Though Australia had entered the Second World War as a dominion of the British Empire at the same time as the United Kingdom did, the Japanese campaign in the Pacific changed the nature of Australian involvement. The Labor government believed that Australian troops were best used to defend Australia in the Pacific theatre, and Curtin was determined to have an independent foreign policy.
Prime Minister John Curtin
“That reddish veil which o’er the face
Of night-hag East is drawn
Flames new disaster for the race?
Or can it be the dawn?
So wrote Bernard O’Dowd. I see 1942 as a year in which we shall know the answer.
I would, however, that we provide the answer. We can and we will. Therefore I see 1942 as a year of immense change in Australian life.
The Australian Government’s policy has been grounded on two facts. One is that the war with Japan is not a phase of the struggle with the Axis powers, but is a new war. The second is that Australia must go on to a war footing.
Those two facts involve two lines of action—one in the direction of external policy as to our dealings with Britain, the United States, Russia, the Netherlands East Indies and China in the higher direction of the war in the Pacific.
The second is the reshaping, in fact the revolutionising, of the Australian way of life until a war footing is attained quickly, efficiently and without question.
As the Australian Government enters 1942, it has behind it a record of realism in respect of foreign affairs. I point to the forthright declaration in respect of Finland, Hungary, and Rumania, which was followed with little delay by a declaration of war against those countries by the Democracies.
We felt that there could be no half-measures in our dealings with the Soviet, when when that nation was being assailed by the three countries mentioned.
Similarly, we put forward that a reciprocal agreement between Russia and Britain should be negotiated to meet an event of aggression by Japan. Our suggestion was then regarded, wrongly as time has proved, to be premature.
Now with equal realism, we take the view that, while the determination of military policy is the Soviet’s business, we should be able to look forward with reason to aid from Russia against Japan. We look for a solid and impregnable barrier of the Democracies against the three Axis powers, and we refuse to accept the dictum that the Pacific struggle must be treated as a subordinate segment of the general conflict. By that it is not meant that any one of the other theatres of war is of less importance than the Pacific, but that Australia asks for a concerted plan evoking the greatest strength at the Democracies’ disposal, determined upon hurling Japan back.
The Australian Government, therefore, regards the Pacific struggle as primarily one in which the United States and Australia must have the fullest say in the direction of the democracies’ fighting plan.
Without any inhibitions of any kind, I make it quite clear that Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom.
We know the problem the United Kingdom faces. We know the constant threat of invasion. We know the dangers of dispersal of strength, but we know, too, that Australia can go and Britain can still hold on.
We are, therefore, determined that Australia shall not go, and we shall exert all our energies towards the shaping of a plan, with the United States as its keystone, which will give to our country some confidence of being able to hold out until the tide of battle swings against the enemy.
Summed up, the Australian external policy will be shaped toward obtaining Russian aid, and working out, with the United States, as the major factor, a plan of Pacific strategy, along with British, Chinese and Dutch forces.
Australian internal policy has undergone striking changes in the past few weeks. These, and those that will inevitably come before 1942 is far advanced, have been prompted by several reasons.
In the first place the Commonwealth Government found it exceedingly difficult to bring the Australian people to a realisation of what, after two years of war, our position had become. Even the entry of Japan, bringing a direct threat in our own waters, was met with a subconscious view that the Americans would deal with the shortsighted, underfed, and fanatical Japanese.
The announcement that no further appeals would be made to the Australian people, and the decisions that followed, were motivated by psychological factors. They had an arresting effect. They awakened, in the somewhat lackadaisical Australian mind, the attitude that was imperative if we were to save ourselves, to enter an ‘all-in’ effort in the only possible manner.
That experiment in psychology was eminently successful, and we commence 1942 with a better realisation of what the war means than in the whole preceding two years.
The decisions were prompted by other reasons, all related to the necessity of getting on to a war footing, and the results so far achieved have been most heartening, especially in respect of production and conservation of stocks.
I make it clear that the experiment undertaken was never intended as one to awaken Australian patriotism or sense of duty. Those qualities have been ever-present; but the response to leadership and direction has never been requested of the people, and desirable talents and untapped resources had lain dormant.
Our task in 1942 is stern. The Government is under no illusions as to ‘something cropping up’ in the future.
The nadir of our fortunes in this struggle, as compared with 1914-18, has yet to be reached.
Let there be no mistake about that. The position Australia faces internally far exceeds in potential and sweeping danger anything that confronted us in 1914-18.
The year 1942 will impose supreme tests. These range from resistance to invasion, to deprivation of more and more amenities, not only the amenities of peacetime, but those enjoyed in two years of war.
Australians must realise that to place the nation on a war footing every citizen must place himself, his private and business affairs, his entire mode of living on a war footing. The civilian way of life cannot be any less rigorous, can contribute no less than that which the fighting men have to follow.
I demand that Australians everywhere realise that Australia is now inside the fighting lines.
Australian Governmental policy will be directed strictly on those lines. We have to regard our country and its 7,000,000 people as though we were a nation and a people with the enemy hammering at our frontier.
Australians must be perpetually on guard; on guard against the possibility, at any hour without warning, of a raid or invasion; on guard against spending money or doing anything that cannot be justified; on guard against hampering by disputation or idle, irresponsible chatter, the decisions of the Government taken for the welfare of all.
All Australia is at stake in this war. All Australia must stand together to hold that stake. We face a powerful, ably-led, and unbelievably courageous foe.
We must match the enemy accordingly. We shall watch him accordingly.
—Herald, Melbourne, 27 December 1941.