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Book Review
| Bobbie Oliver, Unity is Strength: a History of the Australian Labor Party and the Trades and Labor Council in Western Australia, 1899–1999, Australian Public Intellectual Network, Perth, 2003. pp. xii + 473. $49.95 paper.
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| Bobbie Oliver has long been recognised as one of the authorities of the history of the Western Australian labour movement. With this work celebrating a century of organised labour in the West, she lays claim to being the authority. The book is the culmination of a massive research effort on her part. Because of the peculiarities of the West which did not see a Trades and Labor Council (TLC) independent from the Australian Labor Party (ALP) until 1966, the history is necessarily a history of both industrial and political labour in the State. A State-based history of either wing of the labour movement is a huge task, but the combination became monumental, not the least because of Oliver's assiduous consultation of a vast range of archival sources and papers and numerous interviews with key players in the modern era. The result is an authoritative tome, which sits alongside the work of Moss on South Australia, State based accounts of the ALP in Victoria and NSW by Bongiorno, Freudenberg, and Hagan and Turner, and my own account of the NSW Labor Council. |
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Oliver succeeds in eliciting much that has been unique in the history of the WA labour movement, which is often not included in general historical accounts for Australia. On this count alone, the book is important. The isolation of the north, south and west of the State, created difficulties in traversing the long distances involved in organising in these regions during the early days. The importance of the goldfields early in the twentieth century is also notable, leading to dual centres of power in the labour movement, one located in the goldfields and the other in the metropolitan area of Perth/Fremantle. Partly because of this spatial dispersion, the District Councils were important bodies until the late 1960s. |
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The relationship between the political and industrial wings of labour is one of the more interesting aspects of this account. The origins of the Labor Party in WA lay in the 1899 Trades Union Congress which formed the WA Australian Labour Federation (ALF). The ALF had been formed in Queensland and NSW from 1890 specifically to unite political and industrial labour organisation, but whilst it did not survive the new century in the East, in WA the ALF persisted to 1919, a combined form of organisation persisted until 1949, and from then until 1966 the executive of the WA Trade Union Industrial Council was the ALP State Executive. In effect it meant that the State branch of the ALP controlled the union movement. If unions were not affiliated to the ALP they could not function effectively in the State, lacking access to the ALP in government or opposition. As a consequence of this organic union/party relationship, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) did not have a WA branch until 1949. It was the growing influence in unions of the non-ALP Left, particularly communists, and the difficulties associated with a State ALP executive representing WA unions on the ACTU, that eventually led to the full separation of the TLC and the party. However, it was a long battle, the outcome of which was vigorously resisted by the ALP in WA. |
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One of those who resisted was the legendary F.E. 'Joe' Chamberlain, WA ALP State secretary from 1949 to 1974. As a member of the federal executive he was a key supporter of H.V. Evatt and opponent of the industrial groups in the lead up to the ALP split of 1955, as well as being an opponent of communists. He became ALP Federal President (1955–61) and Federal Secretary (1961–63), and became the 'strongman' of the ALP in that period, often clashing with parliamentary leaders, including E.G. Whitlam. Oliver provides useful insights into Chamberlain's political role. One of the strengths of the book is her numerous brief biographical inclusions, and another is in the contribution of WA figures, including John Curtin, to the national labour movement. |
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The book is encyclopaedic in its comprehensiveness regarding organisation, parliamentary practice, internal party and union conflict, and major political and industrial issues. However, this is a weakness as well as a strength. Major themes tend to be lost in the wealth of detail offered. At the same time, there are some gaps in the narrative. For example, WA during World War I clearly was far more pro-conscription than the rest of the country, but no explanation is offered for this. Nevertheless, these are issues which a number of us have faced in constructing major institutional narratives, and Oliver has dealt with them as well as any. |
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| Auckland University of Technology |
RAYMOND MARKEY | |
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