Afternoon Light

Gideon Haigh: ‘The Brilliant Boy’ Remembering the Achievements of Dr H.V. Evatt

In this week’s episode of the Afternoon Light podcast, Robert Menzies Institute CEO Georgina Downer talks to author and journalist Gideon Haigh about Doc Evatt and Robert Menzies. Herbert Vere Evatt and Robert Gordon Menzies led parallel and overlapping lives. Both were: born in 1894, from modest backgrounds, had brilliant minds, able to receive educational opportunities thanks to winning academic prizes, presidents of university student councils, passionate about art and cricket, remarkably successful lawyers who shaped future jurisprudence, served as Attorney General, earned international repute, and led political causes which they firmly believed in. However, because Menzies bested Evatt at three elections whilst the Labor Party was torn apart by internal strife, these days Evatt is often remembered as little more than a ‘hapless and divisive opposition leader’ who enable an unprecedented political supremacy.

Barry Jones: ‘A Strong Acquaintance’ Personal Reflections on Menzies and the Menzies Era

In this week’s episode of Afternoon Light, Robert Menzies Institute CEO Georgina Downer talks to former Hawke Government Minister The Hon Barry Jones AC about his friend, Robert Gordon Menzies. Barry visited Menzies many time in his retirement after having sparked the interest of Dame Pattie for his appearances on the ‘Pick A Box’ gameshow. A strong supporter of the Labor Party who served that party in both State and Federal Parliaments, Jones disagrees with many of the decisions that Menzies made throughout his career, and his insights help to reveal some of Menzies’s limitations while also demonstrating his ability to earn the respect of his political opponents.

James Waghorne: ‘A Light on the Hill & A Place of Truth’ Menzies’s University Days

This week on the Afternoon Light podcast Robert Menzies Institute CEO Georgina Downer is joined by Dr James Waghorne to discuss the intricacies and eccentricities of the University of Melbourne at the turn of the century. James is a Senior Research Fellow at the Melbourne Centre for Higher Education and the University of Melbourne’s de facto historian. When Robert Menzies came to the University of Melbourne to study Law in 1913, it had only around 1000 students. Even that was a great increase from when it opened in the 1850s to teach the sons of pastoralists and to civilise what was a young and brooding Colony that had only just broken off from New South Wales. In his youth Menzies was already a towering and precocious figure. Though he was not a product of wealth, and attended as a non-resident member of Ormond College largely on the back of academic prizes he had won, Menzies became President of the SRC and the editor of the Melbourne University Magazine.These were Menzies’s formative days when he learned to debate, to write, to give speeches, and to negotiate with personalities and bureaucracies. There were setbacks, like failing Latin in his first year, or receiving backlash for supporting conscription in a war in which he himself had not enlisted. But overall there were tremendous successes that left Menzies self-confident and ready to take on the world. Menzies fell in love with the University of Melbourne; he tutored there, came back for debates in the 1920s, and even returned triumphantly as Chancellor in the late 1960s.

Anne Henderson: ‘Given the Opportunity, She Took It’, The Remarkable Career of Margaret Guilfoyle

This week on the Afternoon Light podcast, Robert Menzies Institute CEO Georgina Downer speaks to Anne Henderson about Liberal trailblazer, Dame Margaret Guilfoyle.Anne is Deputy Director of the Sydney Institute and the author of many books including on Margaret Guilfoyle, Enid Lyons, Joseph Lyons, Mary Mackillop, Patrick Glynn and more. In 2014 she published Menzies at War, a detailed account of Menzies’s years in the political wilderness between his two stints as prime minister, which was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for History.Guilefoyle was a highly respected politician, who followed in a long tradition of active female involvement on the Liberal side of politics. A Senator for Victoria from 1971 to 1987, she rose to become Minister for Social Security and then Minister for Finance in the Fraser Coalition Government. Guilfoyle had the distinction of being the first woman to hold a cabinet-level ministerial portfolio in Australia, and also being the first woman to hold a major economic portfolio.

Ben Wilkie: ‘A Scottish Chauvinist’ The Scots Influence on Robert Menzies’s Worldview

This week on Afternoon Light Robert Menzies Institute CEO Georgina Downer is joined by Dr Ben Wilkie to discuss Sir Robert Menzies’s Scottish influences. While Menzies is often derided for being ‘British to the bootstraps’, there was a distinctively Scottish identity that was vitally important within his broader ‘Britishness’. Menzies was an admirer of Robert Burns, and celebrated Burns Night with a quasi-religious devotion. He was heavily involved in Scottish associations, including the Melbourne Scots and the Royal Caledonian Society of Melbourne. Notably Menzies was the only Australian ever knighted in the ‘Order of the Thistle’, an order of chivalry that was founded in 1687 by King James VII of Scotland. A Scots perspective underpinned Menzies’s love of education, and informed his liberalism based on a Presbyterian understanding of the importance of moral independence.Dr Ben Wilkie is a historian and an Honorary Associate in La Trobe University's Centre for the Study of the Inland. He is the author of The Scots in Australia, 1788-1938 (Boydell Press 2017) and Gariwerd: An Environmental History of the Grampians (CSIRO Publishing 2020), which won the Local History Small Publication Award in the 2020 Victorian Community History Awards.

Warren Mundine: ‘An Enormous Foundation for Things to Happen’ Indigenous Policy under the Menzies Government

This week on Afternoon Light Robert Menzies Institute CEO Georgina Downer is joined by Nyunggai Warren Mundine AO to discuss Indigenous policy under the Menzies Government. From the forming of the Australian Institute for Aboriginal Studies, the 1962 legislative change to give Indigenous people the right to vote in Federal elections and the 1967 referendum, the Menzies legacy is significant. Warren is a highly respected and influential businessman, political strategist and advocate for empowering Australia’s First People. He serves as the Director of the Indigenous Forum with the Centre for Independent Studies, the Executive Chairman Nyungga Black Group Pty Ltd, and a member of the board of the SBS. He is a member of the Bundjalung, Gumbaynggirr and Yuin people of New South Wales.

Scott Prasser: ‘The Institution of Last Resort’ Royal Commissions and Public Inquiries Under Menzies

In this week’s episode of Afternoon Light, academic and government adviser Dr Scott Prasser joins us to discuss his book ‘Royal Commissions and Public Inquiries in Australia’. Scott elaborates on some of the most important public inquiries from the Menzies era, how they directly shaped Menzies’s policymaking, and why Menzies was more selective in his use of them than many modern prime ministers. Key inquiries from the era include the Murray Report on Universities which was pivotal in informing Menzies’s sweeping reforms to tertiary education, the Royal Commission on Espionage which was formed in response to the Petrov defection and which was one of the most controversial and politically charged Commissions in Australian political history, and the Vernon Economic Inquiry instigated by Country Party Leader Black Jack McEwen and which Menzies scuttled.

Bob Bowker: ‘The Decline of an Empire to which Australians Largely Wished Still to Belong’ Menzies and the Suez Crisis

29 October marks the 65th anniversary of the start of the Suez Conflict, during which Israeli, French and British troops attacked Egypt in an attempt to regain control of the Suez Canal which had been nationalised by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. It was in this complex and tense situation that Robert Menzies took on a central role on the global stage, acting as the leader of an international committee which sought to convince Nasser to allow an international body to operate the canal.Joining us to discuss the Suez Crisis is former Australian Ambassador and author of Australia, Menzies and Suez: Australian Policymaking on the Middle East Before, During and After the Suez Crisis, Dr Bob Bowker.

Tim Costello: ‘You are Blessed to be a Blessing’ Menzies’s Sense of Duty to Australia’s Neighbours

During the Menzies era Australian foreign aid spending achieved its highest ever average as a percentage of our GDP, while in 1959 Prime Minister Robert Menzies was able to boast that Australia had taken in more refugees per head of population than any other country in the world, a fact of which he was tremendously proud. Joining us to discuss these issues is the Reverend Tim Costello AO. Tim is one of Australia’s most respected community leaders and a sought after voice on social justice issues, leadership and ethics.

Stephen Chavura: ‘Britishness Meant… a Love of Liberty Tempered by an Emphasis on Duty’, Examining Menzies’s Political Beliefs in Context

Joining us this week on Afternoon Light to discuss Menzies’s political beliefs is Dr Stephen Chavura, lecturer in history at Campion College. Steve has written a new book, with Professor Greg Melleuish from the University of Wollongong, The Forgotten Menzies. Steve and Greg unpack Menzies’s political philosophy in its own context and on its own terms, not as a liberal nor a conservative.