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QLDModern HistoryQuick questions
Unit 3: National experiences in the Modern World (Australia 1914 to 1949)
Quick questions on Post-war Australia 1945 to 1949: Chifley, reconstruction, mass migration and the early Cold War (QCE Modern History Unit 3)
8short Q&A pairs drawn directly from our worked dot-point answer. For full context and worked exam questions, read the parent dot-point page.
What is the migration program?Show answer
The migration program was the most consequential domestic policy of the period. Arthur Calwell, the Minister for Immigration from July 1945, designed and championed the scheme. Its features were:
What is the 1948 Citizenship Act?Show answer
The Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948 created the legal category of "Australian citizen" for the first time. Before 1948 Australians were British subjects under Australian law. The Act distinguished British subjects who were citizens of Australia from those who were citizens of other Commonwealth countries.
What is the Cold War in Australia?Show answer
The Cold War shaped the second half of Chifley's government.
What is the 1949 election?Show answer
The December 1949 election turned on three issues: bank nationalisation, the coal strike (and the Communist threat more broadly), and rationing (still in force for petrol and a few other items).
What is full employment?Show answer
The 1945 White Paper on Full Employment in Australia, drafted by H.C. Coombs, committed the Commonwealth to maintaining "a high and stable level of employment". This was the first explicit Keynesian commitment by an Australian government and the foundation of the post-war social contract.
What are social services?Show answer
The 1944 Pharmaceutical Benefits Act, the 1945 Hospital Benefits Act, expanded child endowment, widows' pensions and unemployment benefit. Many of these were resisted by the High Court (Pharmaceutical Benefits Act struck down in 1945; constitutional amendment passed in 1946).
What is industry policy?Show answer
The government supported manufacturing expansion and reserved key industries for either public ownership (Trans-Australia Airlines 1946) or close regulation. The Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Authority was created in 1949.
What is bank nationalisation?Show answer
The 1947 Banking Act sought to nationalise the trading banks. The High Court struck the legislation down in 1948 (Bank of NSW v Commonwealth) and the Privy Council confirmed in 1949. The episode cost Chifley politically more than it cost him constitutionally; it consolidated conservative opposition.