150 Years of Spring St
I first met Robert Murray’s writing with his book The Split: Labor in the Fifties a wonderful history of the Labor split.
His latest book is 150 Years of Spring St: Victorian Government: 1850s to 21st Century, a highly readable, informative and sensible history of Victorian government and politics. Bob takes us from the beginnings of the settlement through the various stages in Victoria’s political development in calm prose with a gentle sense of humour (helped along by a fine selection of political cartoons).
60,000 (men) voted in the first Legislative Assembly elections choosing sixty members, 10,000 in the first Legislative Council elections over August-October 1856. During the C19th, typically about 60-65% of those enrolled voted (p.13). Ministers and MPs drafted their own bills, amendments from the floor were common (p.22). Bob takes us through the unstable politics of Victoria (ministries were generally only in office for relatively short periods) in an easy-to-follow way. The tensions between Catholics and Protestants-particularly over education-are well covered (A long-lasting vicious circle deepened, where Protestants perceived Rome as undemocratic, authoritarian, superstitious and aggressively bent on political manipulation and takeover, while Catholics considered their instinctive sense of grievance and suspicion about the fairness of Anglo-Saxon Protestant society to be only too justified [pp 56-7]).
Bob is particularly judicious in his treatment of the “land boom”. In a pattern to be repeated a century later, asset boom and bust with unserviceable debt made the 1890s Depression much worse in Victoria than it was in the rest of Australia. He suggests that the politicians (many of whom were involved in the land boom companies) may have been as swept up in the speculative fervour as anyone else (p.67).
Victoria was a pioneer of democratic government. It also became the place of “socialism without doctrines”, in the phrase of a French commentator (p.83), where an elaborate structure of public instrumentalities was built up. Given the instability of Parliamentary majorities, this was an understandable method of reliably delivering benefits to constituents. Since the advent of Bolte, Victoria has been noted for the longevity and stability of its governments: hence (eventually) the shift away from reliance on such instrumentalities.
The rise of the Country Party (a natural consequence of the Deakinite system being based on urban interests helping themselves to benefits from taxing largely rural exporters) caused a new wave of instability in Victorian politics. It also led to the remarkable career of Country Party Leader Alfred Dunstan, who managed to stay in power for eight years as a minority government with Labor support.
Bob’s not a believer in John Wren’s corruption (p.114). (As an aside, John Burnside QC explained to me a while ago how the famous Power Without Glory libel case played out: the defence kept reading out passages from the book about bad things the West/Wren character did and asking the prosecution witnesses if that described John Wren. When they replied “no”, Hardy’s defence argued that clearly the prosecution’s own witnesses were denying that the West character was Wren, a winning strategy.)
Bob notes that Labor did disproportionately badly in Victoria for a long time, arguing that it was a mixture of a lack of a coal and steel industry as in New South Wales and the Victorian non-Labor Parties being more successful at picking up the socially liberal middle class and agrarian radical votes (p.121).
The period of Liberal dominance from 1955 to 1982 is The Long Calm. Bolte’s very practical style of government (he would ask of proposals in Cabinet: How much will it cost? Why do you really want to do it? What will happen if we don’t [p.134]). Bob notes that the progressive education agenda was originally established during a conservative government, largely (he suggests) because of a deference to expertise (p.149).
Bob covers the social changes Victorian society went through lightly but informatively. It is useful to be reminded that women were only allowed to be jurors in 1966 [actually this appears to be an exaggeration] and the restriction againt married women being public servants was only removed in 1973 (p.151).
The next two chapters (Ambitious Government I, Ambitious Government II) are on the Cain Jnr-Kirner and Kennett Governments. It is a sign of his reasonableness, that Bob can see the commonalities between two governments that expressed very different notions of what government is about-Bob notes, for example, that two reforming governments in a row essentially wiped out memory of how things used to be done (p.206)-and be generous in his assessment of the successes and failures of both.
Which brings the story to the last chapter (Sesquicentenary) and the calm of the Bracks Government. Bob concludes [o]ver a century and a half … the ideal has always been a strong impetus from Spring Street, with the lead coming from forceful, honest politicians supported by able officials and meshing in on any given issue with both the advice and demands of the more skilled, experienced and involved people; and at a wider remove, the feelings of the general public. For most of the time that blend has been there, if sometimes untidily or inadequately, and has worked for the benefit of the Victorian community (p.228).
A history of 150 years of Victorian politics and government may not sound like an exciting read, but Bob is adept at bringing the characters who people the story alive and making what they did understandable. It is a very good way to understand how the State of Victoria came to work in the way it does-rather well, all things considered.
His latest book is 150 Years of Spring St: Victorian Government: 1850s to 21st Century, a highly readable, informative and sensible history of Victorian government and politics. Bob takes us from the beginnings of the settlement through the various stages in Victoria’s political development in calm prose with a gentle sense of humour (helped along by a fine selection of political cartoons).
60,000 (men) voted in the first Legislative Assembly elections choosing sixty members, 10,000 in the first Legislative Council elections over August-October 1856. During the C19th, typically about 60-65% of those enrolled voted (p.13). Ministers and MPs drafted their own bills, amendments from the floor were common (p.22). Bob takes us through the unstable politics of Victoria (ministries were generally only in office for relatively short periods) in an easy-to-follow way. The tensions between Catholics and Protestants-particularly over education-are well covered (A long-lasting vicious circle deepened, where Protestants perceived Rome as undemocratic, authoritarian, superstitious and aggressively bent on political manipulation and takeover, while Catholics considered their instinctive sense of grievance and suspicion about the fairness of Anglo-Saxon Protestant society to be only too justified [pp 56-7]).
Bob is particularly judicious in his treatment of the “land boom”. In a pattern to be repeated a century later, asset boom and bust with unserviceable debt made the 1890s Depression much worse in Victoria than it was in the rest of Australia. He suggests that the politicians (many of whom were involved in the land boom companies) may have been as swept up in the speculative fervour as anyone else (p.67).
Victoria was a pioneer of democratic government. It also became the place of “socialism without doctrines”, in the phrase of a French commentator (p.83), where an elaborate structure of public instrumentalities was built up. Given the instability of Parliamentary majorities, this was an understandable method of reliably delivering benefits to constituents. Since the advent of Bolte, Victoria has been noted for the longevity and stability of its governments: hence (eventually) the shift away from reliance on such instrumentalities.
The rise of the Country Party (a natural consequence of the Deakinite system being based on urban interests helping themselves to benefits from taxing largely rural exporters) caused a new wave of instability in Victorian politics. It also led to the remarkable career of Country Party Leader Alfred Dunstan, who managed to stay in power for eight years as a minority government with Labor support.
Bob’s not a believer in John Wren’s corruption (p.114). (As an aside, John Burnside QC explained to me a while ago how the famous Power Without Glory libel case played out: the defence kept reading out passages from the book about bad things the West/Wren character did and asking the prosecution witnesses if that described John Wren. When they replied “no”, Hardy’s defence argued that clearly the prosecution’s own witnesses were denying that the West character was Wren, a winning strategy.)
Bob notes that Labor did disproportionately badly in Victoria for a long time, arguing that it was a mixture of a lack of a coal and steel industry as in New South Wales and the Victorian non-Labor Parties being more successful at picking up the socially liberal middle class and agrarian radical votes (p.121).
The period of Liberal dominance from 1955 to 1982 is The Long Calm. Bolte’s very practical style of government (he would ask of proposals in Cabinet: How much will it cost? Why do you really want to do it? What will happen if we don’t [p.134]). Bob notes that the progressive education agenda was originally established during a conservative government, largely (he suggests) because of a deference to expertise (p.149).
Bob covers the social changes Victorian society went through lightly but informatively. It is useful to be reminded that women were only allowed to be jurors in 1966 [actually this appears to be an exaggeration] and the restriction againt married women being public servants was only removed in 1973 (p.151).
The next two chapters (Ambitious Government I, Ambitious Government II) are on the Cain Jnr-Kirner and Kennett Governments. It is a sign of his reasonableness, that Bob can see the commonalities between two governments that expressed very different notions of what government is about-Bob notes, for example, that two reforming governments in a row essentially wiped out memory of how things used to be done (p.206)-and be generous in his assessment of the successes and failures of both.
Which brings the story to the last chapter (Sesquicentenary) and the calm of the Bracks Government. Bob concludes [o]ver a century and a half … the ideal has always been a strong impetus from Spring Street, with the lead coming from forceful, honest politicians supported by able officials and meshing in on any given issue with both the advice and demands of the more skilled, experienced and involved people; and at a wider remove, the feelings of the general public. For most of the time that blend has been there, if sometimes untidily or inadequately, and has worked for the benefit of the Victorian community (p.228).
A history of 150 years of Victorian politics and government may not sound like an exciting read, but Bob is adept at bringing the characters who people the story alive and making what they did understandable. It is a very good way to understand how the State of Victoria came to work in the way it does-rather well, all things considered.