Donald Horne The Lucky Country

In 1964, Donald Horne wrote his famous book, ironically titled The Lucky Country. The book aimed to shake Australian’s complacency regarding the reasons for their booming economy and a high standard of living at the time. He wrote, ‘Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second-rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people’s ideas,…most of its leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity in the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise. The publication of this book coincided with growing discontent within Australian society from some on the left. This loose coalition came to be called the New Left. This group, in common with other worldwide social protest movements of the sixties, was starting to challenge

the dominant ideologies of the societies they lived in. There is no clear consensus as to who were the New Left. However, for clarity, this paper will apply the term to a diverse coalition of young, tertiary educated people that began to be radicalised on a number of social issues, including opposition to the Vietnam War, in the early 1960s. This essay will briefly consider why Australia was lucky for some and not others during the fifties and sixties. It will then consider the challenges to the dominant ideologies of the time and discuss how Australia was forced by both internal and external pressures to change. The New Left had a major role to play in the changes, especially in regards to peace and discrimination issues, but was not solely responsible for Australia’s dramatic societal changes during the sixties and seventies.
The complacency that Horne had identified resulted to a large degree from the long economic boom that Australia experienced from the late fifties through until the oil crisis of the seventies. This post-war boom was supported by large-scale immigration, and a strong post-war demand for Australia’s commodities. The previous decade had seen major economic development with the development of the mining industry, and growing demand for Australia’s traditional agricultural produce. This economic growth was supported by large-scale immigration and increased capital investment from overseas as migrants and investors sought to take advantage of this new powerhouse down under. A contemporary article in The IPA Review suggests that this period was a coming of age on the world stage for Australia. Australia was starting to be seen more than just a food bowl at the end of the world, but was starting to be considered a “land of opportunity.” Due to the economic boom, unemployment was at extremely low levels.
From an unemployment rate of 29% during the depression of the thirties, the immediate post-war unemployment rate remained at approximately 2-3% until the early seventies.

High rates of employment and general post war affluence allowed Australians to buy into what was promoted as the Australian dream- the quarter acre section with a house in the suburbs. At the end of the Second World War, the home ownership rate in Australia was approximately 54%. Just twenty years later, it peaked at approximately 70%. Post war affluence changed the way Australians lived their lives. At the start of the fifties, there were 10 cars, less than 10 refrigerators or washing machines and about 14 telephones for every 100 Australians. Just ten years later, there were 18 cars, 30 refrigerators, 20 washing machines and 20 telephones for every 100 Australians. In 1950, Television had not arrived in Australia. In 1960, two thirds of homes in Melbourne and Sydney had a TV set. In this context, it is easy to understand why most Australians considered that they indeed lived in ‘the lucky

country.’
The country was not so lucky for all though. Australia was predominantly a british monoculture at the start of 1960. The restrictive White Australia policy was still in place, although the dictation test had been removed in 1958. It was not until Harold Holt’s reforms of 1966 that non-Europeans were able to gain citizenship in the Lucky Country on similar grounds to Europeans. The immigration policy was still very restrictive, however, and the Lucky Country would only consider applicants from those able to integrate easily and be useful to Australian prosperity. Pressure was applied to change these racial discriminatory policies as Australia started to appreciate that its luck was changing in the region. It would need to engage more favourably with its Asian neighbours as both Britain and the United States change their foreign policies in the region. It was not just concerns about defence that challenged the White Australia Policy but also the pragmatic issue that Japan was becoming its primary export market. Indigenous Australians and women were also excluded from sharing in many of the benefits of the Lucky Country.
It is difficult to find accurate historic data for the indigenous unemployment rate in the 1960’s as indigenous Australians were not fully included in official census data until 1971. However, before 1968 they were often either not paid or received substantially less pay for the same work as other employees. Indigenous Australians certainly did not share in the lucky country’s prosperity. They suffered widespread discrimination, much poorer education, health and life expectancy outcomes. Indigenous Australians were not granted the right to vote until 1962 and it was not until the 1967 referendum that constitutional discrimination was removed and Indigenous people would be counted in the census. This change was more than symbolic. It allowed for targeted services and budgets to be provided for some of the most vulnerable people in Australian society.
Women also suffered significant discrimination in the 1960s. Wage inequality, sexual harassment, barriers to divorce and child maintenance impacted on women more than men. Married women were ineligible to work for the Commonwealth Public Service and had to compulsorily resign their position upon marriage.
However, as Bob Dylan said, ‘the times they were a changin’.’ The sixties started to see an increase of social tension within the Australian community. At the forefront of this discontent in Australia were a number of loosely aligned groups that came to be known as The New Left. Russell Marks suggests that, although not perfect, the clearest point of difference between the Old Left and the New Left was the environment in which they were operating. The Old Left had developed in response to several major depressions, two world wars and the immediate post-war reconstruction. Theirs was a world of imperialism, British Empire, class division, religious bigotry, the Anzac Tradition and the Cold War. In contrast, the New Left had grown out of a world of ‘affluence’, individualism and consumerism, the expansion of university education, large–scale immigration, post colonialism, the decline of the British Empire and the rise of American cultural and economic dominance. Unlike the relatively Marxist-socialist and economic focus of the Old Left, the New Left was more interested in social issues.
The New Left had a focus on issues such as individual liberation and the ability of the individual to make change at an organisational level through participatory democracy. Using the campaign against conscription or challenging gender and race discrimination are all examples of where the focus was on liberating the individual to change Australian society. Marks suggests that there that central to the idea of the New Left is student action with its reasoning ‘that students were to be the moral ‘conscience of society.’’ This focus on human agency through direct action and the radicalism that arose is the difference between the old and the new. The old left had a much stronger emphasis on group solidarity through party membership.
In Australia, the New Left developed in response to the Vietnam War and the subsequent issues about conscription.

The unfairness of a system, which conscripted young men into a war when they were unable to have a political voice as to whether to go to war at all, contributed to the radicalisation of the New Left. The focus then spread to the societal issues of discrimination, imperialism and injustice especially in relation to race, women, sexuality. They challenged the white male dominated hegemony in Australia using techniques and rhetoric that had been adapted from similar movements in the United States and

Europe.
Inspired by the American Civil Rights movement, a group of University of Sydney students went on a bus tour through New South Wales (NSW). The Freedom Rides of 1965 highlighted the issues of racial discrimination in Aboriginal communities throughout rural NSW. It was a non-violent strategy, which attracted nation-wide media and shone a light on the racial hypocrisy of the nation. Australia was active in denouncing South Africa’s apartheid system while examples of racism were common in Australian communities. In Moree, for example, the movie theatre was segregated and aborigines were banned from using amenities such as the swimming pool and public toilets. It was a similar situation across other country towns. The Freedom Rides were a defining moment in Australia’s social history. The community engaged in the discussion about Aboriginal rights. Letters to the editor indicate that Australians were becoming aware of the very poor conditions of Indigenous Australians. The subsequent social mobilisation of the community contributed in a major way to the successful 1967 constitutional referendum which and the social mobilisation that resulted
The global women’s movement challenged society in Australia in a similar way to that of the Civil Rights movement challenging racial discrimination in Australia. The introduction of the Pill in 1961 revolutionised both married and unmarried women’s lives. The sexual revolution challenged the dominant ideology about the subservient nature of woman’s role in society. Women were now able to chase political power unimpeded by unwanted pregnancy. The peace movement and the subsequent focus on opposition to the Vietnam War gave many women in Australia their first political platform.
Some historians have suggested that the male dominated nature of the New Left, particular in relation to the peace movement, was also partially responsible for second-wave feminism. In Australia, the New Left had developed in response to the issues around the war in Vietnam and specifically conscription. The New Left generally consisted of male academics and students as the majority of university-places were held by men at the time. As a result, women tended to be marginalised from the New Left anti-war activities. , As activist Margaret Eliot remembers, women’s roles were ‘definitely secondary, menial and clerical.’ Women have always had leading roles in anti-war and peace movements globally, however, the anti-war movement in Australia was different. They tended not to be involved through association with the New Left student associations but through separate women’s peace organisations.
Groups such as Save our Sons (SOS) and a variety of Christian women’s groups were heavily involved in campaigning against the war. Many of the members of these groups were married and not working outside the home in contrast to the membership of the New Left groups. In contrast to the more anti-establishment techniques of the New Left, groups such as SOS worked hard to maintain a sense of respectability. They aimed to influence the middle class and wanted to disassociate themselves with radicalism and communism. Women campaigned with babies in strollers and dressed in their Sunday Best to reduce the fear of the middle classes about their activities. , The New Left may have had an impact on women’s luck but it was a result of excluding them from key activities within the New Left’s anti-war movement rather than challenging the sexist ideology of the time. While the New Left had been instrumental in the early days of developing opposition to the War in Vietnam, women campaigned in their own right in a way that was meaningful to them and effective for them. Women who were passionate about stopping the war set up their own movements to oppose the war. This political activity assisted many to move on to campaign for gender rights in the future.
The New Left were not solely responsible for the changes that occurred at this time, although they were influential in creating the social unrest that allowed for change in racial and gender relations in this country. The changing political environment required Australia to engage on its own terms with Asia rather than depending on its historic allies, America and Britain, to protect it. This challenged and eventually ended the long-standing White Australia policy. Events in the United States influenced changes in the treatment of Aborigines within Australia. The treatment of women in the New Left’s anti-war activities facilitated women distancing themselves from the New Left activities and campaigning through their own women’s groups. This eventually led to women developing their own political platforms from which to campaign for equal rights. The New left were not solely responsible but they did provide the major impetus that facilitated structural changes to Australian society that continue to this day.