#ben chifley

[urbanwronski]

The Midas Curse: How Mining Interests Own Australia's Democracy

“You can’t always get what you want,” sang The Rolling Stones. The Australian mining lobby never received the memo. For decades, it has secured its every wish: a royalty regime that ranks among the world’s most generous, a tax system engineered for exploitation, and a political duopoly that has systematically obstructed a renewable future to protect fossil fuel profits. Australia’s Midas Curse…

The Midas Curse: How Mining Interests Own Australia's Democracy

[dk-thrive]

Ben Chifley used to say, 'Always make your decisions on moral grounds, and the details will fall into place.' Thus, 'if you go down, you go down on something you believe in.'

— Helen Garner, One Day I'll Remember This: Diaries 1987–1995 (Text Publishing Company, October 12, 2021)

[timegents]

Road trip: NSW Central Tablelands

Road trip: NSW Central Tablelands

By MICK ROBERTS ©

THERE were lessons to be learnt from our road trip to the central tablelands of NSW earlier this month. And that lesson? Bush pubs are as diverse as the publicans behind their bars.

From pubs catering to the needs of farming communities, for tourism, or that provide the social needs for coal miners, Time Gents visit westward over the Great Dividing Range, also revealed that it…

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[mindblowingfactz]

Then PM of Australia, Ben Chifley, would regularly receive calls on his secret direct line from housewives trying to order meat as the number was similar to the local Butcher's. Instead of embarrassing the callers, Chifley would take down their orders and pass it onto the Butcher. source

image via hobopipes

[themyskira]

Allow me to tell you the tale of the time when the Prime Minister of Australia gave Buckingham Palace a collective heart attack by snubbing a dinner invite from the king.

It’s the late 1940s, and Prime Minister Ben Chifley is in London for a Commonwealth prime ministers’ conference when he receives an invitation to dine with the King. When he declines, the official secretary is stunned into speechlessness. You don’t say ‘no’ to dinner with the King of England; it’s just not done! He says something vague about a prior engagement, which just dumbfounds them. What kind of prior engagement could possibly be more important than a formal banquet with your country’s head of state?!

So Chif’s refusal isn’t simply insulting, it’s utterly flabbergasting to all involved.

Now, you might be thinking at this point that the Prime Minister was making some kind of statement with this snub. Maybe this is his way of dropping a pointed reminder that Australia is an independent nation, subservient to no one, and Britain can’t just expect the former colonies to follow along blindly whenever the King says ‘heel’.

The truth, though? The truth is that Chifley hadn’t packed a dinner suit. This ABSOLUTE DORK opted to insult the King by declining an invite because he DIDN’T HAVE THE RIGHT CLOTHES TO WEAR.

Lord Gowrie, a former Governor-General of Australia who’d gotten to know Chifley during his tenure, pops over for a visit. He’s quite concerned. Ben, he says, you realise the whole palace is in a tailspin over this dinner thing, right? Chif explains the dinner suit situation, and Gowrie's like, well, if that’s all it is, I’ll hire a suit for you myself.

“No you won’t,” says Chif stubbornly. “I’ve never sat in somebody else’s clothes in my life. I wouldn’t go anywhere in a hired suit. No, no, tell them I’m busy.”

A rather exasperated Gowrie goes off and relays all this to the palace. A little later, he phones to tell Chifley that the King has been apprised of the, er, problem, and has decided to wear a lounge suit. Diplomatic crisis averted!

Still, it was quite an upset. The King had never before attended a formal banquet in anything other than a dinner suit. And because the palace forgot to relay the change in dress code to the other attendees, everyone else showed up dressed to the nines. The only ones wearing lounge suits were the King and Ben Chifley.

[4minutesofdishydeliciousness]

We have a great objective - the light on the hill - which we aim to reach by working the betterment of mankind not only here but anywhere we may give a helping hand. If it were not for that, the Labor movement would not be worth fighting for.

Ben Chifley | The Light On The Hill speech | Delivered to the 1949 NSW ALP conference

[statelibrarynsw]

We have a great objective - the light on the hill - which we aim to reach by working the betterment of mankind not only here but anywhere we may give a helping hand. If it were not for that, the Labor movement would not be worth fighting for.

Ben Chifley, became Prime Minister of Australia, on this day, July 13 1945.  He was Prime Minister until 19 December 1949 and died in 1951.

Chifley was born and raised in Bathurst, worked on the railways for many years and took part in the General Strike of 1917.

"The light on the hill" speech was delivered by Ben Chifley in 1949.

[thelightonthehill-blog]

Ben Chifley

The 16th Prime Minister of Australia (13 July 1945 - 19 December 1949)