8. Australia – 1930 to 1939

For Australians the decade of the 1930s began with problems of huge unemployment, because the fall of the stock markets on Wall Street reduced confidence throughout the world. Most governments reacted to the crisis with similar policies, aimed at slashing back government spending and paying back loans. The Australian government could do little to change the effects of the slump and the tough economic times ahead. This affected the country in many ways.

In 1931, over 1000 unemployed men marched

from the Esplanade to the Treasury Building

in Perth, Western Australia, to see the

Premier, Sir James Mitchell.

Because of the economic downturn, people’s lives changed drastically. Australia had supplied huge amounts of wool for uniforms during World War 1, and many exports helped Australia achieve a high standard of living in the 1920s. The majority of the people of Australia lived very well prior to the fall, so they felt the effects of the depression strongly. Because of the severe economic contraction, the reduction of purchasing goods, employers couldn’t afford to keep excessive workers. A five year unemployment average for 1930-34 was 23.4%,with a peak of 28% of the nation being unemployed in 1932. This was one of the most severe unemployment rates in the industrialised world, exceeded only by Germany.

Many hundreds of thousands of Australians suddenly faced the humiliation of poverty and unemployment. This was still the era of traditional social family structure, where the man was expected to be the sole bread winner. Soup kitchens and charity groups made brave attempts to feed the many starving and destitute. The suicide rates increased dramatically and it became clear that Australia had limits to the resources for dealing with the crisis. The depression's sudden and wide spread unemployment hit the soldiers who had just returned from war the hardest as they were in their mid thirties and still suffering the trauma of their wartime experiences. At night many slept covered in newspapers at Sydney’s Domain or at Salvation Army refugees.

The limited jobs that did arise were viciously fought for. The job vacancies were advertised in the daily newspaper, which formed massive queues to search for any job available. This then caused the race to arrive first at the place of employment (the first person to turn up was usually hired.)

Unlike the United States, where Roosevelt's "New Deal" stimulated the American economy, New Zealand where Michael Savage's pioneering welfare state rapidly reduced hardship, or the United Kingdom where rearmament (from 1936) reduced unemployment, there was no significant mechanism for economic recovery in Australia.

Federation in 1901 had granted only limited power to the federal government. For example, income taxes were collected by the State governments. High tariffs worked to hurt the economy, but powerful interest groups permitted no change in this aspect of policy. There was no significant banking reform or nationalisation of private businesses.

While the 1920’s saw a postwar rush of patriotism, pride and confidence that was expressed in many ways – the expansion of the nation’s iron and steel industry; an impressive capital works program of harbour development, bridge building and road construction; and ambitious program of land settlement, migration and the development of of the nation’s resources, the great depression was a cruel blow to this new country. Social welfare systems were virtually non-existent. The immediate enemy was the employer who either sacked you or cut your wages and conditions (or looked as though he could and would at any time) while the bank manager or the landlord became the uncompromising collector of your housing loan repayments or your rent. If you were ‘on the land’ what you could earn for your produce was barely sufficient to meet your creditors or bank manager.

But there was one basic humiliating form of help. If you could show you had been unemployed for at least a fortnight  and that you had absolutely no means of support to fall back on, sustenance coupons were available to fall back on. Being on “Susso’ was a demeaning experience for Australian men. It was an admission that he could no longer support his family. Join the queues at the labour exchange and register as unemployed, being mocked by public servants, then there was the humiliation of the ‘special shops’ which told your neighbours that your family was on sustenance.

CR Gotts, Sustenance projects during

the depression - campsite in the forest,

1921–1940, photograph: gelatin silver.

Image courtesy of the

National Library of Australia: nla.pic-an20865637-49

The devaluation of the Australian pound, abandonment of the Gold Standard, recovery of major trading partners like the United Kingdom and public works projects instituted by State and local governments led to a slow recovery. Unemployment, which peaked at 29% in 1932, was 11% at the start of the Second World War.

Out of the depression came a brand of fatalism and a certain physical and emotional resilience: you took what life or circumstances dealt you and pressed on. Such a view of life and living during the depression – being ‘the fowl man’, ‘the pie man’, or ‘the trapper’ who sold rabbits and their skins at the local pub or wherever the elusive market might be – would stand these men in good stead in Papua.

The old soldier turned Rabbit Trapper.

Thus we had the emergence of the Australian man who lived with hardship and want: who struggled against all odds to survive and to take care of his own; a society in which ‘mateship’ became a valued attribute and a social standard.

"I'd like to be a pieman, and ring a little bell,
Calling out, "Hot pies! Hot pies to sell!"
Apple-pies and Meat-pies, Cherry-pies as well,
Lots and lots and lots of pies - more than you can tell.
Big, rich Pork-pies! Oh, the lovely smell!
   But I wouldn't be a pieman if ...
      I wasn't very well.
         Would you?"

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