
conscriptionConscription is a general term for involuntary labor demanded by an established authority. It is most often used in the specific sense of requiring citizens to serve in the armed forces...
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 electionFederal elections were held in Australia on 26 November 1966. All 124 seats in the House of Representatives, no Senate seats 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...
, which Menzies' successor
Harold HoltHarold Edward Holt, CH was an Australian politician who became the 17th Prime Minister of Australia in 1966. His term as Prime Minister was brought to an early and dramatic end in December of the following year when he disappeared while swimming at Cheviot Beach near Portsea, Victoria, and was...
fought on the Vietnam War issue.
Calwell resigned as
LaborThe Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party.Known as the ALP for short, the party is the current governing party of Australia, since the 2007 federal election...
leader in January 1967; it was clear by this time that his awkward, old-fashioned image was no match for that of his charismatic and ambitious young Deputy Leader, the urbane, university-educated
Gough WhitlamEdward Gough Whitlam, AC, QC , known as Gough Whitlam , is a former Australian politician, representing the New South Wales seat of Werriwa, and 21st Prime Minister of Australia....
. In particular, Whitlam's clear mastery of the media gave him a huge advantage over the staid Calwell, who (as 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 and reassuring Menzies.
Retirement
Calwell retired from Parliament in 1972, by which time 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
Australian rules footballAustralian football, also commonly referred to as Australian rules football, football, or Aussie rules, colloquially as footy, and historically as Australasian football or Victorian football, is a variant of football played between two teams of 18 players, plus four interchange players, outdoors on...
team - he was the first life member of the club. He was always devoted to the
Roman Catholic ChurchThe Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church. With more than a billion members, over half of all Christians and more than one-sixth of the world's population, the Catholic Church is a communion of the Western, or Latin Rite Church, and...
despite his many conflicts with Church leaders. He was awarded a papal knighthood (Knight Commander of the Order of St Gregory the Great and the Grand Silver Star) for his life-long service to the Church.
Attempted assassination
Calwell is also notable for being only the second victim of an attempted political
assassinationAn Assassination is the targeted killing of a public figure.Assassinations may be prompted by ideological, political, or military reasons. Additionally, assassins may be motivated by financial gain, revenge, personal public recognition, or mental illness....
in Australia (the first being Prince Alfred in 1868). On 21 June 1966, Calwell addressed an anti-
conscriptionConscription is a general term for involuntary labor demanded by an established authority. It is most often used in the specific sense of requiring citizens to serve in the armed forces...
rally at
MosmanMosman 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
SydneySydney is the largest city in Australia, and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney has a metropolitan area population of approximately 4.34 million and an area of approximately 12,000 square kilometres. Its inhabitants are called Sydneysiders, and Sydney is often called "the Harbour City"...
. As he was leaving the meeting, and just as his car was about to drive off, a 19-year-old student named
Peter KocanPeter Raymond Kocan , Australian author and poet, is remembered in Australia for his attempt to assassinate federal Opposition Leader Arthur Calwell in 1966....
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.
Calwell died in July 1973. He was given a state funeral at
St Patrick's Cathedral, MelbourneSt 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...
. He was survived by his wife Elizabeth and his daughter Mary Elizabeth.
Despite Calwell's poor relations with the conservative press in Australia and his public battles with conservative Catholics like Archbishop Mannix and
B. A. SantamariaBartholomew Augustine "B. A." Santamaria, otherwise 'Bob', , Australian political activist and journalist, was one of the most influential political figures in 20th century Australian history, though he never held public office or joined a political party...
, he maintained a cordial and even friendly relationship with Sir Robert Menzies. According to Allen Martin, Menzies' biographer, Menzies attended Calwell's funeral, but after arriving at the cathedral he was so overwhelmed by emotion that he was unable to compose himself and leave his car.
Calwell today is regarded unfavourably by many for his defence of the White Australia Policy, but his courage in opposing the
Vietnam WarThe Vietnam War or the Second Indochina War was a Cold War military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1959 to 30 April 1975...
is remembered with admiration in the Labor Party.
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 WhiteSir Thomas Walter White KBE DFC was an Australian politician.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 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:
"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"."
(
Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, 2 December 1947)
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 AustraliansIndigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands, and these peoples' descendants. Indigenous Australians are distinguished as either Aboriginal people or Torres Strait Islanders, who currently together make up about 2.6% of Australia's...
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 Kiernan, Calwell (1978)
- Arthur Calwell, I Stand by a White Australia (1949)