1932 in Australia....very exciting times.

A forum to discuss local issues in Australia.
Post Reply
fuzzywuzzy
Posts: 6596
Joined: Mon Feb 02, 2009 5:35 pm

1932 in Australia....very exciting times.

Post by fuzzywuzzy »

Probably the most eventful time in Australian history. And by far the most exciting.

I'd like to begin with Jack Lang who by todays paralells would be seen very differently. An yet the economic crisis is much the same.

You see he's the bloke who stole his states money so the federal government couldn't get their hands on it. He definately wasn't a push over . One completely out of the box.

The Crisis of 1931-32

Main article: Lang Dismissal Crisis

Early in 1931, Jack Lang released his own plan to combat the Depression; this became known as "the Lang Plan". This was in contrast to the "Melbourne Agreement" which all other State Governments and the Federal Government had agreed to in 1930. Key points of the Lang Plan included the reduction of interest owed by Australian Governments on debts within Australia to 3%, the cancellation of interest payments to overseas bondholders and financiers on government borrowings, the injection of more funds into the nation's money supply as central bank credit for the revitalisation of industry and commerce, and the abolition of the Gold standard, to be replaced by a "Goods Standard," whereby the amount of currency in circulation would be fixed to the amount of goods produced within the Australian economy. The banks had indicated that if he paid the interest they would advance him an additional amount which was greater than the interest, thus giving him a positive cash flow.

Lang opposed the Premiers' Plan agreed to by the federal Labor government of James Scullin and the other state Premiers, who called for even more stringent cuts to government spending to balance the budget. In October 1931 Lang's followers in the federal House of Representatives crossed the floor to vote with the conservative United Australia Party and bring down the Scullin government. This action split the NSW Labor Party in two - Lang's followers became known as Lang Labor, while Scullin's supporters, led by Chifley, became known in NSW as Federal Labor. Most of the party's branches and affiliated trade unions supported Lang.

Since the Commonwealth Government had become responsible for state debts in 1928 under an amendment to the Constitution, the new UAP government of Joseph Lyons paid the interest to the overseas bondholders, and then set about extracting the money from NSW by passing the Financial Agreement Enforcement Act 1932, which the High Court held to be valid. Lang then contended that the Act was rendered null and void by contravening the 1833 prohibition of slavery throughout the British Empire; the Premier held that the actions of the Lyons government deprived the State of New South Wales of paying the wages of State employees and that this necessarily constituted an (illegal) state of slavery.

In response, Lang withdrew all the state's funds from government bank accounts and held them at Trades Hall in cash, so the federal government could not gain access to the money. The Governor, Sir Philip Game, a retired Royal Air Force officer, advised Lang that in his view this action was illegal, and that if Lang did not reverse it he would dismiss the government. Lang stood firm, and on 13 May 1932 the Governor withdrew Lang's commission and appointed the UAP leader, Bertram Stevens, as premier. Stevens immediately called an election, at which Labor was heavily defeated.

Gerald Stone, in his book 1932, states that there is evidence that Lang considered arresting the Governor to prevent the Governor from dismissing him, (which Lang admitted in his own book, The Turbulent Years). The possibility was sufficiently high that the armed forces of the Commonwealth were put on alert. Michael Cathcart and Andrew Moore, among others, have put forward the possibility that such a clash would have seen the Commonwealth Armed Forces fighting the New South Wales Police.

This was the first case of an Australian government with the confidence of the lower house of Parliament being dismissed by a Vice-Regal representative, the second case being when Governor-General Sir John Kerr dismissed Gough Whitlam's government on 11 November 1975. Game himself felt his decision was the right one, despite his personal liking of Lang. He wrote to his mother-in-law on 2 July 1932: "Still with all his faults of omission and commission I had and still have a personal liking for Lang and a great deal of sympathy for his ideals and I did not at all relish being forced to dismiss him. But I felt faced with the alternative of doing so or reducing the job of Governor all over the Empire to a farce."[2] Lang himself, despite objecting to his dismissal conceded that he too liked Game, regarding him as fair and polite, and having had good relations with him.[3]


Jack Lang (Australian politician) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

next .........The Australian Nazi Party and it's effects on the future of activism in Australia. And you'd be very surprised at just how many votes the communist party got during the elections of that time .
User avatar
rajakrsna
Posts: 665
Joined: Mon Mar 12, 2012 11:04 am

1932 in Australia....very exciting times.

Post by rajakrsna »

fuzzywuzzy;1387552 wrote:

You see he's the bloke who stole his states money so the federal government couldn't get their hands on it. He definately wasn't a push over . One completely out of the box.




It`s so funnyfuzzywuzzy! :wah:
Om namo bagavate vasudevaya, " God is the Cause of All causes."
User avatar
Bryn Mawr
Posts: 16113
Joined: Mon Feb 27, 2006 4:54 pm

1932 in Australia....very exciting times.

Post by Bryn Mawr »

fuzzywuzzy;1387552 wrote: Probably the most eventful time in Australian history. And by far the most exciting.

I'd like to begin with Jack Lang who by todays paralells would be seen very differently. An yet the economic crisis is much the same.

You see he's the bloke who stole his states money so the federal government couldn't get their hands on it. He definately wasn't a push over . One completely out of the box.





Jack Lang (Australian politician) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

next .........The Australian Nazi Party and it's effects on the future of activism in Australia. And you'd be very surprised at just how many votes the communist party got during the elections of that time .


Certainly an innovative solution to the problem but in these days of electronic banking he'd have to close all the accounts down to stop them pulling the money anyway and charging exorbitant overdraft fees.

I hadn't really though about it - was Australia hit badly by the depression? I suppose it must have been.
fuzzywuzzy
Posts: 6596
Joined: Mon Feb 02, 2009 5:35 pm

1932 in Australia....very exciting times.

Post by fuzzywuzzy »

rajakrsna;1387656 wrote: It`s so funnyfuzzywuzzy! :wah:




Weve got lots of funny history ...liket he fine cotton affair ..Oscar will piss herself laughing.
fuzzywuzzy
Posts: 6596
Joined: Mon Feb 02, 2009 5:35 pm

1932 in Australia....very exciting times.

Post by fuzzywuzzy »

Bryn Mawr;1387790 wrote: Certainly an innovative solution to the problem but in these days of electronic banking he'd have to close all the accounts down to stop them pulling the money anyway and charging exorbitant overdraft fees.

I hadn't really though about it - was Australia hit badly by the depression? I suppose it must have been.


Yeah both my nanas' were hoarders because of it.



Actually I won't go onto the Nazi party yet ...there's other stuff first.
fuzzywuzzy
Posts: 6596
Joined: Mon Feb 02, 2009 5:35 pm

1932 in Australia....very exciting times.

Post by fuzzywuzzy »

In 1932 Phar lap died (killed) in the US. It was a great shock to Australians at the time because essentially he was used during the depression as an icon to lift the spirits of the masses.

Phar Lap (1926–1932) was a champion Thoroughbred racehorse whose achievements captured the public's imagination during the early years of the Great Depression. Foaled in New Zealand,[3] he was trained and raced in Australia.[4] Phar Lap dominated Australian racing during a distinguished career, winning a Melbourne Cup, two Cox Plates and 19 other weight for age races.[5][6] He then won the Agua Caliente Handicap in Tijuana, Mexico in track-record time in his final race.[7] After a sudden and mysterious illness, Phar Lap died in 1932. At the time, he was the third highest stakes-winner in the world.

According to the Museum Victoria, Aubrey Ping, a medical student at the University of Sydney, suggested "farlap" as the horse's name. Ping knew the word from his father, a Zhuang-speaking Chinese immigrant. Telford liked the name, but changed the F to PH to create a seven letter word, which was split in two in keeping with the dominant naming pattern of Melbourne Cup winners



Early on 5 April 1932, the horse's strapper for the North American visit, Tommy Woodcock, found him in severe pain and having a high temperature. Within a few hours, Phar Lap haemorrhaged to death. Much speculation ensued, and when a necropsy revealed that the horse's stomach and intestines were inflamed, many believed the horse had been deliberately poisoned. There have been alternative theories, including accidental poisoning from lead insecticide and a stomach condition. It was not until the 1980s that the infection could be formally identified.

In 2000, equine specialists studying the two necropsies concluded[21] that Phar Lap probably died of duodenitis-proximal jejunitis, an acute bacterial gastroenteritis.

However, in 2006 Australian Synchrotron Research scientists said it was almost certain Phar Lap was poisoned with a large single dose of arsenic in the hours before he died, perhaps supporting the theory that Phar Lap was killed on the orders of U.S. gangsters, who feared the Melbourne-Cup-winning champion would inflict big losses on their illegal bookmakers.[22][23] No real evidence of involvement by a criminal element exists, however.[24]

Sydney veterinarian Percy Sykes believes poisoning did not cause the death. He said "In those days, arsenic was quite a common tonic, usually given in the form of a solution (Fowler's Solution)," and suggests this was the cause of the high levels. "It was so common that I'd reckon 90 per cent of the horses had arsenic in their system."[25] In December 2007 Phar Lap's mane was tested to find if he was given repeated doses of arsenic which, if found, would point to accidental poisoning.

On 19 June 2008, the Melbourne Museum released the findings of the forensic investigation conducted by Dr. Ivan Kempson, University of South Australia, and Dermot Henry, Natural Science Collections at Museum Victoria. Dr. Kempson took six hairs from Phar Lap’s mane and analyzed them at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago. These high resolution x-rays detect arsenic in hair samples, showing the specific difference "between arsenic, which had entered the hair cells via the blood and arsenic, which had infused the hair cells by the taxidermy process when he was stuffed and mounted at the museum".[26][27]

Kempson and Henry discovered that in the 30 to 40 hours before Phar Lap’s death, the horse ingested a massive dose of arsenic. "We can't speculate where the arsenic came from, but it was easily accessible at the time," Henry said


It was a bad time to be an American in Australia, The nation went into a state of shock and anyone with the slightest American accent was literally beaten up in the streets.

Following his death, Phar Lap's heart was donated to the Institute of Anatomy in Canberra and his skeleton to the New Zealand's National Museum in Wellington. After preparations of the hide by a New York City taxidermist, his stuffed body was placed in the Australia Gallery at Melbourne Museum. The hide and the skeleton were put on exhibition together when Wellington's Te Papa Museum lent the skeleton to the Melbourne Museum in September 2010 as part of celebrations for the 150th running of the 2010 Melbourne Cup.

Phar Lap's heart was remarkable for its size, weighing 6.2 kg (13.6 lbs), compared with a normal horse's heart at 3.2 kg. Now held at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra, it is the object visitors most often request to see. Several books and films have featured Phar Lap, including the 1983 film Phar Lap, and the song "Phar Lap—Farewell To You".

Phar Lap was one of five inaugural inductees into both the Australian Racing Hall of Fame and New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame. In the Blood-Horse magazine ranking of the Top 100 U.S. Thoroughbred champions of the 20th century, Phar Lap was ranked No. 22.

The horse is considered to be a national icon in both Australia and New Zealand. In 1978 he was honoured on a postage stamp issued by Australia Post and features in the Australian citizenship test.[33] A $500,000 life-sized bronze memorial to Phar Lap was unveiled on 25 November 2009 near his birthplace at Timaru


I've grown up seeing Phar lap in our museum and still to this day I can't believe how huge he is...... Bloody enormous.
fuzzywuzzy
Posts: 6596
Joined: Mon Feb 02, 2009 5:35 pm

1932 in Australia....very exciting times.

Post by fuzzywuzzy »

1932 and "THE DON" srawnny kid when he started cricket but came to mean so much in Australians cricket history and indeed Australian folk lore. Always an elegant soft spoken gentleman who didn't have many close friends (wasn't into partying ) He was what most Australians would like to see as the quintessential sportsman.

Sir Donald George Bradman, AC (27 August 1908 – 25 February 2001), often referred to as "The Don", was an Australian cricketer, widely acknowledged as the greatest batsman of all time.[1] Bradman's career Test batting average of 99.94 is often cited as statistically the greatest achievement by any sportsman in any major sport.

The story that the young Bradman practised alone with a cricket stump and a golf ball is part of Australian folklore. Bradman's meteoric rise from bush cricket to the Australian Test team took just over two years. Before his 22nd birthday, he had set many records for high scoring, some of which still stand, and became Australia's sporting idol at the height of the Great Depression.


Bradman practised batting incessantly during his youth. He invented his own solo cricket game, using a cricket stump for a bat, and a golf ball. A water tank, mounted on a curved brick stand, stood on a paved area behind the family home. When hit into the curved brick facing of the stand, the ball rebounded at high speed and varying angles—and Bradman would attempt to hit it again. This form of practice developed his timing and reactions to a high degree. In more formal cricket, he hit his first century at the age of 12, playing for Bowral Public School against Mittagong High School.


I know boys that do this now . (I even self trained like it for softball)

Bradmans highest score was 452 runs made in 415 minutes.

Then came bodyline ......if you can't beat them ....cheat.
User avatar
Bryn Mawr
Posts: 16113
Joined: Mon Feb 27, 2006 4:54 pm

1932 in Australia....very exciting times.

Post by Bryn Mawr »

fuzzywuzzy;1387819 wrote: 1932 and "THE DON" srawnny kid when he started cricket but came to mean so much in Australians cricket history and indeed Australian folk lore. Always an elegant soft spoken gentleman who didn't have many close friends (wasn't into partying ) He was what most Australians would like to see as the quintessential sportsman.





I know boys that do this now . (I even self trained like it for softball)

Bradmans highest score was 452 runs made in 415 minutes.

Then came bodyline ......if you can't beat them ....cheat.


Have to agree with you - both Bradman as the greatest batsman ever and that the Bodyline tour was the lowpoint of English sporting achievement.
fuzzywuzzy
Posts: 6596
Joined: Mon Feb 02, 2009 5:35 pm

1932 in Australia....very exciting times.

Post by fuzzywuzzy »

Bryn Mawr;1387865 wrote: Have to agree with you - both Bradman as the greatest batsman ever and that the Bodyline tour was the lowpoint of English sporting achievement.


don't feel too bad Bryn ....remember the under arm bowling of the chappell brothers?....that even disgusted us . shocking decision.
fuzzywuzzy
Posts: 6596
Joined: Mon Feb 02, 2009 5:35 pm

1932 in Australia....very exciting times.

Post by fuzzywuzzy »



Marshes' absolute disgust of what his team mates are doing is quite evident.
User avatar
Bryn Mawr
Posts: 16113
Joined: Mon Feb 27, 2006 4:54 pm

1932 in Australia....very exciting times.

Post by Bryn Mawr »

fuzzywuzzy;1408753 wrote: don't feel too bad Bryn ....remember the under arm bowling of the chappell brothers?....that even disgusted us . shocking decision.


That just wasn't cricket!
Post Reply

Return to “Australia”