AUSTRALIAN SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF LABOUR HISTORY (MELBOURNE BRANCH)
The recent publication of a book of essays honouring the life of legendary New Zealand peace researcher and activist Owen Wilkes is a must read for historians of social movements, those who were active in the anti-nuclear and peace movements of the seventies and eighties, as well as those growing numbers who today carry on the resistance to escalating militarism. … Continue readingPeacemonger, Owen Wilkes: International Peace Researcher
15 October 1970 is infamous as the date of one of Australia’s worst industrial disasters. A span of the Westgate Bridge, then under construction, collapsed. 35 workers plummeted to their deaths below. Covid-19 restrictions in 2020 played havoc with plans to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the tragedy. The annual pilgrimage of remembrance to the memorial plaque was cancelled, but the anniversary was still appropriately observed, with the Memorial Committee’s live stream Facebook event, 3CR’s documentaries from 1990 and 1995, Channel 9’s documentary feature, and Sam Wallman’s magnificent eight-panel artwork. … Continue readingONE SONG – MANY LIVES: Remembering the Westgate Bridge tragedy
On 18 September Moratorium marchers encountered a determined effort by the police to reassert their ‘dictatorship of the streets’. This might have been expected to occur most virulently in Brisbane and Melbourne but it was in Sydney and Adelaide that the police were most vicious, attacking demonstrators with pre-planned clockwork precision. … Continue readingThe Gloves Come Off – The 1970 Moratorium and the Limits of Tolerance
On this, the 50th anniversary of the 8 May 1970 Moratorium, we publish Ken Mansell’s “‘Taking to the Streets against the Vietnam War’: A Timeline History of Australian Protest 1962-1972”, which takes you through the myriad protests and events that led to the largest demonstrations Australia had ever seen. … Continue reading‘Taking to the Streets against the Vietnam War’: A Timeline History of Australian Protest 1962-1972
Ken Mansell’s honours thesis ‘The Marxism and Strategic Concepts of the Communist Party of Australia 1963-1972’ provides ‘a Marxist critique of Australian Communism’. As Ken’s noted in his abstract, the thesis
Continue readingThe Marxism and Strategic Concepts of the Communist Party of Australia 1963-1972
1972 January 2 – Anti-war activists in Melbourne meet at Shrine and proceed to U.S Consulate for rally against renewed U.S bombing of North Vietnam January 7 – Further demonstration
1971 January – Commonwealth police interrogate signatories to Christmas anti-conscription advertisement in The Australian January 9-10 – National Moratorium Coordinating Committee meets in Melbourne to plan February 17-21 National Anti-War
1970 January 8 – Plain clothes police pull guns and threaten to shoot Ted Poulton and Phillip Twomey near SDS headquarters in Carlton. The two are interrogated for seven hours
1969 January – Interstate conference in Melbourne sets up National Campaign Against Conscription (NCAC) January 3 – Twenty-year-old medical student Sean Foley begins serving 29-day sentence at Long Bay jail
1968 January – Vietnam Action Campaign (VAC) and Sydney University Labour Club establish Third World Bookshop and off-campus youth centre ‘Resistance’ at 35 Goulburn Street January 17 – Prime Minister