Warwick Eather

Stymied Solutions for the Pest: Farmers, Graziers, Rabbits and the Search for a Biological Agent, 1880–1908

During the late nineteenth century huge numbers of rabbits swept across south-east Australia causing widespread damage. Farming and grazing sheep and cattle became difficult on many properties, but the rabbit industry boomed. For farmers and graziers who tired of efforts to reduce rabbit numbers by shooting, trapping or poisoning, the solution seemed to lie in total extermination with a biological agent. In the late 1880s, the New South Wales (NSW) government took up their cause and offered a £25,000 prize for a biological remedy for the rabbit problem, but the prize was not awarded. Twenty years later farmers and graziers took matters into their own hands and hired the noted French scientist, Dr Jan Danysz, to provide a biological agent to exterminate the rabbits. Danysz’s employment and experiments became a battle between sectional interests. Rural workers, who had begun harvesting rabbits, and rabbit industry investors opposed the Danysz virus for financial reasons, while farmers and graziers supported it because they wanted the rural landscape to support their traditional economic practices. While the NSW government supported landowners, other state governments and the federal government opposed the experiments.

The Liberal Party of Australia and the Australian Women’s Movement Against Socialisation 1947–54

During the Liberal Party of Australia’s formative stages in the 1940s and early 1950s, the Federal and New South Wales Divisions of the Party tended to ignore and/or down play the activities of their women members and office bearers. The gulf that existed between the theory and practice in the Party was further highlighted by the formation and rapid growth of the Australian Women’s Movement Against Socialisation, a right wing organisation that was formed in September 1947 to combat the Chifley Government’s decision to nationalise the private banks. In New South Wales the AWMAS attracted a large number of women who were members and supporters of the LPA, many of whom were disillusioned with the Party. This article begins with an analysis of the rise of the AWMAS. This is followed by a review of the activities undertaken by women activists in the New South Wales Liberal Party who tried to introduce changes within the Party that would allow women members greater opportunities and thus combat the influence of the AWMAS. This is important because it sheds light on efforts to make the Party more attentive to the political needs of women, while it was still going through its formative stages. More importantly, the outcome of the conflict set the parameters for what women activists could hope to achieve in the short term in the Party in New South Wales and at the federal level.