When the Labor Party Dreams tells the story of the 1930-32 New South Wales Labor government led by Premier Jack Lang. Labor came to power at a time of unprecedented working class radicalism which had been forged by the experiences of World War I, the class struggles of the 1920s and the crisis of capitalism in the early 1930s. Lang and his associates both manipulated and responded to this radicalism. When the Labor Party Dreams uses previously unexamined archival records and oral histories to show how Lang’s government made policy, engaged with the bureaucracy and pushed the conventions of parliamentary democracy to the limit. For the first time in Australia, it employs ecological regression analysis to examine Depression-era electoral behaviour, and shows how Labor’s radicalism was ultimately constrained by the dependence of working-class voters on capitalism. In today’s age of pragmatism When the Labor Party Dreams recalls a time of dreams and visions and their costs, from the factory floor to Cabinet meeting.
Geoffrey Robinson is a political scientist and historian at Deakin University. This is his first major work.
The ‘Big Fella’ and his Dismissal are a cornerstone of Labor lore, but have never been subjected to a forensic examination of this kind. Geoff Robinson’s analysis of the Lang government, its policies, supporters and opponents, stands as a model of political history. - Professor Stuart Macintyre, University of Melbourne.
A radical revisionist account of a traumatic historical period and an iconic figure in Australian political history. Dr Robinson offers a more detailed and sophisticated account of how the Lang government governed, its electoral support and policies than ever before. The book has considerable relevance to contemporary political debates as we search for new social democratic approaches to deal with the impact of globalisation. - Professor Ray Markey, Auckland University of Technology.
Australian Scholarly Publishing ISBN 978 1 74097 194 2 $39.95
PUBLISHED APRIL 2009.
