CHAPTER 19 | 1946–1949 – Return to Normality
restraint, respectability, civility, and moderation were woven throughout public opinion on the liquor issue. The spectre of the six o’clock swill tradition, with drunken men spilling out into the streets after closing hours, was offensive to many middle-class families. . . . In his book, The Lucky Country , historian Donald Horne describes working life, particularly in Australian cities, as ‘a happy-go-lucky, hard-drinking, hard gambling matey thumbing its nose at cissies and snobs in the lower middle class suburbs’. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, public drunkenness on the streets was a common problem, with high arrest rates, although conventions were observed when it came to mixed company. Swearing was almost non-existent when men and women intermingled, although there was a darker side in many homes. According to telegraphist Geoff Fuller, who worked at Broken Hill after the war, the six o’clock closing regulations were not applied because the miners worked on shifts, day and night, and were heavily protected. Broken Hill’s Barrier Industrial Council, an amalgamation of unions and vested interests, was so powerful that it could intimidate and dictate terms to local mining companies and state government. Aside from negotiating a 35-hour week for underground workers, it also organised other entitlements and protections for the working-class population. This included the establishment of a bread cooperative and influence over food prices and rents. It also arranged for extended opening hours for the local pubs. Many were open all day and night, including Sundays. Illegal gambling was also given a blind eye. Geoff Fuller noted that ‘locals could play Two-up and gamble freely without any legal consequences or intimidation. Broken Hill was extremely multi-cultural during the 1940s and 1950s’, he added. ‘Looking back at my five years at Broken Hill, they were some of the happiest times of my life’.
The isolated Broken Hill community, comprising over 36,000 people around this time, was called a state within a state. Not even the police could enforce New South Wales state government regulations. ––––––
But the power of the autocratic and benevolent BIC, the Barrier Industrial Council, would gradually fall apart after 1969 as the mining economy dwindled, ‘compulsory unionism slipped’, and the state government intervened more assertively in Broken Hill’s social and industrial affairs. Many Australians from various backgrounds believed that the liquor industry needed to clean up its act and promote moderate drinking and better conditions in
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