He was another in the line of Labor hard men, who believed that "to relent even a fraction is an unbecoming weakness". Hanlon led a state sapped and drained by war. He faced strikes by meatworkers but the railway strike of 1948 posed the greatest challenge — a challenge that Hanlon, deeply religious and staunchly anti-communist, seemed to relish.

The strike was all the handiwork of communist union leaders, "budding commissars" and "mimicking Molotovs", he said in a radio broadcast. He had a point: two of the organisers, Ted Rowe and Alex McDonald, were members of the Communist Party of Australia, as were barristers Fred Paterson and Max Julius, both of whom were advising the unions.

Paterson was the only member of the Communist Party ever elected to an Australian parliament. He was never the same after a brutal bashing he copped at the hands of a copper during the strike.

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"If ever there was a weak collection of salary-chasing opportunist humbugs, it was the members of the Labor Party led by Hanlon. No Tory government could be more vicious."

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On February 27, 1948, at the height of the strike, Hanlon declared a state of emergency under the Transport Act. This proclamation, the second in three years, effectively outlawed strikes and pickets.

When wharfies came out in support of the railway workers, Hanlon rushed through new laws to give police power to break up gatherings, enter homes without warrant, arrest without warrant and reverse the onus of proof. No prosecution of police officers would be possible.

Little wonder then that later, a union official was bitter about his parliamentary colleagues: "If ever there was a weak collection of salary-chasing opportunist humbugs devoid of even a semblance of working-class principle, it was the members of the Labor Party led by Hanlon. No Tory government could be more vicious."

Hanlon died in office in 1952. His successor was Vince Gair, right, described once as "short, round and affable yet arrogant, devious and tenacious".

Gair's cabinet included one Thomas Andrew Foley, known as "Fine-Cut Foley" after 1946, when a load of contraband tobacco was found in his garage. ("Fine-cut", for the benefit of younger readers, was a form of tobacco rubbed between the hands to produce the contents of a roll-your-own cigarette.)

In the mid-1950s, as Gair's lands minister, Foley had a running battle with the AWU. In its newspaper, The Worker, the AWU wrote of corruption in Foley's department. A royal commission was appointed and Foley stood aside.

During the hearing, AWU secretary Joe Bukowski said the union's northern organiser, Edgar Williams, had been told Goondiwindi graziers had to pay large sums to ensure renewal of their leases.

The royal commission found that Foley was guilty of corrupt conduct. He resigned from cabinet and the original whistle-blower — the head of the land administration board — was suspended. Government and opposition agreed the public servant, who had acted with integrity, was guilty of "breach of trust".

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The unions had had enough of this truculent, aggressive, bitter, ruthless premier.

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The affair poisoned relations between Gair and the AWU — the 1957 ALP split owed much to this bitter period of politics.

Gair helped, of course. In 1956, he declared yet another state of emergency, to deal with a shearers' strike in which the AWU now had the backing of the rival union grouping, the Trades and Labor Council. He jumped at an offer from acting prime minister Artie Fadden, of the Country Party, to bring in troops to load wool on Brisbane's wharves.

The cry went up: "Gair must Go". The unions had had enough of this truculent, aggressive, bitter premier who acted ruthlessly and without regard for the party he was supposed to represent.

Continued >>