By Greg Blood
JOSEPH BENEDICT ‘BEN’ CHIFLEY– AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY
15th Prime Minister: 1945 -1949
Ben Chifley as Treasurer (1941-1949) and Prime Minister (1945-1949) made decisions that impacted positively and negatively on sport in Australia encompassed by World War II. Sport was important to Chifley in his youth and it helped him gain a community profile in Bathurst through his rugby achievements. He understood that sport would play an important role in rebuilding Australia after the war through participation or the hosting of a significant event such as the Olympic Games. But the entertainment tax and petrol rationing decisions did briefly place a handbrake on sport development.
Birth: 22 September 1885, Bathurst, NSW – Death: 13 June 1951, Canberra
Major Political Appointments
- Federal Member for Macquarie, NSW: 17 November 1928 – 28 April 1951
- Leader of the Federal Parliamentary Australian Labor Party: 13 July 1945 – 13 June 1951
- Ministries: Minister for Defence 3 March 1931 – 6 January 1932, Minister for Defence 14 April 1942 – 5 July 1945, Treasurer 7 October 1941 – 19 December 1949, Minister for Post-War Reconstruction 22 December 1942 – 2 February 1945
- Cabinet: 3 March 1931 – 6 January 1932, 7 October 1941 – 19 December 1949,
- Prime Minister: 13 July 1945 – 19 December 1949
Joseph Benedict “Ben” Chifley was born on 22 September 1885 in Bathurst, New South Wales and was the eldest of three sons. Due to his family’s financial difficulties, at the age of five he was sent to live with his grandfather Patrick Chifley, who had a small farm at Limekilns, New South Wales. After his grandfather died in 1899, he returned to his parents’ home in Bathurst and attended Patrician Brothers School for two years.
His first job was as a cashier at J. Meagher’s department store in Bathurst. In September 1903, he commenced employment with the New South Wales Railways and undertook a range of jobs leading to becoming an engine driver in March 1914. Whilst working, he attended classes run by Workers’ Educational Association four nights a week. He became a member of Locomotive Enginemen’s Association, its local organiser and joined the Australian Labor Party.
Chifley had several unsuccessful attempts to become a political representative – Labor candidate for NSW state electorate of Bathurst at the 1922 and 1924 elections and federal electorate of Macquarie in 1925. Chifley went on to win Macquarie at the 1928 federal election and retained it with of a 10.7-point swing at the 1929 federal election won the ALP’s Joseph Scullin. He was appointed the Minister for Defence in 1931 after the Scullin government lost several members including future prime minister Joseph Lyons over the government’s economic policies during the Great Depression. Chifley departed the federal parliament as he was soundly defeated in Macquarie at the 1931 federal election won by Joseph Lyons, now leading the United Australia Party.
Prior to regaining the Macquarie seat at the 1940 federal election won by ALP leader John Curtain, Chifley was a member of the Royal Commission on Monetary and Banking Systems in 1935–1936, and as the director of labour supply and administration for the Department of Supply in 1939–1940.
Chifley’s reputation as an economist and administrator led him being appointed treasurer in John Curtain’s Labor government in 1940. He also served as Minister for Defence and Minister for Post-war Reconstruction in the Curtain government. He became prime minister on 13 July 1945 following the sudden death of John Curtain. He took over from caretaker prime minister Frank Forde. He was both prime minister and treasurer until defeated by Robert Menzies at the 1949 federal election. After his defeat by Menzies, he was Leader of the Opposition until his death on 13 June 1951 in Canberra due to a heart attack. Chifley was a heavy pipe smoker.[1]
Early Sport Interest
Chifley’s participation and interest in sport stems from when he attended Patrician Brothers’ School in Bathurst for two years. In his Bathurst home, there were numerous photographs covering rugby players, cricketers, boxers and racehorses nailed to the wall. [2] It was reported that Chifley as a seventeen-year-old attended Victor Trumper’s hurricane innings of 335 at Redfern Oval in Sydney in 1903.[3]
Rugby Union
Chifley played rugby union at Patrician Brothers School and on leaving school played for Bathurst’s Eastern Division Football Club which won the J. Meagher’s Cup in 1905. The team included younger brother Patrick. [4] From the age of seventeen, he was playing as a breakaway forward for Bathurst Fifteen against other representative towns in the region including Lithgow and Orange.[5] Chifley was selected to play for the Western Union side in New South Wales Country Week Carnivals in Sydney in 1906 and 1907. [6] Day noted he earned the nick name of “ironman” for his courage and stamina.
He was unable to attend the 1908 Country Week carnival due to work commitments and missed out on trial matches to select the Australasian team that would tour Britain in 1908 and go onto win the gold medal at the 1908 London Olympics. [7] [8] Day noted Chifley’s family’s financial situation often impacted on his participation at Country Week carnivals. He was still playing rugby in 1912.[9] His rugby playing career appears to have finished just prior to becoming an engine driver in 1914 – a job that would have led to work on weekends throughout NSW.
Rugby union was not the only sport that Chifley played in his youth. A newspaper report on his death stated that:
Ben Chifley was an amateur boxer. In those less sophisticated days when grown men played marbles and quoits, Ben Chifley was an undisputed marbles champion and a noted iron quoits player. He was in the cricket team, too, but more for his skill as treasurer than for any prowess with the bat and ball.[10]
In his youth, Chifley played cricket and this extended into his early working life where he captained the Railway Institute team. In 1949, in speaking to touring railway cricketers, Chifley stated that his captaincy “was due more to his ability to collect subscriptions from the players than to any skill with bat or ball”.[11]
Chifley took an interest in horse racing and in the early 1930’s and was a member of the Western Districts Racing Club. He later became Vice President and acted as judge from time to time [12] This connection would have expanded Chifley’s social connections and increased his electoral appeal in this regional electorate.
As prime minister, Chifley maintained a strong interest in sport. Worker reported in 1947 that “Mr. Chifley retains a lively interest in sport and saw part of two cricket Tests against the Englishmen last season. He listened in to both recent Rugby Union Tests”.[13]
Day in his biography on Chifley stated that “the first impact Chifley made on the people of Bathurst – within and beyond the railway community – came through his sport.”[14] This highlights the role that sport plays in regional and rural communities in Australia and it can assist in sports people developing a significant community profile.[15]
Olympic Games
The Australian Olympic Federation (AOF) informed the Chifley government that it required £25,000 to send the team to the 1948 London Olympic Games due to utilising air transport for the first time. Chifley as prime minister and treasurer was reported as stating the team should be restricted to 20 athletes who were medal chances and that ‘no picnickers or hangers-on should be sent’.[16] Chifley government eventually provided £3,000 but the AOF delegation felt that Chifley had apathy towards the Olympics and argued that governments of Italy had granted £130,000, Canada £30,000, and Sweden £24,000 to their teams.[17] The AOF was able to raise £23,918 for an initial 1948 team of 34 athletes and 7 officials, and it eventually sent 77 athletes due to several individual athletes each raising £550.[18] Chifley views were made in a period of financial austerity after the war.
Prior to the 1948 London Olympic Games, World Sports, the official magazine of the British Olympic Association, published Chifley’s message regarding the forthcoming Games:
The Australian Government and people warmly welcome the resumption of the Olympic Games. Australia is proud of the record, which it shares with one or two other countries of always having been represented at the Games since their inception.
This year the Commonwealth and State Governments and the people joined in ensuring that Australia would be represented in London by the best possible team of athletes.
I have a personal interest, as in 1908 it would have been an honor to me to have been selected for the Australian Rugby team, which won the Olympic title. However, the selectors thought otherwise.
I am sure the Australian Team chosen for the Games this year will find themselves very much at home In Britain.[19]
Chifley government supported Melbourne’s bid for the 1956 Olympic Games. On 15 February 1949, Chifley sent a letter in support to the Melbourne Olympic Games Committee.
The Commonwealth Government cordially supports the City of Melbourne’s plans for the holding of the Olympic Games in 1956, and will gladly welcome to Australia the members of the International Olympic Committee, and all athletes and visitors from all over the world for this historic event in the South-West Pacific.
It would be the first occasion that any part of the Southern Hemisphere had been honoured by the award if the City of Melbourne’s invitation is accepted. [20]
At the 43rd International Olympic Committee Session in Rome, Italy on 28 April 1949, Melbourne was selected as the host city over bids from Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Montreal, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, and San Francisco.
After Melbourne won the Games, Arthur Caldwell, the federal member for Melbourne and the Minister for Immigration stated:
Mr Chifley, Prime Minister, has promised in advance a substantial contribution toward the cost of the Games. I was extremely glad, as Member for Melbourne, to approach Chifley for his support, which was given whole-heartedly.[21]
But in May 1949, Chifley indicated that his government had yet to determine its contribution to staging the Games. This was left to Robert Menzies who replaced Chifley as prime minister in December 1949.
Sport Post World War II
In November 1944, with the prospect of World War II coming to an end, Chifley as the Treasurer and Minister for Post-war Reconstruction raised the need for better town planning that included sporting opportunities.
Assistance has been given to State Governments to introduce town planning principles in their new housings schemes, the idea being that intelligent town planning can provide opportunities for leisure, sporting, social, political and cultural activities. [22]
Chifley realised sport could play an important role for those returning from the war. In April 1946, in a letter to the nation, sporting clubs were highlighted as one of the organisations that “can make an effective contribution towards re-establishing members of the fighting forces by continuing interest in their satisfactory employment and their personal welfare, and by offering them opportunities to use their experience and talents in community service.” [23]
Federal budget in November 1946 handed down by Chifley reduced sales tax on sporting goods from twenty-five to ten percent. However, the federal government in June 1948 prohibited the use of petrol for sporting trips or for the provision of new motor touring services. [24]This particularly impacted sport in rural and regional communities where inter town competitions were important. In August 1948, the Chifley government continued but did not increase National Fitness Grants. Interestingly, he noted that it was not a Commonwealth responsibility to provide this funding.[25] This highlights a long running undetermined constitutional question of whether the federal government should fund sport and fitness.
After the war, sports organisations including the football codes, cricket, athletics, and other amateur sports lobbied the Chifley government concerning the federal entertainment tax that was introduced in August 1942 to provide additional revenue for the war effort. [26] For instance, during the 1948 Indian cricket tour, the gate receipts were £76,186 with £17,724 taken out for the federal entertainment tax. [27] In February 1949, Chifley announced a softening of the tax by stating that:
“under the concessions which the Government would make on July 1 entertainment tax reductions would be granted in respect of sports or games in which men, women, and children were the sole participants, and which were conducted by no-profit organisations. Such entertainments would pay tax on the lower scale already applicable plays, while the exemption limit would be raised from 11½d to 1/3, both for sports and games and for plays and theatrical productions.”
The entertainment tax would be abolished on 1 October 1952 by the Menzies government.[28] Chifley understood the need for sport to be an important part of society post the war, but the revenue obtained through entertainment tax and importance of the need to ration petrol had a dampening impact on this ambition.
Finally, sport in Australia after World War II was transformed by the Chifley government’s policy to significantly increase immigration of suitable migrants from Europe’s overflowing displaced persons camps. This policy led to many European ethnic groups establishing sporting clubs particularly soccer clubs and increasing diversity of sports played in Australia.
Images
Western Team for NSW Country Week in 1907 – includes Ben Chifley
References
[1] Online biographies – Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Archives of Australia, Museum of Australian Democracy
[2] Day, David. Chifley. Sydney, Harper Collins, p. 7
[3] Talking of sport The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 February 1928, p. 8
[4] No Reason To Stop Sport, Sporting Globe (Melbourne), 5 June 1940 p. 1
[5] Day, p. 119
[6] Day, p. 119
[7] J. B. (Ben) Chifley—a great Labour, The Courier-Mail (Brisbane),14 June 1951 p. 2.
[8] Ben Chifley “Son of the People”, The Sydney Morning Herald, 13 July 1945, p.5
[9] Football in Bathurst, National Advocate (Bathurst, NSW), 16 May 1912, p. 2
[10] From Engine Driver To Prime Minister, Macleay Argus (Kempsey, NSW), 15 June 1951, p. 1
[11] Sport Pays Heavy Taxes, The Sunday Herald (Sydney, NSW), 6 March 1949, p.24
[12] Day, p.113
[13] Ben Chifley Two Years Prime Minister, Worker (Brisbane, Qld), 14 July 1947, p.1.
[14] Day, p. 109
[15] Greg Blood, Commemoration of Athletes and Racing Animals in Regional and Rural Australia, Australian Society for Sports History Bulletin, No. 71, February 2020.
[16] Olympic fund £25,000: P M criticised , Argus (Melbourne, Vic), 12 July 1947 p. 46
[17] Govt. Grant to Games. £3.000’, News (Adelaide), 18 November 1947, p. 5
[18] Cashman, Richard, Paradise of Sport, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 119.
[19] PM Was Nearly Games Athlete, Sporting Globe (Melbourne, Vic.), 5 May 1948, p. 1
[20] Chifley Wants Olympic Games For Melbourne, Sporting Globe (Melbourne, Vic.), 26 March 1949, p. 1
[21] 1949 ‘Olympic Games Award Hailed’, The Argus (Melbourne, Vic.), 30 April 1949, p. 37.
[22] Chifley Plans Fuller Life For Australians, Truth (Brisbane, Qld.), 19 November 1944, p. 9.
[23] A Message From The Prime Minister,. Daily Mercury (Mackay, Qld.), 18 April 1946, p. 6
[24] Petrol Ban On Sport, Brisbane Telegraph, 8 June 1948. p. 1
[25] National Fitness Grant, The Blackwood Times (Greenbushes, WA), 6 August 1948, p. 8.
[26] Section 10, Report of the Commissioner of Taxation, Melbourne, Government Printer, 1956.
[27] Sport Pays Heavy Taxes, p.24
[28] Section 10, Report of the Commissioner of Taxation