Former political speech writer, Graham Freudenberg, presented the speech Curtin\u2019s Battle for Australia: relevant questions for 2011 at last night\u2019s John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library (JCPML) Visiting Scholar lecture at Curtin University.<\/p>\n
As the JCPML 2011 Visiting Scholar, Freudenberg examined former wartime Prime Minister John Curtin\u2019s political leadership and commitment to Australia during the dramatic events of early 1942.<\/p>\n
In his speech Freudenberg moved past obvious question of whether or not Australia was at threat of an invasion, and focused on the lessons learnt from 1942, in particular the nature of Australia\u2019s relationship with Asia and the US.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cChurchill was proposing to evacuate the British forces, including the 8th Australian division from Singapore as a lost cause, and concentrate instead on the defence of Burma,\u201d Mr Freudenberg said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot only was Churchill proposing the nullification of 20 years of British and Australian defence planning, but he was contradicting his own insistence that Singapore must be held at all costs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was not until the arrival of General MacArthur on 17 March 1942, sent here by Roosevelt for political as much as military reasons, that Curtin found a powerful ally, where it was needed most \u2013 Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n
Freudenberg also reflected on the criticism Curtin faced in maintaining the threat of invasion to Australia remained a real and extreme possibility.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany have accused Curtin of exaggeration, deception and exploitation of the invasion threat, but this was not the case,\u201d Mr Freudenberg argued.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is wrong to claim that Curtin\u2019s speeches and actions focused solely on an invasion that never materialised, long after the threat had ceased to exist.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt mistakes utterly his strategic vision, and his efforts to convince the Australian people that it (Australia) was something worth fighting and dying for.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
A former journalist, Mr Freudenberg\u2019s knowledge of political issues, affairs and policies has helped to shape Australia\u2019s reporting of political thought for more than 40 years.<\/p>\n
He has written thousands of speeches for several leaders of the ALP at both the state (NSW) and federal level including Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke, Neville Wran, Barrie Unsworth, Bob Carr and Simon Crean.<\/p>\n
Full text of the lecture is available at http:\/\/john.curtin.edu.au\/events\/speeches\/freudenberglecture.html<\/a><\/p>\n Contacts:<\/strong><\/p>\n Karys Nella, Public Relations, Curtin University Former political speech writer, Graham Freudenberg, presented the speech Curtin\u2019s Battle for Australia: relevant questions for 2011 at last night\u2019s John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library (JCPML) Visiting Scholar lecture at Curtin University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4275,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-17826","media-release","type-media-release","status-publish","hentry","category-research"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"","content":"","image":false},"related_courses":false,"credits":{"author":null,"photographer":null,"media":false},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}}},"featured_image":false,"author_meta":{"first_name":"Curtin","last_name":"University","display_name":"Curtin University"},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release\/17826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/media-release"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release\/17826\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17826"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=17826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/strong>Tel: 08 9266 3353, Email: karys.nella@curtin.edu.au<\/a>
\nWeb: http:\/\/curtin.edu.au<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"