The Gaming Den

History has a socialist bias. It makes conservatives look bad and socialists look good. So frequently it just... isn't talked about, or certain embarrassing details are brushed over.

If you want the actual truth, you often need to go to socialist sources. You may recall when I was discussing the ANZACs and Simpson's Donkey that pro nationalist or even "neutral" sources couldn't (or rather wouldn't) even prove that Simpson and his donkey even existed. While the socialists had his name, nationality, background, various dates, documents and eye witness testimony. Largely because their information was... embarrassing to nationalist right wing groups. So it isn't discussed, and it isn't taught in school and it is sometimes even contrary to what (little) is taught on the matter in the public school system.

Well. Here is another "Secret" history for you. It's the history of the construction of the Sydney Harbor bridge. Now I say secret, but a lot of this one is actually out there, hell a lot of the details come from a late night ABC documentary (those commie hippies!).


The boring bits we all learn in school
Now if you are an Australian, especially if you weathered the Bicentenary in your youth, then in school you would have learned about the Sydney Harbor Bridge.

Odds are what you got was...
1) Maybe a couple of dates to memorize.
2) Possibly the name of the "Engineer" John Bradfield who "built it".
3) Maybe some bullshit story about a mysterious masked horseman who charged up and cut the ribbon at the opening ceremony.

But there is a lot, an awful lot more, to the story.

John Bradfield was a dirty commie style bureaucrat
John Bradfield was indeed an engineer.

But that wasn't (exactly) his job. He was in fact a Civil Servant. A rather senior one. He was in charge of major infrastructure in New South Wales in particular he also lead the construction of most of the Sydney Rail system still in use nearly a 100 years later.

This of course NOT being a fact largely expounded upon. "Engineers" are all acceptable but government paid Civil Servant engineers behind sweeping co-ordinated mass government infrastructure projects. Well, that's all a little bit communist now isn't it?

What is also not mentioned is that this guy spent vast amounts of his personal time at the state parliament lobbying for the construction of the harbor bridge. For well over a decade. And he was put off and messed around with by conservatives for a very long time. They finally agreed to the project in 1922, but by 1923 work on the project was halting and funding uncertain...

Don't tell Jack Lang he was a Dirty Lefty Commie (He'll punch you in the fucking face)... but he kinda was...
Then in 1925 Jack Lang of the Labor Party (a real lefty bastard, though he shared a mutual hatred with the actual brand name communists) became premiere.

Now frankly the fact that most of you, especially the Australians don't know who Jack Lang is is in and of itself a rather large oversight of the teaching of Australian history.

Jack Lang is probably one of the most exciting state premiers in our history books. In part because of the rest of this story. He also was of massive historical importance as he established much of what modern Australian society is founded on passing laws such as the 44 hour working week, pensions for widowed mothers, universal suffrage in local government elections, and compulsory workers compensation, just to name a few items.

As it turned out Lang really liked the bridge project. And he backed Bradfield 100% and more. The project was suddenly fast tracked and fully funded. It went from a tentative experiment to full scale construction.

Funding (and lots of it) for the bridge was largely borrowed from British investors. This is a big deal for a number of reasons. It marked a moment when the Australian economy had grown so much and was believed to be able to grow so much more that it actually attracted such investment. And it also marked a change of government policy to actually take such large loans for such large projects, something not previously allowed, and as it turned out quite a major talking point for Lang's conservative opposition.

So Lang was again ousted from government by the conservative backlash to his loans and reforms (things like ensuring that workers compensation and pensions were paid to widows of husbands killed on the job with children under 14 years of age utterly enraged conservatives, then as now). The bridge consequently again fell into question.

The Great Depression and Bankruptcy
The great depression hit, hard, in 1929. With the bridge in mid construction and the conservatives cutting government spending left right and center (in a strategy we now know is very BAD in depression times) the bridge as the biggest state expense and massive source of debt was on the chopping block.

But Lang's fierce opposition to cuts to government spending and government employee wages helped him regain power in 1930.

He continued to back the bridge construction 100%. He did not cut government projects, wages, or work forces. He maintained, if not increased, government spending on welfare and soup kitchens in the face of the effects of the depression. The harbor bridge became known as the "Iron Lung" due to it's effect as the main source of employment and economic stimulus.

Federal Labor Panics
The Sydney harbor bridge may have been the source of the biggest foreign debt in the country but all the state (and the federal) governments were in trouble, both in Australia and in the empire at large.

The orthodox (and we now know incorrect) economic policy response was cut, cut, cut. The then somewhat more conservative federal labor leader and other state premiers put together an "austerity" plan to massively cut spending across the board. Lang opposed it with the "Lang Plan" in early 1931.

The "Lang Plan" maintained government spending to stimulate the economy and notably withheld loan repayments on the bridge until economic recovery made such payments achievable. Many backers of the bridge actually accepted this plan as a good thing after all they felt it was a better more reliable way to get their money back. But it outraged conservatives, and even "center" federal labor.

Lang's own federal labor party supporters crossed the floor of the federal parliament to vote with the conservative party and bring down the Federal government over the massively unpopular "Premiere's Plan" for austerity.

In response the acting prime minister and acting treasurer took 3 right wing Labor representatives with them and crossed permanently to join the conservative party. The acting treasurer (Minister for public works, Joseph Lyons) then became the new Prime Minister leading the conservative party in direct opposition of Lang's policies.

Lang's Amazing Cash Economy Adventure
Meanwhile the bridge is nearly finished.

On the very verge of it's completion the Lyons government passes the "Financial Enforcement Act 1932" an act which basically ceased the entire state funds of NSW in order to prevent Lang from spending anything. Including (if not especially) on finishing the bridge.

The funds would be used not to help the NSW people but to pay off loans to Foreign bankers. Lyons goes on record saying that it was better to shut the soup kitchens and let every last man woman and child in Australia starve to death than to let a single cent of promised debt be delayed in repayment!

Lang declares that he regards the act to be in defiance of the 1833 prohibition of slavery throughout the British Empire.

And then he actually does something rather crazy.

The Financial Enforcement Act was passed late in the week. On the Friday afternoon just shy of the end of business hours Lang sends several of his men to the CBD and withdraws the entirety of the States savings from the bank in cash.

When the federal police arrive on Monday morning, the accounts are already empty.

Lang then runs the entire state economy, in direct defiance of Canberra and federal law, with cash, out of the Trades Hall.

And so he keeps the Lang Plan, and it's keystone the Sydney Harbor Bridge, alive.

And then in March of 1932 the bridge was finally op...

WAIT, wait, wait, what was that way back at the beginning about a mystery masked horseman?
There was no mystery masked horseman.

But there was a "uniformed" horseman. And his name was Francis de Groot. We know his name and a lot about him, contrary to the popular "mystery horseman" scenario, because he was rather promptly arrested by the rather large police presence (which was kind of waiting for him).

Francis charge up on horse back before rather than dramatically in the midst of the ceremony and cut the ribbon on the bridge declaring he was doing so "in the name of the decent and respectable people of New South Wales."

Which was rather Ironic in a lot of ways.

You see Francis was a member of a group called "The New Guard". The new guard were a violent nationalist politically organization of a extremist conservative bent that were fiercely loyal to the King (regardless of what the King may have felt on the matter, he never said).

Lang had deeply insulted the new guard just for existing over his entire two terms the group had grown in direct opposition to his labor reforms, economic policy, and the construction of the bridge.

By the time of the bridge opening and the Financial Enforcement Act the New Guard were actually rioting in the streets of Sydney. Every night they would gather their thugs and hit a different known or suspected unionist pub and beat people up. Counter militias were formed, it was pandemonium.

The NSW police force advised Lang not to attend the bridge opening ceremony and cut the ribbon. Because they believed the New Guard would either attempt a massive riot or, more likely, attempt to assassinate Lang. (Hence the large police force presence to promptly capture the anti climactic Francis).

And Lang's plan to open the bridge himself WAS indeed rather alarming for the era.

Because for something of this status he was supposed to ask the King to do it. Then the King was supposed to say he was washing his hair and get his personally appointed representative, the State Governor to do it instead. Instead, as elected representative of the people who built the damn thing Lang decided he would just do it, and not even ask the king if he was washing his hair.

The new guard, being raving monarchists couldn't have that. So they cut the ribbon in the name of not letting it be cut in the name of the decent people (especially all those trashy unionist working people, ugh). Instead he cut it in the name of the King and a bunch of violent thuggish supporters.

The actual Governor appointed by the King basically just sat through all this at the ceremony (he was invited to attend and was sitting with the other important people).

The Governor's Reluctant Revenge
Actually Lang and the Governor apparently got on rather well.

This was in the era when Governors were still appointed by the King and imposed on the Australian state governments (rather than appointed by the governments and, somewhat, imposed on the Queen, as they are now).

The governor had been given the "quiet" little colonial position as a retirement reward. He apparently was a fairly shy and retiring type, though possibly a bit bored by the isolation.

Lang cultivated a strong relationship with the fellow. Which was probably a good thing as it delayed the inevitable.

Ultimately under too much pressure from the New Guard, the federal conservatives, and possible some whispered instructions from the King. The governor was forced to dismiss Lang's government from power.

Apparently it was speculated that Lang might consider arresting the governor to prevent this action, and the royal armed forces had been put on alert to confront the NSW police force with violent resistance if they attempted it.

Either Lang never considered it or he changed his mind. He was ousted from office as the only Australian (state) government to ever be removed by royal authority.

Not Exactly on Wikipedia
Now this is indeed pretty steamy sexy stuff here, as history goes. You largely WON'T be told a lot of this in the school room or indeed almost anywhere other than late night ABC documentaries and the back yards of retired Labor party leftists or former card carrying commies.

Wikipedia, being so rife with commie bastards that conservatives were forced to found their own famously anus obsessed alternative has SOME details mentioned here.

But largely I could only use it as a tool to remind me of the names and get check some key dates. Much of the interaction between the various parties involved, the key role of the Sydney Harbor Bridge, many of the more dramatic moments are all from the "socialist" sources like public funded documentary makers and actual socialists.

If I didn't already know the story looking at the limited details you can get from "neutral" wikipedia you wouldn't really know that this story happened at all...

I never heard anything about the Sydney harbour bridge in school. Course I also never heard of the Fitzgerald enquiry in school, Australian history has the wrong bits taught.

[american]Wait, wait. Sydney has a harbour? [/american]

Depending on how antsy your spell checkers nationality is yes it does. It's rather a key feature of why Sydney is there at all. What with it having been settled by the first fleet and all.

As an American who occasionally glanced up during Olympic coverage:

Sydney harbor has a bridge?

Also, see how I'm a Real American so I spell the word right (by which I mean wrong).

Cool story.

Excellent story, thanks a lot! Just one (noobish) question...

PhoneLobster wrote:Lang's own federal labor party supporters crossed the floor of the federal parliament to vote with the conservative party and bring down the Federal government over the massively unpopular "Premiere's Plan" for austerity.

In response the acting prime minister and acting treasurer took 3 right wing Labor representatives with them and crossed permanently to join the conservative party. The acting treasurer (Minister for public works, Joseph Lyons) then became the new Prime Minister leading the conservative party in direct opposition of Lang's policies.

Wtf is happening at this point? In particular, what's "crossing the floor"?

Crossing the floor means to go stand with the other party during a vote. It's a rather big deal in parliamentary systems.

Nominally the actual area where parliament meets is divided up in sections. The majority sits in one section, the minority in another. Some parliaments are divided up into Left and Right Wings in honor of the French Estate Conference. That sort of thing.

If you cross the floor, that means that you actually get up and go to the area of the other party or interest bloc. It's roughly the equivalent of mooning your party whip.

-Username17

Crossing the floor is even a bigger deal for Australian Labor Party politicians as they have a sort of compulsory party unity. Voting against caucus on anything is basically an offense they can be expelled from the party for.

Though I'm not certain that it was like that back then, it may be those events actually led to that setup for the modern party.

The only thing I ever heard about the Sydney bridge is that it was built by some guy the king didn't like and there was some masked rider who came by to cut the ribbon.

The way the story was set up was to make it so that the rider guy was in cahoots with the guy the king didn't like.

But anyway, thanks PL, that was illuminating.

Actually there is a version of the story floating around suggesting the masked rider was actually a woman making some sort of bold pre-feminist statement.

It even has it's own documentary.

But that is in fact a mildly well known fake documentary by a guy who for a brief while was going around making fake documentaries as a kind of artistic statement.

It drew a fair bit of criticism, after all it obfuscated the known facts of a rather important and already exciting bit of history. But was somewhat pre-internet so good luck finding anything out about it.

History is always biased towards the victor of whatever war was being fought at that time, and whatever religious sect or other leading organization wants people to believe.

The only things I learned about Australia was it broke off of Africa and India when Pangaea split, and everyone was sent there from England as a penal colony.

There is lot of history lost due to political agendas, so this day and age, it is hard to believe anything taught about it when so much of it has been destroyed to cover things up, no matter where you are.

shadzar wrote:There is lot of history lost due to political agendas

So you need to actually teach and learn history. Because if you don't it is lost and certain, often unsavory, political agendas are furthered.

The solution is never "less history in schools", it is MORE and BETTER history in schools.

Well in today's society it can be recorded better, and in many more places. The problem is you have to sort through the hoaxes and lies to find out which is true, wherein the past you lost it all.

So even sorting today you might be able to get more truth, you just have to pick and choose which is true through the leaks and the lies.

Any government sanctioned history will always be biased to the current leaders of that government.

It is pretty much like teaching religion in schools, it would not get proper coverage.

Like with Australia, I have learned much since then, but the select tiny bits during education wasn't even worth taking note of, unless you want to still claim all Australians are criminals, and that would be stupid to claim for people you don't know; as well to claim that there was only inbreeding, and nobody new went there after those incidents.

Starmaker wrote:Excellent story, thanks a lot! Just one (noobish) question...



Wtf is happening at this point? In particular, what's "crossing the floor"?

You have two, or more, groups of people who argue together against each other, on behalf of other (larger) groups of people.

If people leave one group, and move to an other, then power has shifted. The more people that change parties, the more dramatic the shift in power.

Shadzar, are you seriously STILL claiming that history is still useless information.

On some basis that someone somewhere MIGHT skew it. And therefore it shouldn't be taught in schools, at all?

And with absolutely NO actual language that indicates you read even a scrap of the history in this thread either. Just a generic "well you know, bias, blah blah".

The physical formation of Australia isn't in most 'history' books, but it's very important to our discovery of various sciences and arts.

I don't really see why it's important for laymen of non-neighbor nations to know the political history. It would be very good if American students learned the history of Canada and Mexico alongside US history, as if they were other states or something, because that was very important in context.

But why we should teach the average American when various Commonwealth nations were formed and then given independence seems kinda silly. I knew the formation dates of many nations, but... They're just context for something more important, and aren't really what should be on any test.

It's not like any Commonwealth nation child needs to know the formation of the US states, even though many of them have more people and bigger economies than nearly all the Commonwealth nations! (Nearly, I can think of at least one that doesn't have a state larger than it.)

-Crissa

That really depends. The US Civil war is worth a look. So is Apartheid. So is the Fitzgerald Inquiry. Every country's history has instructive examples littered about that could be used in a history/civics class.

Every US student should be required to learn the last 100 years of Iraqi history. The last 200 years of Afghan history would be good too.

-Username17

Crissa wrote:I don't really see why it's important for laymen of non-neighbor nations to know the political history.

Presumably you should just learn about your local equivalents.

But there are parts of Australian political history that might be of interest.

Australia's complicity in various tragedies in East Timor (even recently) could be a spring board for discussing America's much larger swathe of nation toppling murderous madness.

Then there's the whole Whitlam thing. Plenty to be learned there for anyone.

And that scientist who discovered the impact on human health of low level radiation. That along with the cover up is an absolute key event in modern human history that influenced the outcome of the cold war.

There is plenty of Australian history to learn for an American audience. Most importantly American audiences need to stop focusing so much on internal history. ANY other pieces of other countries history might be nice. Their ignorance of the outside world is legendary.

You get a pass on Australian history when you can find it on a map without mistaking it for North Korea and deciding to invade it.

PhoneLobster wrote:John Bradfield was a dirty commie style bureaucrat
John Bradfield was indeed an engineer.

But that wasn't (exactly) his job. He was in fact a Civil Servant. A rather senior one. He was in charge of major infrastructure in New South Wales in particular he also lead the construction of most of the Sydney Rail system still in use nearly a 100 years later.

This of course NOT being a fact largely expounded upon. "Engineers" are all acceptable but government paid Civil Servant engineers behind sweeping co-ordinated mass government infrastructure projects. Well, that's all a little bit communist now isn't it?

What is also not mentioned is that this guy spent vast amounts of his personal time at the state parliament lobbying for the construction of the harbor bridge. For well over a decade. And he was put off and messed around with by conservatives for a very long time. They finally agreed to the project in 1922, but by 1923 work on the project was halting and funding uncertain...

I work almost exclusively with these folks and they self-identify as engineers. Bureaucrats are a dime-a-dozen and requires no special expertise other than an incredible endurance for BS, but if they went to school for years and passed a series of professional exams to get the title of "Professional Engineer", they're rightly proud of that fact.

Every major infrastructure project ever has these guys involved in it - I don't know if I'd call it communist just because of that, especially since the construction contractors and the typical bonding required for funding the project are products of capitalism.