The problem being investigated is the historical situation relating to two independent MPs holding the balance of power in the Australian House of Representatives in 1940 and 1941. The two MPs, Arthur Coles and Alex Wilson, supported the conservative Menzies and Fadden governments before shifting their support (on October 3 1941) to the Labor Party led by Curtin. The procedure followed is the examination, in the form of a historical narrative, of primary evidence in private papers (such as Coles???s), analysis of Hansard (CPD), local and metropolitan newspapers. Also examined are references to the two independents in secondary literature. The key focus of interest will be the idea that chance or serendipity played a major role in achieving all the key outcomes which many Australians (and historians like Hasluck) often otherwise depict as the triumph of good sense within a supposedly non-problematic twoparty political system which self-selected the best possible leadership during time of war. Coles took over the seat of a popular Cabinet minister who had died in an air disaster. Coles???s and Wilson???s holding the balance of power was another extreme aberration, as no House of Representatives from 1906 to 1940, and none since, has not had either of the two party blocs (Labor and anti-Labor) without a majority. Hasluck, the most influential historian of Australian politics during the 1939-1945 war, viewed the fact of Coles???s and Wilson???s serendipity as evidence, in itself, of their wider historical, ideological and political irrelevance. The general results obtained by pursuing a critical historical narrative approach is that a strong counter-argument has been developed that suggests that Hasluck (and wider historical memory) has insufficiently valued as historical factors Coles???s and Wilson???s ideological aims. Coles was a representative of business progressivism and Wilson of agrarian socialism. The major conclusion reached is that Coles???s and Wilson???s wider aims led them to adopt the tactic of timing their shift to Labor so as to maximize their ideological influence on the Labor administration that would result whenever they decided to exercise their entirely serendipitously attained balance of power.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/235222 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Hayman, Christopher Charles Douglas, School of Politics & International Relations, UNSW |
| Publisher | Awarded by:University of New South Wales. School of Politics and International Relations |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Copyright Christopher Charles Douglas Hayman, http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/copyright |
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