point for many years was the Australian Labor Party. Although it stands for
one-person:one-value, until the late 1960s Labor’s supreme ruling body, the
appropriately named Federal Conference, was composed of six delegates from
each of its six state branches. These were the notorious‘36 faceless men’
whom Sir Robert Menzies mercilessly attacked during the 1963 federal
election.
The Labor Party thus organized itself on the same basis as the Senate, rather
than of the House of Representatives, notwithstanding all its rhetoric about
democracy. During the past half-century representation on the basis of state
equality has been qualified in the Labor Party, but the party remains far from
a country-wide structure on a purely population basis.
That so many Australian organizations follow the federal principle makes it
all the more surprising that federal sentiment in Australia is, except in sport, so
inconspicuous. It is latent, even residual; rarely overt. Some reasons may be
found in the major intellectual traditions in which those with interests in
government are usually trained in Australia.
A conspicuous example is the law. When the Constitution of Australia was
composed, a number of the leadingfigures versed themselves very thoroughly
in federal government. Andrew Inglis Clark, who prepared thefirst draft, had a
lengthy sojourn in the USA studying the workings of the American Federation
and having discussions with various people deeply experienced in its politics,
government, and the courts. This federal background was manifest not only in
thefirst parliaments but, more significantly, in the personnel of the High
Court in its original manifestation: Sir Samuel Griffith, Sir Edmund Barton,
and Richard O’Connor.
That the federal sentiment was under pressure from an early stage may be
found in the six referendums which the Fisher Labor government put to the
people during its 1910–13 term of office. These referendums, which were all
about enlargement of Commonwealth powers in matters such as monopolies,
trade and commerce, corporations, and industry, held in April 1911 and again
in May 1913 (at the same time as the general election of that year) failed, but
only just. On each occasion they secured the support of three out of six states
(Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia); the percentage of formal
votes in favour on every question exceeded 49 per cent.
The Great War certainly seems to have stimulated national sentiment. This
national sentiment was reflected in the Engineers’ case of 1920, the
case which brought great fame and not a little fortune to the young Robert
Menzies. For present purposes, the significance of Engineers’lies in its conse-
quences for judicial interpretation of the federal relationship, but it also
immediately had a pronounced centralizing effect on industrial relations.
With the three founding justices now gone from the Court, a new national
spirit took over, and it had a marked centralist tone. The major spokesman was
J. R. Nethercote