Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

provided by

This clip shows some of the challenges facing Australia immediately after the Second World War. It covers industrial relations, the housing shortage and Australia’s separate railway systems. The clip includes images of men on foot and bicycle leaving work, union leaders and employers in negotiation and scenes of striking workers. It shows a housing estate under construction and passengers and freight having to transfer to trains of a different rail gauge at a state border. The clip has a narration and an orchestral soundtrack.

Educational value points

• As the clip indicates the period from 1945 to 1950 was one of struggle and turmoil for industries in Australia. During the Second World War unions had cooperated with the Government to boost production. When the War ended unions were in a strong bargaining position to improve wages and conditions. As a result there was a series of strikes in industries such as coal mining, electricity production, stevedoring and rail transport.

• As referred to in the clip Australia had a well-established system of industrial courts at state and federal levels that facilitated negotiations between employers and unions, arbitrated in disputes and created awards that set minimum terms and conditions of employment. The Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration had been set up by the Australian Government in 1904 to resolve industrial disputes that extended beyond state boundaries.

• The clip refers to historic industrial achievements, such as the basic wage and the eight-hour day, that made Australia a 'working man’s paradise’. The basic wage, introduced in 1907 by the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration in the Harvester Judgement, was established as the minimum a male worker needed to support a family. The eight-hour day was initially won by Victorian stonemasons in 1856 and gradually spread to other industries.

• The severe housing shortage after the War was addressed by the housing commissions in each state, which built mass housing estates such as the one shown in the clip. Existing pre-War demand, the interruption to building caused by the War and a shortage of building materials meant that Australia had a shortfall of 300,000 homes. Returning soldiers and an increase in the number of marriages after the War added to the pressures.

• Australia’s railways developed from the 1850s, but as the clip demonstrates no thought was given to linking the continent via a standard rail network and so the colonies adopted different rail gauges. During the War the resultant logistical problems led the Allied Commander of the south-west Pacific sector, General Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964), to issue a scathing condemnation of Australia’s multiple railway gauges.

This clip starts approximately 11 minutes into the documentary.

This clip shows some of the challenges facing Australia immediately after the Second World War. It covers industrial relations, the housing shortage and Australia’s separate railway systems. The clip includes black and white footage of men on foot and bicycle leaving work, union leaders and employers in negotiation and scenes of striking workers. It shows a housing estate under construction and passengers and freight having to transfer to trains of a different rail gauge at a state border. The clip has a narration and an orchestral soundtrack.
Narrator But Australia has her own internal problems, some common to most countries, others peculiar to herself. Australia led the world with arbitration courts and has sometimes been called the working man’s paradise.

Nearly 100 years ago, the Australian Stonemasons Union won an eight-hour day and for 40 years, Australians have had a basic wage. But Australia is no freer from labour disputes and strikes than other industrial countries, and conflicts can be vigorous or even violent.

Unions are strong and strong-minded. Waterside workers, for example, refused to load Dutch ships during the Indonesian dispute. Australia has felt the general post-war unrest, has known falling values in wages and higher cost of living, and on top of this, a desperate shortage of houses – more than a quarter of a million urgently needed, which in such a small population is almost as grave as Britain’s own housing shortage.

Of the problems peculiarly her own, some arise from lack of unity in State decisions. In the past, several States built railway tracks of different gauge, and at some State borders, all passengers and freight must change trains.

The situation speaks for itself, and condemns itself.