JOHN JOSEPH CURTIN

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The character and political career of John Curtin are all part of a paradox. 'Of Irish-Catholic descent, he became an agnostic but still led a party in which many powerful members were Catholics. Shy and reserved in society, he had a passion for the underprivileged which made him a great and compelling orator. Almost painfully sensitive, he did not hesitate to clash head-on with the overwhelming personality of Winston Churchill - and win. Profoundly devoted to peace, he became such a notable wartime leader that Churchill described him as "commanding and successful" In 1941, a political journalist wrote: "Plain John Curtin, alleged by his political opponents to have shivered for six years in Opposition at the prospect of going into office, has taken the plunge and, as Australia's Prime Minister, is amazing his critics."

Curtin was born in 1885 in Creswick, Victoria, where his father was a policeman. When his father became a semi-invalid, the family knew poverty and young john had to go to work at 13. He was a printer's helper, hotel pageboy, labourer in a pottery works, copyboy on the Melbourne Age and clerk in a factory.

This first-hand experience of working-class conditions early this century, plus wide reading of socialist literature, turned Curtin into a radical activist. By 1906, as a founder-member of the Victorian Socialist Party, he was a regular speaker at political meetings. In 1911 he became secretary of the Victorian branch of the Timber Workers' Union and, in 1914, stood unsuccessfully for parliament.

In 1916, as secretary of the Victorian Anti-Conscription League, he was sentenced to three months imprisonment for failing to enlist under the Military Service Proclamation. This was one of Hughes' attempts to force conscription on Australians, but it was withdrawn when Curtin had served only three days in prison.

Soon after that, in a move which was to prove permanent, he accepted the editorial chair of the Perth Westralian Worker and took his wife and children to Western Australia. During Hughes' second conscription referendum, Curtin fought the battle once again, but escaped a second spell in prison even though he was charged with sedition.

By that time, the Labor Party knew him as a man with an almost Marxist approach to politics, expressed through the columns of the Westralian Worker. But by 1928, when he won the federal seat of Fremantle, this attitude was gradually moderating - although Curtin was strongly critical of Scullin's 'regressive' policies. When Scullin resigned as leader, Curtin won the leadership by only one vote from Frank Forde.

As leader, he worked ardently to cure the ailments of a party still suffering from the conflicts of the Depression years. When the UAP-Country Party coalition began to fall apart in the early 1940s, Curtin had made Labor strong enough to mount a new challenge. The opportunity came in October 1941, when Curtin moved the hostile amendment to Fadden's budget which forced Fadden to step down as Prime Minister.

Exactly two months after Curtin took over, Japan attacked Pearl Harbour. Allied power throughout the Asian-Pacific region began to crumble under the Japanese onslaught, and it became obvious that Australia could no longer rely upon British assistance. On 26 December, Curtin asked President Roosevelt for help and told Australians: "Without inhibitions of any kind, I make it quite clear that Australia looks to America, free of pangs of any kind as to our traditional links with the United Kingdom".

In February 1942, he refused Churchill's request that Australian troops returning home from the Middle East should be diverted to Burma to shore up the collapsing British front in that region. Churchill was furious, but Curtin stubbornly insisted that the troops were urgently needed for the defence of Australia. True-blue conservatives deplored Curtin's turning away from Britain, but his decisions were correct. The early months of 1942, when the Japanese were bombing ports along Australia's north-west coast and seemed likely to invade the continent, were the darkest hours of the war for Australia - and Britain certainly could not help.

America's victories in the Coral Sea and Solomon Islands, along with Australia's at Milne Bay and on the Kokoda Trail, bought Curtin time to mobilise the nation for total war. Every suitable person had to serve in the armed forces or in industry, which concentrated almost entirely on war production. Strict rationing made life austere and, despite Curtin's anti-conscription stance of the first war, he persuaded Labor to conscript men for service overseas. Most Australians agreed with Curtin's initiatives and Labor won the elections of 1943.

Australian people and production helped the great American campaigns which drove the Japanese back into their home islands, but Curtin did not live to see final victory. The stress of war contributed to his sudden death at Canberra on 5 July 1945.

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