Presidential Proceedings
President Kelly gave an update from our Roving Club Service Director Brian Johnson and then teased us with not introducing the mystery guest speaker - shhh - all will be revealed!
President Kelly then invited Alison Thair to perform the induction of Diane Allen.
As usual the induction was carried out to perfection with Diane being formally introduced to her Committee Director, Mentor and the President.
Diane gave a brief account of her Rotary involvement in the past and how she was thrilled to be a member of Mill Point RC. Members welcomed Diane to the club with a standing ovation.
Mystery Speaker - Wayne Muller: "The Man Who Made Australia"
Andrew went to the local school but left at the age of ten to start work in the coal mines. He worked twelve hours a day for six days of the week, and four hours on Sunday. Even so, he and his brother walked four kilometres every night to go to night school .
His grandfather had been victimised by the colliery owners for his industrial activities. His father died from pneumoconiosis, dust on the lungs, then a common disease of miners. Fisher became active in the local miners' union, with its secretary at seventeen, and was blacklisted for his part in the 1881 miners' strike. He came under the influence of the militant miners' leader Keir Hardie, and other early British Labour leaders.
In 1885 Fisher and his brother James emigrated on steam ship via Suez Canal, to Australia. He went to work as a miner at the Queensland Colliery Company's mine at Howard, near Maryborough, Queensland, was soon active in union affairs, and became both president and secretary of the Gympie branch of the Amalgamated Miners Association.
When in 1893 Fisher stood as a Labor candidate for the Gympie seat in the Queensland Parliament he topped the poll at every booth. He was an enthusiast for Federation, even though there was considerable opposition to it in the Labour Party, particularly in Queensland.
In 1901 Fisher moved to Federal Parliament as the member for Wide Bay. When the post of deputy leader of the Parliamentary Labor Party was created in 1905, he beat Hughes by one vote and when Watson resigned as leader in 1907, he took over.
In 1908 Labor decided that its 27 members in the House gave it a better claim to government than did Deakin's Protectionists, which relied on Labor support. Fisher stood up in the House and said so, whereupon on 10 November 1908 Deakin resigned, and Fisher formed a government.
The Government then spent the remainder of the session finishing off business introduced by Deakin.
During the recess however the non-Labor forces in Parliament had resolved that the need to get Labor out of office bound them more closely than their differences separated them and agreed to form a Fusion Government as soon as Parliament reassembled.
The critical vote came on 27 May 1909, the day after the House met, when most of the Deakin and Cook followers voted to defeat the Government. Fisher asked the Governor-General for a dissolution, which he refused, and Deakin became Prime Minister again.
But Fisher was Prime Minister again within a
year. At the Federal election held on 13 April 1910, Labor won 42 seats in the
House of Representatives and all 18 of those falling vacant in the Senate, which
gave it 23 of the 36 seats in that chamber.
In its election manifesto, issued by Fisher in March 1910, Labor had promised several things. New Protection would become a reality. Monopolies would be nationalized. A cumulative land tax would be levied on all large estates until they burst. When that had been accomplished immigrants would be welcome. Defence would be put on a firmer basis. A Commonwealth Bank would be set up. The States would be treated well financially. Old-age pensions would be made more liberal. If the Commonwealth lacked the Constitutional power to do these things, Labor would ask the people to amend the Constitution.
The Fisher Government soon took over the note issue from the private banks. The Australian Notes Act authorized the Treasury to issue notes and specified that the Commonwealth was to back the notes by holding gold coin equal to one-quarter of the notes issued. The notes were redeemable in gold but only on presentation at the Treasury in Melbourne.
Since the Commonwealth had no notes of its own to issue, it bought the unsigned and unissued notes of the trading banks and over-printed them with the words 'Australian note' and the signatures of two Treasury officials. By 1912, only the notes of the National Bank were being used. In 1913 the Commonwealth introduced its own notes including Australia's first 10 shilling notes.
The Government also established the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in 1911. Denison Miller, former metropolitan inspector of the Bank of New South Wales, became the new bank's first governor at £4,000 a year.
The first savings account was that of Andrew Fisher. The new bank soon had branches right across the continent, including one in a rail motor on the new trans-continental railway from Port Augusta to Kalgoorlie.
In its defence planning, the Fisher Government adopted most of the proposals of Field-Marshal Lord Kitchener, who had come to Australia late in 1909 and spent two months surveying Australia's future defence needs.
A system of universal compulsory military training was established from 1 January 1911, and an Australian Navy - which was to consist of four cruisers, six destroyers, three submarines - was created. These defence plans were broadly in line with those the Fusion Government had planned.
Construction of the Trans-Australia Railway between Port Augusta and Kalgoorlie started while Fisher was Prime Minister. The railway was a favourite project of Sir John Forrest who, although not an enthusiast for Labor, was probably glad of the consistent support he got from King O'Malley who was present at Port Augusta on 14 September 1912 to hand the Governor-General, Lord Denman, the full-sized nickel plated shovel with which he turned the ceremonial sod that officially started work .
In April 1911 the Government announced an international competition for the design of the new capital city, the first prize being £1,750. O'Malley was to be the sole judge, although he was to have the shortness of time and the inadequacy of the prize money, caused quite a storm and a widespread boycott of the competition. Cabinet overruled O'Malley and in effect appointed itself final arbiter of the 126 entries, awarding the prize to a young Chicago architect Walter Burley Griffin.
The election on 31 May 1913 went against Fisher, giving Cook's Liberals a majority of one in the House of Representatives. Labor had probably made a tactical error in holding the election on the same day as it submitted six proposed constitutional amendments to referendum.
The date of the election was set as is September 1914. By then Australia was at war, and Fisher had made his famous Colac promise that Australia would support Britain to 'the last man and the last shilling'. He became Prime Minister again with a comfortable majority-42 seats in the House of Representatives and 31 in the Senate .
His most immediate problem was the despatch of the Australian Imperial Force to Egypt. The Japanese battlecruiser Ibuki was a major part of the escort for the 41 ships that sailed from Australian waters with 40,000 men in November 1914, and Australia's security throughout much of World War I depended to a considerable extent on the protection of the Japanese navy.
With Labor back in power, tensions between Fisher and Hughes began to get more serious. Fisher had beaten Hughes by only one vote in the election for deputy-leader ten years previously, and Hughes was probably getting restive about the long wait for the succession.
Fisher offered Hughes the job as High Commissioner in London and, when Hughes refused, decided he would take the job himself. He resigned as Prime Minister on 27 October 1915 and recommended to the Governor-General to commission Hughes to form a new ministry.
Fisher was not happy working under Hughes' direction. He served out his term as High Commissioner faithfully but with no particular distinction. After the war he tried to re-enter politics for Labor both in England and Australia, but he could not gain selection. His health by now was bad, his mental powers were failing.
He lived on quietly in England until his death on 22 October 1928.
Chris Herman:
- Launch of Global Hand Charity event "Offtraq" at the Vines Resort 22 June 2-4pm - see Events page.
Veronica:
- Membership meeting after breakfast, the last one for this Rotary year.
- Ride the Train to End Polio - 24 October - see Events page.
David Rowell:
- "Gala" luncheon on Friday 27 June, celebrating our Club's handover. Use the TryBooking link here trybooking.com/DBENN
Lyn M:
- Invoices have been sent out for Club fees - please pay asap.
Joy:
Next week's speaker is Bob Beecroft on the subject of "Out of the frying pan into the fire" and will have copies of his book available for sale at $30 CASH (no eftpos).
A Fine(s) One To Talk...
Owen took the podium with much confidence and called out...
- President Kelly - Ad-libbing with the formalities and being hen-pecked by three females
- Alison, Diane and Veronica - being "The Three"
- Diane - First fine, many more to come...
- Chris H - Missing In Action for far too long
- Dietmar - Remembering or forgetting Anne-Marie's birthday, doesn't matter, pay up!
- Ross - who knew you had friends? Pay for them.
- Lorrie - back in uniform (purple T-shirt)
- Honours List Awardees :
- OBE'S - Over Bloody Eighty - Ken and Wayne M
- OA's - Of Australia - all those born in Australia
- Lorrie (again) - for any indecent as well as decent photo's
- 1971 enthusiasts - The Beatle's fans who heard 'Let it Be' for the first time.
- Kelly (again) - for not paying attention to the finesmaster
- Lew T bought the box in honour of Chris Herman - the original "Linen Man"
Winner of Heads and Tails
Attendance
30 attendees in all, including mystery guest speaker Wayne Muller, and visitors Christopher, Tony, and Chris H.
