|
|
|
EDITORIAL
| This issue continues the interest of the journal in publishing comparative labour history with a special thematic section comparing the experiences of Australia and New Zealand. Ray Markey and Kerry Taylor are to be congratulated for organising this project and editing the nine articles that arose from a conference in Auckland in January 2007. Previous projects have been published in Labour History relating to the comparison of the Australian experience with Canada and with the United Kingdom. Comparative labour history allows us to test 'home truths' we take for granted in our own national context. While there are similarities between Australia and New Zealand in terms of colonial heritage for example, there are differences in areas such as the structure of government – with federalism in Australia and a central national government in New Zealand; and the religious composition of the population – with a significantly lower proportion of Catholics in New Zealand than Australia. This group of articles examines gender, class, trade unions, labour parties, Rochdale consumer co-operatives and the role of the state. There are also contributions that examine the role of police in industrial disputes and explore the co-operation between the Australian and New Zealand labour movements. This thematic hopefully will encourage further contributions in the fields of comparative labour history and trans-national labour history. Future comparative projects for Australian labour historians could include Argentina, South Africa and the United States of America. |
1
|
|
There are five unsolicited contributions. Independent of the thematic section, Carina Hickey continues the Australian-New Zealand focus of the issue by exploring the life of Robert Semple, the 'Australian New Zealander'. In New Zealand Semple was a union activist and Labour Party minister whose Australian origins remained important to him. David McKnight re-examines the thinking concerning the cold war in light of new archival sources and reassessments of the link between the USSR and the Communist Party of Australia (CPA). Andrew Moore continues the interest of the journal in local labour history and highlighting its important for understanding broader events, in this case the Labor Split of 1954–55. He explores the role of Raymond Fitzpatrick, 'Mr Big of Bankstown', in shaping the Australian constitutionally significant Fitzpatrick and Browne privilege case of 1955. Dick Bryan uses long-term historical analysis to evaluate the current lending practices of financial institutions. He compares way in which banks and mortgage originators currently determine the capacity of households to service debt with the deliberations of the Australian federal arbitration court in the famous Harvester Judgment of 1907, which led to the development of a basic wage, and the 1975 federal Henderson Inquiry into Poverty in Australia. Patrick O'Leary and Peter Sheldon explore the idea of strategic choice, which is an under-explored area of Australian labour history. They focus on the Victorian meat industry employers and their struggle with unions against the background of the decentralisation of the Australian federal industrial relations system from 1986 to 1993. As they observe, many actions have unintended outcomes. |
2
|
|
In the non-refereed section of the journal we have two reports. Continuing the focus of the issue on New Zealand, Peter Franks reports on the celebrations in New Zealand concerning the centenary of the March 1908 Blackball 'crib-time' strike. It is viewed as a major event that triggered the formation of a national labour movement in New Zealand and the eventual establishment of the New Zealand Labour Party. Lyndall Ryan contributes reflections on a conference held in Canberra in honour of Henry Reynolds. There is also the usual outstanding book review section, which highlights the latest scholarship both in Australia and overseas. |
3
|
|
|
Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.
|