EL ADMINISTRADOR GUBERNAMENTAL DE INGRESOS PÚBLICOS RESUELVE

The post-war period had seen the slow decline of Anzac as a central nationalist narrative, with publically expressed concerns regarding the proper and continued observance of Anzac Day being evident as early as the 1950s (Holbrook 2014, 116-118). The debut of Alan Seymour’s play The One

Day of the Year in 1961 caused controversy with its critical treatment of the sentimental and

unquestioning acceptance of Anzac Day and its drunken commemoration. By 1965, and the beginning of Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam conflict, Macleod (2002, 151) notes a certain ambivalence in the media coverage of that year’s Anzac Day and examination of whether the day would continue to hold the same significance.

Australia in the 1960s was, however, largely conservative (see Jordens 2009, 75-76; Cochrane 2009, 165), despite popular memory of the decade as one of radicalism and social change ce ntre d on the opposition to the Vietnam conflict and the radicalisation of university students. In particular, Jordens (2009) argues that Australia’s youth had a deferential attitude towards authority, re fle cted in opinion polling on the question of the Vietnam conflict and conscription. Further, the conservative Liberal/Country Coalition won four elections during the decade, in 1961, 1963, 1966 and 1969. During this time, Australians were largely happy to allow Anzac Day to be se l f -gove rne d by the RSL and watch respectfully (if sometimes uncomfortably) from a distance (Macl eod 2002, 150).

Opposition to Anzac Day and its memorialisation began to become more entrenched as the war in Vietnam continued and hostility towards conscription began to grow. Inglis (2008, 358-361) notes several, largely sporadic, instances of defacement of war memorials during the se cond hal f on the

67 1960s, up until the end of Australia’s involvement in Vietnam. In particular, 1971 saw the bashing of the sole guard of Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance by unknown assailants before the y pai nted ‘P.E.A.C.E.!’ on the columns along the front of the Shrine. Sporadic, small scale protests on Anzac Day were also evident (Curran and Ward 2010, 198), though dwarfed in size and significance by the larger Moratorium marches. One protest also occurred during the return of Australian se rvi cemen from Vietnam, when a 21 year old Nadine Jensen, doused in red paint, smeared marchi ng sol di er’s uniforms in 1966 (Curthoys 1994, 129). Save Our Sons, a women-led movement, staged a silent protest on Anzac Day 1966 at the Melbourne Shrine of Remembrance and led other such protests at events when conscripts left for Vietnam (Jordens 2009, 79). More generally, the anti -war movement that sprang up surrounding the Vietnam War, the well-attended and publicised Moratorium marches, and the increasing pessimism surrounding the conflict after the 1968 Tet Offensive and M ỹ Lai Massacre, all helped to problematise Anzac as a central national discourse (Curthoys 2009, 156; Curran and Ward 2010, 197-198; Donaldson and Lake 2010, 88-90).

By the time the ALP had been elected to government in 1972, the observance and acceptance of Anzac Day as a central national commemorative date had been challenged. This decline was reflected in government policy during the 1970s. The British race patriotism that had dominated Australian political life until this point was being replaced with ‘new nationalism’ (Curran and Ward 2010) and the beginnings of multiculturalism. There was little place for Anzac in the mul ti cul tural , post-Vietnam nationalism of the Whitlam government, and as symbolic policy changes, such as the favouring of an Australian honours system over the traditional imperial honours system, the changing of the national anthem, and funding Australian arts and cultural programs, were in stituted. Further, whilst the dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975 saw the return of the Coal i ti on to government, it did not see a corresponding reassertion of older forms of national identity. Frase r’s abandonment of some of the symbols of new nationalism, for example, reverting to the use of ‘God Save the Queen’ as the national anthem and returning to recommending Australians for imperial honours, sat alongside the retainment of elements of Whitlam’s reformist government, prominently, multiculturalism and its associated identity discourses (Brett 2003, 157-185; Curran 2006, 173-175). Fraser, like Whitlam, grappled with the political need to develop a more inclusive and distinctly Australian identity, following the post-war influx of immigration and the collapse of British forms of identity. By the time Hawke was elected in 1983, these changes had become entrenched, and a return to the British race patriotism that had sustained Anzac up until this period of time seemed more unlikely than ever.

68 Attendances at Anzac Day parades declined during this period as Anzac became a neglected, and sometimes contested, feature of Australian identity and national discourse. Dawn service attendances also declined during this period, though Canberra’s attendances remained more robust than Sydney’s of Melbourne’s (see Chapter 3). Curran and Ward (2010, 197) note that this period saw newspapers reflect upon the decline, with The Australian (1977, 6) musing ‘is it that we are remembering an anachronism?’ and the Canberra Times and The Sydney Morning Herald both reporting upon the small town of Gundaroo that ‘forgot’ to mark Anzac Day and had left the local memorial unattended and choked by weeds (Canberra Times 1979: 1; Ellercamp 1979, 2).

Further challenging Anzac in the 1970s and early 1980s was the evolution of social movements, moving beyond the anti-war movement into newly political spheres of social life. For exampl e , the Tasmanian Wilderness Society had campaigned successfully against the damming of the F ranklin River and had contributed significantly to the placing of environmental issues onto the national agenda and to the spread of like-minded groups (Papadakis 1990, 343-4). The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras evolved from a protest in 1978 to a celebratory parade in 1981 and signalled the increasing prominence and success of the gay rights movement (Marsh and Galbraith 1995, 301- 306). Both movements challenged previously held conceptions of Australianness and the boundaries of political action. Further, the period saw continued contestation and questioning of militarism, along with increasingly radical and confrontationist opposition from some groups regarding these matters. The early 1980s was a time of heightened Cold War tension, and the peace, anti-nuclear and environmental social movements were active in contesting previously settled conceptions of the national interest and Australia’s defence posture (Elder 2005, 74). The Palm Sunday anti-nuclear rallies of the early to mid-1980s saw a peak of support in 1985 as 170,000 marched in support in Sydney (Smith 2001, 43). Popular culture also supported these move me nts, with bands like Midnight Oil promoting a broadly radical environmental, anti -nuclear, and peace message through the 1980s and 1990s, and Red Gum releasing their anti-war ballad to the returne d Vietnam veteran, ‘I Was Only 19’, in 1983.

In addition to these more generalised social movement activities, Anzac Day saw direct contestati on and protest action by activists (Twomey 2013, 100-101). The radical feminist group Women Agai nst Rape conducted a number of protests on Anzac Days in the early to mid-1980s at several capital ci ty locations around Australia. Their purpose was to challenge the mythology of Anzac Day by emphasising rape in war, militarism, and male violence, as part of a broader radical feminist acti vi st agenda to emphasise ‘…the way rape has been used in war and in “peace” to keep women under

69 control’ (Howe 1995, 305). Howe (1995, 304) argues that WAR activism on Anzac Day was not particularly concerned with deconstructing and analysing the peculiarities of the Australian experience of wartime and the way the Anzac narrative privileged masculine understandings of Australianness, and instead attempted to broaden the meaning of the day to include:

…the universal experience of women in war. Instead of focusing on the nationhood (manhood) myth enshrined in the Anzac Day tradition, women participating in Anzac Day marches have sought to reclaim the day as a day of mourning and, at the same time, to broaden the meaning of Anzac Day to include women of all nations who have suffered in wartime…

Feminist protest activity on Anzac Day had origins as early as 1977 (Twomey 2013, 98), and by 1980 and 1981, WAR activists in Canberra had sought to join the Anzac Day parade, and were bl ocke d by police and some were arrested (Elder 2005, 71-72). The words DEAD MEN DON’T RAPE were sprayed onto a wall near the Sydney cenotaph in time for Anzac Day 1983, and 168 WAR activists were arrested in Sydney that year after attempting to join the march, in defiance of a court order (Odlum 1983, 3). Marches and vigils were conducted on Anzac Days in other capital cities during this period too (Inglis 2008, 440-441). WAR activity began to decline in the late-1980s as disagreeme nts about the effectiveness and appropriateness of these protests drained the impetus to follow through with continued action (Inglis 2008, 441-442), due in part to WAR activists falling prey to nationalist sympathies when criticising Australian personnel (Elder 2005, 78).

Less prominently, there was also disquiet from gay activists regarding Anzac during thi s pe ri od. In 1982, the Gay Ex-Service Persons Association (GESPA) advertised a meet-up on Anzac Day in a Melbourne newspaper and asked the Victorian RSL for permission to lay a wreath at the Melbourne Shrine of Remembrance, which was ostensibly granted by the president of the Victorian RSL, Bruce Ruxton (Hirst 1982, 13). Nicoll (2001, 192) argues that ‘…along with women and their “hysterical” shell-shocked counterparts, homosexual diggers were excluded from the [Australian War] Memorial’s celebration of national identity’. This exclusion was also present in Melbourne i n 1982, as Ruxton himself prevented GESPA representatives from laying a wreath on Anzac Day. Citing GESPA’s failure to lay their wreath at the allotted time as the reason for their exclusion, Ruxton went on to note:

I don’t mind poofters in the march but they must march with their units. We didn’t want them to lay a wreath because we didn’t want anything to do with them. We certainly don’t recognise them and they are just another start to the denigration of Anzac Day (Ruxton, as cited by O’Callaghan 1982, 3).

70 Note the sublimation of difference by Ruxton here – gay ex-service personnel could not be excluded from the parade itself due to their war service, but the acceptance of their presence was only extended if they remained silent and unrecognisable. Actions that promoted difference and stepped outside the acceptable limits of conduct were actively prohibited by Anzac’s guardian, the RSL. Elder (2005, 73) notes the difficulty of protesting on Anzac Day, as the nationalistic nature of the occasi on emphasises homogeneity over heterogeneity, and the sacralised composition of Anzac rituals invites introspection and silence over contestation and protest. For their part, GESPA expressed their disappointment at being prevented from laying a wreath on this occasion and denounced Rux ton as ‘a very bigoted man’ (O’Callaghan 1982, 3). In following years, GESPA representatives were reportedly permitted to lay a wreath at the Shrine of Remembrance in 1983, but were again refuse d permission in 1984 (Humphries 1984, 4).

Further protest activity was undertaken by activists when flour was thrown on the prison officers’ band that was marching in Sydney on Anzac Day 1984, with a ‘clandestine’ group called the Prisoners’ United Militant Activists claiming responsibility. A spokesperson said: ‘To have ‘scre ws’ marching alongside world war veterans is the ultimate hypocrisy. The wars were supposed to ke e p us free and yet internal oppression continues and the police and screws are the cause of the greatest and most insidious loss of freedom’ (Roberts 1984, 3). Whilst tre ated by police as a minor inci de nt, the act further demonstrated the breadth of radical activism that was associated with Anzac Day during the period.

In sum, the challenge to Anzac during this period was profound, with Anzac being challenged directly and indirectly in a radical manner in the public sphere by a range of new social movements and activist organisations. The challenge to Anzac had moved from largely isolated and small scale actions, in the 1960s and 1970s, to a more frequent, more collective, and very public, confrontation. Not only that, but the public was responding to this new environment by continuing the trend of turning out to Anzac Day parades and dawn services in smaller numbers. Anzac, and its primacy in the national narrative, was being contested head on. A process of politicisation had intruded into the previously essential nationalistic sphere of Anzac and introduced politics and contestation.