School of Social and Political Sciences - Theses
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ItemVoting in Australian State and Federal elections 1937-1961( 1966)The main aim of this work has been to compare voting in elections for the lower Houses of the State and Federal Parliaments and to illustrate the complications of federalism. In so doing, I have also been concerned to examine the effects of different electoral systems at the two levels of government, (particularly the different methods of weighting used in the various states) and to look at the working of those distinctively Australian features – compulsory and preferential voting. Though the title of the thesis is limited to the period 1937 to 1961 this has not been strictly adhered to. It has been found convenient to extend comparisons by including the state elections in Western Australia of 1936 and in New South Wales of 1962. There are great problems in the handling and comparison of electoral statistics : Uncontested seats, changes due to redistributions of electoral boundaries and the identification of party affiliations of candidates are among the most obvious. On many occasions, and particularly in attempts to assess the under- or over-representation of parties, I have used adjusted election figures including allowances for uncontested seats and seats not contested by two major parties. Any such adjustments are necessarily arbitrary, but I have endeavoured to make clear when adjusted figures were being used and , where necessary, to indicate the limited nature of the material available. For some state elections the figures are far more “usable” than for others so I have done what seemed possible in the light of the material. This has made for a good deal of unevenness. No attempt has been made to treat each state uniformly. Though Victoria and New South Wales have been studied in most detail, even here different aspects have been stressed. Dissident party groups and candidates have been more fully treated in New South Wales. In Victoria the longer periods between redistributions and the recent “tow-for-one” system of electoral boundaries has made a more detailed comparison of voting at state and federal elections possible. The study has been limited to elections for the Commonwealth Parliament and the lower Houses of the State Parliaments. Since the interest has largely centred on the working of single-member electorate systems there has been no detailed discussion of the methods used to elect The Tasmanian House of Assembly or the Commonwealth Senate, though some analysis of voting for both these bodies has been included. (From Introduction).
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ItemBlue army: paramilitary policing in Victoria( 1998)This thesis focuses on the changes to law enforcement precipitated by the establishment of counter terrorist squads within State police forces during the late 1970's. It looks at the impact of Victoria's specialist counter terrorist squad, the Special Operations Group (SOG), on policing in Victoria and asks whether the group has led to the development of a more 'military based' approach to policing. The research demonstrates that the SOG has been the harbinger of more military styles of policing involving high levels of confrontation, more lethal weapons and a greater range of weapons and more frequent recourse to deadly force. The establishment of groups like the SOG has also undermined Australia's democratic traditions by blurring the boundaries between the police and military and weakening the safeguards which have in then past prevented military force being used against citizens. The SOG has acted as a vanguard group within Victoria police, anticipating and leading progress towards a range of new military-style tactics and weapons. The SOG, although relatively small in number,, has had a marked influence on the tactics and operations of police throughout the force. The group was never contained to dealing with only terrorist incidents but instead used for a range of more traditional police duties. While terrorism has remained rare in Australia the SOG has nevertheless expanded in size and role. Because the SOG is considered elite and because the SOG are frequently temporarily seconded to other areas of policing, SOG members provide a role for other police and have the opportunity to introduce parliamentary tactics into an extended range of police duties. The parliamentary skills developed by the SOG have been passes on to ordinary police through training programs headed by former SOG officers. In addition, the group has effectively been used as a testing ground for new weapons. The structure of the Victoria Police Protective Security Group and the way public demonstrations and industrial disputes are viewed in police and security circles ensure that parliamentary counter terrorist tactics will be used to stifle dissent and protest. The move towards paramilitary policing is necessarily a move away from the police mandate to protect life, keep the peace and use only minimum force. The interrogation of SOG and SOG tactics into everyday policing has occurred without any public debate or recognition of the important democratic traditions that have ensured that military force is not used against citizens except in the most extreme circumstances. Although the SOG is not formally part of the military it is nevertheless a significant parliamentary force virtually indistinguishable in terms of the weapons and levels of force at its disposal from the military proper.
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ItemResponsible government in Australia 1928-1951( 1952)Do party candidates for Parliament campaign upon reasonably clear and consistent policies? Does the winning party carry out its promises? To find answers to these questions is the main purpose of this study. The writer's thesis is that parties seeking a Parliamentary majority are generally responsible for presenting clear alternative policies and that the winning party is responsible to those voting for it for the implementation of its policies. There is also a responsibility of the opposition party to its supporters, as well as a less definite responsibility of each party to the whole electorate; but these aspects of the subject are not treated in detail. If this approach is valid, it follows that a system of government should encourage, rather than impede, the responsible functioning of the parties. Therefore Part I presents a brief description of the party system, the structure of government and the extent of legislative power. Parts II and III cover the operation of the electoral system and the vital question of party promise and performance. It should be noted that the term responsible will be used in two different ways. First, the term responsible cabinet government will be used where the writer is referring to the arrangement whereby a cabinet is responsible to the popular house, and continues to govern only if supported by a majority of the house members. Second, the term responsible party politics will be used with the broader meaning of parties responsible to the electorate, as summarized above. Ideally, at least, responsible parties should function best where the government has maximum powers to deal with political problems with minimum interference from the structure of the system. Thus it might be expected that severe limits on legislative powers would restrict the scope of government activity and thereby limit the choice of party programs. Similarly, the presence of structural checks, such as an upper house, independent state governments, or courts which can invalidate government policy, may retard or confuse the solution of political problems. But the growth of responsible parties may be influenced by other factors of an economic, historical or geographical character. In Australia, for example, the existence of a strong trade union movement by 1900 provided the basis for the growth of a strong Labor party. Indeed, responsible parties have developed in spite of considerable limitations of the kinds already mentioned. Thus Australian politics offers the possibility of studying responsible parties working under difficult conditions.
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ItemE. G. Whitlam: an essay in political biography( 1979)Few of society’s members enter political life, and only a fraction of these become leaders. These are, then, uncommon men, and an understanding of their experience is not readily accessible to most of us. The politically interested may turn to political and historical biography to bridge the gap, yet the ad hoc and intuitive nature of most biographical work counts against its acceptance as a contribution to political science. This essay argues that for biography to be understood as integral to the discipline its methods must be such as to allow for comparison between studies of like and unlike political actors, and for generalization and prediction on the basis of a range of cases. A biography needs a systematic conceptual framework by which its subject can be understood, and whose principles are available to the reader for consideration (and potential refutation) in the course of analysis. Since it is impossible to retail the "complete" life, such a framework will suggest a means of selection from the mass of detail, facilitating the work of explanation. The logical theoretical tools for this can be found in modern theories of personality. The subject of this essay in biography is E. G. Whitlam, 22nd Prime Minister of Australia. His unusual career, and the disparate accounts of the man to which it gave rise, epitomize our difficulty in coming to terms with leadership. Yet the enigma is more apparent than real, and a judicious interpretation of the life may dissolve the paradox and explain both functional and dysfunctional elements of character (evident in the antithetical strains in the career) as manifestations of a recognizable personality type. The groundwork of biography consists of isolating behavioural patterns which signify the idiosyncracies of personality. This essay proceeds first to establish the characteristics of behaviour across the whole life by scanning it chronologically. From this it turns to close consideration of the political career and in particular the style of work of its subject. It then attends to political orientations and philosophy before turning to the examination of language and habits of thought. The process is one of hewing ever closer to the inner man, passing from the activity of the public figure to the detail of working style, and at last to the uniquely individual operations of the mind. Patterns thus elicited are considered in the light of a number of theories of personality. This is an iterative process of devising successive approximations until the interpretation best suited to understanding Whitlam is established. As a means of testing and elaborating conclusions thus derived, the early life history is examined and the antecedents of adult personality sought. In the light of the interpretation established here, it is demonstrated that we can understand both the strengths and weaknesses, the successes and failures, of Whitlam as a political leader. Concluding remarks are devoted to what might be expected of other similar leaders. The attractions of such a leader for his followers, the circumstances in which such a pattern of leadership can be of political utility and cultural value, and the attendant dangers, are suggested.
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ItemMoral reform organisations in Australian: a political response to the sexual revolution( 1997)The 1960s and 1970s were a period of profound social change in Australia and throughout the Western world. One of the most obvious manifestations of cultural upheaval was the so-called 'sexual revolution', whereby several formerly tabooed behaviours including abortion, homosexual practices and the sale of pornography were publicly debated and progressively legalised. Governments which had previously supported traditional Christian standards of sexual morality suddenly seemed powerless to prevent the changes, and even encouraged some of them by actions such as the liberalisation of divorce and censorship laws. The denominational churches were deeply divided over many of these developments and failed to mount an effective campaign against them. Many conservative Christians, both Protestant and Catholic, were deeply disturbed by the advent of the 'permissive society', and banded together in voluntary organisations independent of ecclesiastical control in an attempt to save what was left of the old 'Christian' social order, to alter public attitudes and to reverse the legal changes which had already occurred. Among the better-known groups are the Australian Festival of Light, the Society to Outlaw Pornography and the Right to Life Association. Guided by outspoken leaders such as Fred Nile and Margaret Tighe, these bodies participate actively in politics and their opinions are frequently sought by the media on a wide range of public issues, from prostitution to in vitro fertilisation. Moral reform organisations of this kind have existed in Britain since the seventeenth century and in America since the early 1800s, but were comparative rarities in Australia until 25 years ago. While they have made little tangible impact on the increasingly secularised culture of this country - owing to their limited resource base and the sheer immensity of their actual target (namely, modernisation) - they are able to exert a degree of leverage in certain political contexts e.g. when parliaments are debating the abortion issue. Also, despite their distaste for major aspects of the modern world, many groups employ the language and technology of modernity in ways designed to enhance their prospects of success.
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ItemThe organisation of the Australian Labor Party 1916-1941( 1954)This study is an attempt to describe the organisational development of the Australian Labor Party between 1916 and 1941, a transitional period for the party, lying between its two great periods of parliamentary success, 1910-16 and 1941-49. Few Labor achievements marked the intervening twenty five years. Except in Queensland, Labor governments were usually of short duration, and frequently ended in disruption and disaster. Yet it was not an era of unqualified decline, for at its conclusion the party was in a position to begin its longest and perhaps its most fruitful period of political supremacy.
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ItemConservative radicals: Australian neoconservatism and its intellectual antecedents( 1989)This study charts the rise of Australian neoconservatism. With reference to a range of influences which coalesced in the journal Quadrant, it is argued that the genesis of a new intellectual conservatism had its origins in the decade of the 1950s, and that it has reached its culmination in the contemporary phenomenon of neoconservatism. Correspondingly, it is contended that recognition of this evolution reveals the longstanding inadequacies of depictions of 'the right' in this country, and the wider implications of this for Australian critique. A preliminary chapter discusses the shortcomings of conceptual approaches to the topic of Australian conservatism, and indicates the ways in which they are challenged by the neoconservative evolution. Part I considers the components of an informal alliance which crystallized in the 1950s, gravitated towards the journal Quadrant, and lay the foundations for a new conservatism. It is argued that despite their disparity, important common ground existed between a Jewish-European component of Australian society, a Catholic component, and a group influenced by Sydney philosopher John Anderson. A focus on founding Quadrant editor James McAuley completes this discussion of neoconservative antecedents, and highlights both the commonality and diversity of sources from which the new conservatism would emerge. Part II traces the evolution of neoconservative critique with reference to some of its central and recurrent themes. It is shown that neoconservative concerns were prefigured in the early Cold War period, and that these have been heightened and amplified in the light of ensuing developments. Such themes include the depiction of a 'new class' within society, and the rise of an 'adversary culture'; both of which were given impetus by developments of the 1960s. Exploration of the continuity and character of this evolving critique also underlines the inadequacy of critical approaches to it. In this way, it is shown that the emergence of Australian neoconservatism simultaneously demands reappraisal of the ways in which Australian intellectual traditions are conceptualized.
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ItemWork, industry and control( 1978)This research project set out to explore in detail the work milieux of the skilled industrial worker, to examine work through the eyes and experience of the workman himself. Although an eclectic approach was employed in the gathering of the material for this thesis, the research was centred around two distinct methodological procedures: participant observation and in-depth interviewing. As a participant observer, I worked as a labourer in the Whyalla Shipyard which enabled me to experience work and its associated authority relationships first hand and to gain the trust of a group of employees who were later extensively interviewed. A semi-structured questionnaire was employed to enquire into worker’s leisure activities, social networks, financial position, personal background, class images, attitudes towards work and general social and political orientations. Endeavouring not to lose sight of the depth of the social processes implicit in the workman’s world of meaning, questioning procedures frequently approached the informality of ordinary conservations. My research revealed a disturbing lack of awareness, by unions, employers, government authorities and the courts, of the deleterious physical, sociological and psychological effects which accompany certain types of industrial employment. Working in close liaison with federal and state government instrumentalities, I was able to uncover significant discrepancies and inadequacies in the present industrial safety and workman’s compensation legislation. The Whyalla project, revealed an unexpectedly high incidence of work-associated physical disabilities and industrial diseased, and it is hoped that these findings will contribute to the review and general tightening-up of some of the South Australian statutes. ‘Work, industry and control’ demonstrates how industrial workmen can come to regard themselves to be trapped within a complex web of interlocking mechanisms of social and political control. Furthermore, it seeks to uncover some of the effects that elitist and authoritarian managerial policies and obsessive over-supervision can have on the morals, skills, and self-concept of craftsmen, and relates these to Lockwood’s concept of privatisation.