Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
WWII & Growth
As the economy began to recover, the whirl of daily life was hardly dampened when Aus-
tralian servicemen and -women sailed off to Europe to fight in a new war in 1939. Though
Japan was menacing, Australians took it for granted that the British navy would keep them
safe. In December 1941, Japan bombed the US fleet at Pearl Harbor. Weeks later, the 'im-
pregnable' British naval base in Singapore crumbled, and soon thousands of Australians
and other Allied troops were enduring the savagery of Japan's prisoner-of-war camps.
As the Japanese swept through Southeast Asia and into Papua New Guinea, the British
announced that they could not spare any resources to defend Australia. But the legendary
US general Douglas MacArthur saw that Australia was the perfect base for US operations
in the Pacific and established his headquarters in Brisbane. As the fighting intensified,
thousands of US troops were garrisoned in bases the length of Queensland: Australians and
Americans got to know each other as never before. In a series of savage battles on sea and
land, Australian and US forces gradually turned back the Japanese advance. The days of
the Australian-British alliance were numbered.
As the war ended, a new slogan rang through the land: 'Populate or Perish!' The Aus-
tralian government embarked on an ambitious scheme to attract thousands of immigrants.
With government assistance, people flocked from Britain and from non-English-speaking
countries. They included Greeks, Italians, Slavs, Serbs, Croatians, Dutch and Poles, fol-
lowed by Turks, Lebanese and others.
This was the era when Australian families basked in the prosperity of a 'long boom' cre-
ated by skilful government management of the economy. Manufacturing companies such as
General Motors and Ford operated with generous tariff support. The social-welfare system
became more extensive and now included generous unemployment benefits. The govern-
ment owned many key services, including Qantas, which it bought in 1947. This, essen-
tially, was the high point of the 'Australian Settlement' - a partnership of government and
private enterprise designed to share prosperity as widely as possible.
At the same time, there was growing world demand for the type of primary products pro-
duced in Queensland: metals, coal, wool, meat and wheat. By the 1960s mining dominated
the state's economy and coal was the major export. That same decade, the world's largest
bauxite mine roared into life at Weipa on the Cape York Peninsula.
This era of postwar growth and prosperity was dominated by Robert Menzies, the
founder of the modern Liberal Party of Australia, and Australia's longest-serving prime
