Australia: 20th Century History by Decade Quiz

Answer: Need to form a national Australian identity

It seems incredible to us Australians, now, that just over a century ago the need for a national identity was not a major driver of federation. Colonists identified themselves as British or identified with the colony they lived in. "Australia" had first been used by Matthew Flinders as he circumnavigated the continent in 1803, proving it was an island. The term was first used in official New South Wales colony documents in 1817 by Governor Macquarie but until federation it reflected the continent not the collective name for the six colonies.
The major drivers for federation were transport and tariffs, defence and immigration.
As the colonies were governed as separate entities under British rule, each colony had its own customs authority and transport policies. A person travelling from Melbourne to Sydney would have to stop at Victorian-NSW border to face customs clearance (!) and to change trains because the rail gauge was different in the two colonies. Additionally each colony protected its own industries by applying tariffs to goods from other colonies. Change was needed.
Defence was an issue as the Australian coastline was huge. Queensland, especially was nervous about the German occupation of New Guinea and the French colonising New Caledonia. A "national" policy was needed as individual colonies had little capability to defend their coastlines.
Collectively, the colonies were concerned with "non-European" nationalities immigrating into "British" territory. In particular, there was concern over the number of Chinese immigrants that began to flood into the country in the gold rush period of the 1850s. This drove the national agenda and soon after federation, Australia had some of the harshest, and most racist immigration legislation in the world. Worse, it took decades to repeal.
An Australian identity did not materialise until World War I when the ANZAC and the digger became Australian icons.

Answer: Self-firing rifles

Rifle fire was maintained after 80,000 troops had retreated to the Gallipoli beaches and evacuated, by the use of self-firing rifles called drip or pop-off rifles. They were invented by Lance Corporal W. C. Scurry of the 7th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force. The automatic firing mechanism was created by placing one kerosene tin above another.

The lower tin was attached to the trigger. The higher tin was filled with water. As the troops withdrew, a small hole was made in the upper can. The water trickled into the lower can and when there was enough weight in the lower tin, the rifle fired. To see how effective this was, see Russell Crowe's "The Water Diviner" (2014).

Answer: Flying boats commenced services between Brisbane and Darwin

While Qantas was formed in 1920, the first passenger flight took place on 2 November 1922, when passenger #1 travelled from the Longreach to Cloncurry (via Winton & McKinley) section of the inaugural mail service from Charleville to Cloncurry.
Bert Hinkler left London on 7 February 1928 and flew solo to Australia, arriving in Darwin 15 days later, the first person to do so.
On 31 May 1928, Charles Kingsford-Smith and his crew of three were the first to fly across the Pacific Ocean when they left Oakland, California and reached Brisbane ten days later.
It was not until 1934 that Qantas and its British partner Imperial Airways (a predecessor of British Airways) commenced flying boat services between Brisbane and Darwin and later to Singapore. The service was extended from Sydney to Southampton within two years. This trip took nine days.

Answer: Susso

In the Depression, Australia was hit particularly hard hit as its economy was based on primary production such as wheat and wool, and overseas demand dropped sharply. As well Australia had borrowed more money than any other country (except Germany) which made the country particularly vulnerable. Unemployment peaked at 29% in 1932. For more than 60,000 people who had been out of work for a prolonged period and had no savings or assets, they depended on sustenance payments to live. With the Australian panache for shortening words, this quickly became the "Susso". It also meant that persons who received these payments were also called "Sussos". These payments were state-based and often consisted of vouchers or food itself rather than cash.
"Dole" was and still is, a slang word for social welfare payments. Dole Inspectors were used before the Great Depression but they were particularly feared at this time as they had the power to evict tenants who received social welfare and they transgressed the conditions of receiving the dole (for example, if a family tried to earn extra cash by selling vegetables it grew in the back yard). A dole bludger is a more recent term. It was first used in 1976 to describe an unemployed person receiving social welfare payments but not actively seeking work, being content to live off the dole.
A "Seppo" was not known in the 1930s but it was a popular term in Australia in the 1940s especially in Brisbane where US troops were often stationed prior to be sent to the war in the South Pacific. Septic Tank was rhyming slang for Yank and in true Australian fashion, this became "Septic" and subsequently "Seppo".

Answer: John Curtin

The speech was a New Year's message given by Prime Minister John Curtin in December 1941. Curtin was concerned as it appeared that Churchill's Britain had abandoned Australia. At the time the Japanese army were marching down the Malay Peninsula and there were fears Australia would be invaded.

Some Australians were shocked when they heard this speech as they still thought of Britain as the "Mother Country". They saw this as a massive turning point in Australian foreign policy as Curtin had put Australian security ahead of imperial diplomacy by now turning to America for assistance. On the other hand, it was a continuation of current foreign policy as Australia, since federation, had always sought partnerships with the US.

This was simply a continuation of that policy.

Answer: The Snowy Mountains Scheme

The fifties saw full employment: the start of the suburban dream of a house of one's own and increased availability of labour saving devices. These were hallmarks of a new prosperous post-war Australia.
However, with the near-invasion of Australia in WWII and the unease caused thereafter by the Cold War, the Australian government wanted to increase the population of Australia - and fast. An increased birth rate was not going to be enough. "Populate or Perish" was the government catch-cry. Assisted immigration schemes were implemented. Initially 9/10ths of the immigrants were planned to be of British origin but this was self-limiting. The schemes were expanded to include most European countries and especially war refugees. However the White Australia Policy stood firm and very few Asian immigrants were allowed into Australia.

Immigrants needed work. Australia needed infrastructure to accommodate them. A massive public works program was implemented. The biggest of these was the the Snowy Mountains Scheme. In this scheme, water from the Snowy Mountains passed into the snowy river and out to sea whereas rivers on the other side of the Great Divide, the Murray and the Murrumbidgee were controlled as there was not enough water for irrigation of crops in these valleys. The simple solution was to divert water from the Snowy River into the Murrumbidgee River. Generation of hydro-electric power was a secondary consideration but became an integral part of the project. In the end, there were 16 dams constructed between 1950 and 1974. As well, there were seven hydro-electric power stations and over 200km of tunnels constructed. The project was a triumph of cooperation between the federal government and the States and provided meaningful employment for the many thousands of "New Australians".

Answer: The disappearance of the Beaumont children

The Beaumont children disappeared on Australia Day 1966, when nine year old Jane took her younger siblings Arnna(7) and Grant (4) to the beach at Glenelg, in Adelaide, a few bus stops away. Jane was considered responsible enough to look after her siblings but they never came home. The South Australian Government today still has a reward for information regarding their captors. The impact on Australian society was huge. Children were supervised more closely, house doors started to be locked at night. Newspapers reported the event as the day "Australia lost its innocence". The story surfaces periodically even now, when fresh "evidence" comes to light. Australia has a whole, felt the anguish that the Beaumont parents are still feeling today.
The Brisbane Anti-Apartheid Riots occurred in 1971 when the South African rugby union team toured Australia.
The Maralinga Scandal occurred between 1956-1963 but it wan't until 1985 when the program was criticised by the McClelland Royal Commission, and personnel who were at the site, started getting sick with radiation-related symptoms, that the enormity of what had happened, came to light.
The Stolen Generations: Aboriginal Children forcibly removed from their parents occurred through much of the first half of the 20th century and the wrong-doing was not formally acknowledged until the 1997 "Bring Them Home" Report. It was not until 2008 that Prime Minister Rudd apologised on behalf of the Australian Government.

Answer: Established OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries)

The Whitlam government implemented unprecedented reform but it came at a price: the government could not afford to pay for same especially when OPEC (Australia was not a member) forced the world effectively into recession by withholding oil supply in 1973.

As well as the listed major reforms, the Whitlam government also implemented equal pay for women, pensions for single mothers and homeless people, removal of the death penalty for federal crimes, reduced the voting age to 18 and introduced no-fault divorce legislation to name a few.

In November 1975, the Senate (where the Conservatives had a majority) blocked supply. Whitlam did not dissolve Parliament, so the Governor-General took the unprecedented step of dismissing the government. A Conservative government was subsequently elected.

Answer: Introduced a Goods and Services Tax

Bob Hawke was elected Prime Minister in 1983 and made Paul Keating his treasurer. As treasurer, Keating enjoyed a high profile in his role because of all the economic reform he implemented. In history the government is known as the Hawke-Keating government, the first time a treasurer had been listed as a "head" of government.

The two were radically different in personality and behaviour, but both formed a viable partnership for eight years until Keating forced Hawke out of the top job in 1991. One of their first reforms was the implementation of the Accord, an economic blueprint that meant the Australian Council of Trade Unions would support the agreement in return for key financial incentives.

This was perhaps Hawke's greatest achievement. Certainly he was the one who garnered consensus among stakeholders while Keating drew up the financial reform agenda.

It was Keating who advocated for a broad based Goods and Services Tax after the 1985 Tax Summit. However Hawke convinced Keating to drop this proposal as it was considered too radical for the Australian electorate. (Interestingly when subsequent Prime Minister John Howard put GST back on the political agenda a decade later, Keating was one of the fiercest in opposing it, stating was a bad policy move).

Answer: Queen Elizabeth encouraged Australians to vote "No"

The proposal for Australia to become a republic was made before the Conservative, John Howard, a monarchist was elected Prime Minister in 1996. In 1998, Howard organised a constitutional convention of 152 delegates where half were elected by the electorate and half by the government.

At the convention there was robust debate over the republican model as to how a president was to be elected, whether it be by the government or whether the president should be elected by the people. The final recommendation was that the favoured model was "Bipartisan Appointment of the President Model" with 73 Yes votes, 22 abstentions and 57 No votes (Note that there was not an absolute majority which required 76 votes).

At the subsequent referendum in 1999 the question put to the people was "To alter the Constitution to establish the Commonwealth of Australia as a republic with the Queen and Governor-General being replaced by a President appointed by a two-thirds majority of the members of the Commonwealth Parliament".

The phrasing of the question fractured the republican vote. Some of the republicans who wanted a directly appointed president voted "No". In the advertising before the referendum, Prime Minister advocated via advertising for no change (but his deputy favoured republicanism). Australia has a record of not voting for change: in the 20th century, 44 referendum questions were asked of the electorate but only eight were supported. This may be because for a referendum question to be supported, it must attain a double majority. This means that it must obtain an absolute majority of votes nationwide as well as a majority of votes in four of six states. This republic referendum result did not receive an absolute majority nationwide nor in any of the six states. Australia, therefore went into the 21st century the same way it entered the 20th century - as a constitutional monarchy.