Australian Politics for Dummies by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated
Published: 2021-09-14T00:00:00+00:00

Staying solid: New South Wales

The split did not affect New South Wales Labor to anywhere near the same extent as in Queensland and Victoria. The New South Wales Catholic Archbishop, Dr Norman Thomas Gilmour, refused to become involved in internal Labor politics, and the New South Wales branch did not split. Consequently, Labor continued to win government in state elections in the state until the 1960s.

THE PETROV AFFAIR

Paranoia about the Soviet Union and international communism was at its height in the mid-1950s, and Australia was not immune.

On 3 April 1954, three years after the Menzies government had tried to make the Australian Communist Party illegal and right in the midst of Labor’s split, Vladimir Petrov was a secretary at the Soviet embassy in Canberra. In what became known as the Petrov Affair, Petrov defected and sought political asylum in Australia. His wife, Evdokia, was dramatically snaffled from the hands of KGB agents while she was in Darwin on her way back to Moscow. The Petrovs were both later granted asylum.

Robert Menzies’ Liberal–Country government convened a royal commission into communist activities in Australia after the Prime Minister hinted that Labor members might have been involved in spying for the communists! (Members of Opposition Leader Dr Evatt’s staff were named in the Petrov documents.) Dr Evatt acted as counsel for Labor people dragged before the commission. In a snap election called by Menzies in 1955, Evatt then led a divided Labor Party to one of its heavier defeats.

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