Joseph Benedict Chifley - Australian Prime Minister

Joseph Benedict Chifley was part of the Labor Party government and was the Australian Prime Minister from the years of 1945 to 1949 in the post-war reconstruction of Australia. Chifley's government had a great deal of success at achieving their aims. Chifley was committed to helping all Australians to have a better life. His main beliefs as Labor Prime Minister were; better health, education and social services, employment for workers, government control over the economy and government ownership of key industries.

One of his accomplishments was starting up new Australian Industries especially the Holden Car industry to create employment, for the people who had previously worked in wartime production. On the 28th of November the very first Australian built car, the 48/215 model Holden was produced.

The most impressive project that the Chiefly government undertook was the Snowy Mountains Scheme. The Snowy Mountain Hydro-Electric Authority was created in July 1949. Its purpose was to make the water from the Snowy and Eucmbene rivers run to the Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers, through a tunnel which was constructed under the Great Dividing Range. The water would be used generate electricity. This project required 6000 workers and was estimated to take 20 years to complete. Chifley's government succeeded at this aim and is still working today.

The Chifley government also had the idea to expand Australia's immigration program for humanitarian, defence and economic reasons. When World War II ended it left many people in Europe homeless, and Australia was said to be a safe country and somewhere a new life could be started.

Arthur Calwell, who was Chifley's minister for immigration supported the idea of bringing in non-British migrants to Australia after the war because his belief was that a larger population would be able to defend the country easier at times of attack. His motto was 'populate or perish' for Australia. The migration in Australia created a bigger domestic market a provided a workforce for new industries and projects such as the Snowy Mountains Scheme. Changes were finally made to immigration policy in the year of 1946. There was to be around 75000 migrants coming into Australia all of which had to be white, the ratio of British to non-British was to be 10 to 1 and the migrants were to stay for approximately two years and work anywhere they were told. Chifley's aim to make Australia British was achieved.

An aim that Chifley's government tried which was not at all successful was to nationalize industries. Chifley had two priorities; one was that any industry that was important to the development of the country was to be controlled by the government his other priority was to ensure that the economy was growing so there would be employment and stable prices. Chifley believed that private owners should be able to become

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