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PODCAST

Afternoon Light

Robert Menzies Institute

Welcome to the Afternoon Light Podcast, a captivating journey into the heart of Australia’s political history and enduring values. Presented by the Robert Menzies Institute, a prime ministerial library and museum, this podcast illuminates the remarkable legacy of Sir Robert Menzies, Australia’s longest-serving prime minister. Dive into the rich tapestry of Menzies’s contemporary impact as we explore his profound contributions on the Afternoon Light Podcast. Join us as we delve into his unyielding

history politics

All Episodes

39:14

Summer Series 2022-3 Part 6: David Furse-Roberts &...

Afternoon Light ·

2023/02/01

In this special summer series of the Afternoon Light podcast you can enjoy the presentations delivered at our November 2022 conference entitled ‘Coming to Power, Learning to Govern and Gathering Momentum 1943-1954’. This sixth episode features David Furse Robert’s paper looking at ‘Percy Spender: the Colombo Plan, the ANZUS Treaty and the Japanese Peace Treaty’ and Lyndon Megarrity’s paper exploring ‘International Students before and after Colombo’ (begins at 18:30).

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34:08

Summer Series 2022-3 Part 5: William Stoltz & David Lee

Afternoon Light ·

2023/01/25

In this special summer series of the Afternoon Light podcast you can enjoy the presentations delivered at our November 2022 conference entitled ‘Coming to Power, Learning to Govern and Gathering Momentum 1943-1954’. This fifth episode features William Stoltz’s paper on ‘The Founding of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service’ and David Lee’s paper looking at ‘Economic Management During the Korean War’ (begins at 18:30).

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43:01

Summer Series 2022-3 Part 4: Lucas McLennan &...

Afternoon Light ·

2023/01/18

In this special summer series of the Afternoon Light podcast you can enjoy the presentations delivered at our November 2022 conference entitled ‘Coming to Power, Learning to Govern and Gathering Momentum 1943-1954’. This fourth episode features Lucas McLennan’s paper examining ‘Menzies and the "Movement": Two pillars of Australian anti-communism’ and Lorraine Finlay’s paper exploring 'What liberty for the enemies of liberty? Reflections on Menzies and the attempts to ban the Australian Communist

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58:10

Summer Series 2022-3 Part 3: Tom Switzer, Andrew...

Afternoon Light ·

2023/01/11

In this special summer series of the Afternoon Light podcast you can enjoy the presentations delivered at our November 2022 conference entitled ‘Coming to Power, Learning to Govern and Gathering Momentum 1943-1954’. This third episode features Tom Switzer’s paper on ‘Liberalism Applied? Policy shifts in the transition from Chifley to Menzies’, Andrew Blyth’s paper on ‘Early Think Tanks and their impact on the Menzies Government’ (begins at 20:00), and Christopher Beer’s paper ‘The Forgotten People

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36:45

Summer Series 2022-3 Part 2: Troy Bramston & Charles...

Afternoon Light ·

2023/01/04

In this special summer series of the Afternoon Light podcast you can enjoy the presentations delivered at our November 2022 conference entitled ‘Coming to Power, Learning to Govern and Gathering Momentum 1943-1954’. This second episode features Troy Bramston’s paper on ‘Robert Menzies: The Art of Power’ and Charles Richardson’s paper on ‘Menzies, Evatt and Constitutional Government’ (begins at 19:15).

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01:03:25

Summer Series 2022-3 Part 1: George Brandis, Nicolle...

Afternoon Light ·

2022/12/28

In this special summer series of the Afternoon Light podcast you can enjoy the presentations delivered at our November 2022 conference entitled ‘Coming to Power, Learning to Govern and Gathering Momentum 1943-1954’. This first episode features the keynote address delivered by the Honourable George Brandis KC, Nicolle Flint’s paper on ‘Menzies’s Miracle? The Foundation of the Liberal Party of Australia’ (begins at 22:30), and Anne Henderson’s on ‘Menzies and the Banks’ (begins at 44:30).

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45:30

Dean Kotlowski, ‘Not going to disappear’ Comparing...

Afternoon Light ·

2022/12/21

Australia is far from the only country that started out as a settler colony built on the dispossession of Indigenous peoples, nor is it alone in having a complex path in coming to terms with the resulting legacies. Each story has its own nuances, similarities and contrasts, that can help reveal what we have gotten right and what we have gotten wrong. One obvious parallel is the United States, which experienced its own frontier wars but which also has a distinct history of making and ultimately

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48:06

Stephen Wilks, ‘This extraordinary synthesis of ideas...

Afternoon Light ·

2022/12/14

Long time Country Party Leader Earle Page was possibly the most important side character in Australian political history. He engineered the fall of Billy Hughes, won a coalition on generous terms that has shaped the centre-right of politics ever since, and served as second in command for the aptly named Bruce-Page Government and also for much of the Lyons Ministry. But he was also a man of vision, holding a profound belief in developmentalism, who was always on the lookout for the ‘psychological

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35:52

William Cook, ‘The sheer size of it’ Menzies’s...

Afternoon Light ·

2022/12/07

One of the main reasons that the Robert Menzies Institute has been set up at the University of Melbourne, beyond the fact that Menzies was both a student and chancellor of the institution, is that he bequeathed the university his personal library of over 4000 books. Housed in the Leigh Scott Room in the Baillieu Library, the collection is a cultural artefact that reveals insights into who Menzies knew, what he read, and what engaged his mind. A remarkable time capsule of twentieth century Australia,

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44:00

David Lee, ‘I don’t vote for them, but I’ll vote for...

Afternoon Light ·

2022/11/30

John Curtin and Robert Menzies remain arguably the most revered prime ministers on their respective sides of Australian politics. The two men shared a mutual respect for one another, and a sense of cordiality that crossed party lines, even if that was severely tested by Eddie Ward’s ‘Brisbane Line’ fabrication. As two prime ministers who shared the burden of leading the nation through its greatest test, Curtin has tended to receive more credit for Australia’s success in World War Two, but for that

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42:19

Meg Gurry, ‘Australia has always been strategically...

Afternoon Light ·

2022/11/23

Australia’s relationship with India has been slow to prosper. For all our cultural ties and mutual love of cricket, until recently the shared legacy of Empire tended to stunt rather than facilitate the two nations coming to understand each other. These issues were epitomised by the relationship between Menzies and Nehru, two record-setting leaders who could bond over a love of parliamentary democracy, but who otherwise viewed the world through very different eyes. With the advent of the Quad, and

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53:04

Elizabeth Tynan, ‘They Had No Business Making Those...

Afternoon Light ·

2022/11/16

It is little remembered that in the race to produce the world’s first nuclear weapon, Britain took an early lead before changing tact to focus on assisting America’s efforts. In the immediate aftermath of World War Two, the United States shut off their wartime ally from access to the technology they had helped to create, and the United Kingdom was forced to lean on the Commonwealth to become a nuclear power. After being rebuffed by Canada, Britain settled on Australia as the site for a large number

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39:01

Bain Attwood, ‘A sense of kin’ The Life of William...

Afternoon Light ·

2022/11/09

William Cooper was a pioneering Indigenous activist, notable for his famous petition to King George VI for an Aboriginal representative in the Australian parliament, his call for a day of mourning after 150 years of colonisation, the walk-off of the Yorta Yorta people from Cummeragunja reserve in 1939, and his opposition to the establishment of an Aboriginal regiment in the Second World War. In his later years Cooper wrote several letters lobbying for change from Prime Minister Robert Menzies, who

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51:22

James Curran, ‘A certain amount of forgetting’ The...

Afternoon Light ·

2022/11/02

Australia’s relationship with China has always been fraught with both difficulty and opportunity. It was Menzies who established Australia’s first diplomatic mission to China during World War Two, and he had a lot of sympathy for the beleaguered ally that was the Chinese Nationalist Government. It was subsequently quite disheartening to see them defeated in the Chinese Civil War, but the Menzies Government’s attitude towards recognising the victorious Communist regime was far more nuanced than is

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40:32

Jonathan Pincus, ‘Two Very Different Visions’...

Afternoon Light ·

2022/10/26

One of the defining features of the Menzies era was a long economic boom where, apart from the occasional short hiccup, growth remained high while inflation and unemployment remained low. The eternal debate is to what extent did the Menzies Government facilitate this prosperity? While Menzies maintained a significant role for the state and the levers of Keynesian economic control that were already in place, there is no doubt that his anti-socialist vision contrasted with his predecessor who not only

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39:47

Lord Jonathan Sumption, ‘An enormous font of...

Afternoon Light ·

2022/10/19

During the month of October, the Robert Menzies Institute has been very proud to host former Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom Lord Jonathan Sumption on a tour of Australia in which he has captivated audiences with a number of prominent speaking engagements, most notably the RMI Oration and Gala. Sumption’s views on the pivotal importance of the rule of law and the precarious future of modern democracy closely echo concerns expressed by Sir Robert Menzies, who himself was very close

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48:27

Clement Macintyre, ‘First, Second, Third Priority was...

Afternoon Light ·

2022/10/12

Robert Menzies holds the record as Australia's longest serving prime minister, but he is certainly not Australia's longest serving ‘democratically’ elected political leader. That record is held by Thomas Playford, who was Premier of South Australia for an astonishing period from 1938 until 1965. This period corresponded with both of Menzies’s stints as prime minister, and the Federal leader had a complicated relationship with the State’s unconventional non-Labor government. Playford was always

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44:17

Christy Collis, ‘Truly Terra Nullius’ Australia’s...

Afternoon Light ·

2022/10/05

One of the more obscure achievements of the Menzies Government was establishing Mawson Station, Australia’s first permanent base on the once uninhabited southern continent. This difficult endeavour was done partly in the name of science, but also to secure Australia’s claim to 42% of the territory which had its origins in the ‘historic age’ of exploration. This claim remains disputed, and the ins and outs of how various countries have tried to take possession of the barren and inhospitable, but

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49:17

David Lowe ‘Less of a Plan than an Umbrella’...

Afternoon Light ·

2022/09/28

The Colombo Plan is one of Australia’s most successful and best remembered foreign policy initiatives. It is commonly associated with an influx of visiting students from our region who helped to breakdown the prejudices of white Australia and lay the groundwork for education to become one of our greatest exports. However, the Colombo Plan was bigger than Australia and it was broader than education. It was an ambitious attempt to use soft power to halt the spread of communism and to bring stability

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42:25

Mark Edele, ‘The history of their family, the history...

Afternoon Light ·

2022/09/21

The dismantling of the White Australia Policy was a long process, but its tentative beginning may be dated to the initial wave of post-war migration which served to expand the definition of ‘Australian’ beyond descendants of the British Isles. An early and large proportion of these migrants were displaced persons from Eastern Europe who did not want to return to homes that had been absorbed into the Soviet sphere. Many had to lie about their identity in order to avoid forced repatriation, and their

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