Preface

One of the hardiest clichés in Australian history is that the 1950s was a dull decade, when conformity settled on the nation’s shoulders, not to leave until the dynamic 1960s. Yet even the slightest scratching of the historical record reveals that there was significantly more going on than this cliché would have us believe. The decade was distinguished by drama, innovation, social change, a loosening of British ties, a big boost in migration, and the rise of consumerism. Australia was already on the path to being a different country by the time 1960 arrived. And the pivotal year in the preceding decade was 1956, when a series of important events — some accidental, others years in the planning — were critical in shaping the nation.

Most people will nominate the Olympic Games in Melbourne and the arrival of television as the nation’s best-known moments of the year, but, as important as these were, there were other events that revealed something else about Australia. There were the British atomic tests at Maralinga, the arrival of the Hungarian refugees in Sydney after the bloody uprising against Soviet rule, the success of Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, and the emergence of Barry Humphries’ comic creation Edna Everage. While Prime Minister Robert Menzies capitalised electorally on the split in the Labor opposition, he also walked the international stage, trying to solve the impasse at the heart of the Suez Canal crisis. These were all elements contributing to a shifting perspective on Australia’s place in the world — how we saw ourselves and how other nations saw us.

How Menzies’ government handled Maralinga said much about our attitude to Indigenous Australians. How we embraced The Doll told us something about our cultural tastes and our desire to hear our own voices on stage. Our response to the Hungarian refugees affirmed our capacity to absorb others into what was an evolving multicultural society before the word was commonplace. And all of this was occurring during one of the most charged eras in world history, when the Cold War gave rise to suspicion and paranoia that inevitably spread to Australia. This is why the stakes were so high for many of the international events of 1956, and Australia’s proximity to some of those events brought it to the world’s attention.

There were subtle but distinct conflicts occurring across Australia by 1956: the rise of the energetic modernisers, who had a vision for the nation that elevated it to the international stage, and those who saw Australia as part of the Empire’s rich continuum, stable and safe. There was also, in the broadest definitions of the word, the conflict between the ‘amateurs’, those who believed in the happy accident of talent, and those ‘professionals’ who saw the need for not only talent but also an organised and intelligent approach to sport, business, and the arts. And then there were those who felt that regulation and control was the right way for Australian society to proceed in an uncertain world, while some others saw the alternative as a means of freedom and a mark of maturity. All of them were caught up in the events of 1956.

This book has identified several characters who were part of the year’s events. In some instances they were not the main figures but their story helps illuminate the bigger picture. They move in and out of focus as the year progresses, commenting on their circumstance, telling us how they got there and, in some cases, what happened next. The book’s structure follows the chronology of the year, and culminates inevitably with the Olympic Games in Melbourne. The Games crystallised some of those shifts in Australian life, and underlined how the nation was in the world’s sight like never before. This is a book about a year when Australia’s gaze was pulled outwards, beyond the Empire and the old world, and towards a different future.