A House Committee on Un-Australian Activities? An Alternative to the Dissolution Act LACHLAN CLOHESY Legislation introduced by Prime Minister Robert Menzies to ban the Communist Party of Australia in 1950 has been studied in great detail, but there has been little discussion about why Menzies considered that an outright ban was the best way to thwart the Communist Party. Australia did not, for example, follow the American example of public show trials, denunciations and informants, characteristics of the phenomenon known as McCarthyism. This article explores the decision to reject the American model by focusing on legislation that the Liberal Party drafted in 1948, but never introduced. It also details the internal division of the Liberal Party over communism and the conflicted nature of Menzies’ own views. As a consequence, Australia did not introduce the equivalent of the anti-communist state apparatus of the United States. ROBERT MENZIES and the Liberal Party swept to power in the 1949 federal election, promising to ban the Communist Party of Australia (CPA). 1 Yet Menzies was himself deeply conflicted over the question of a ban and his party was divided about the issue, despite the decision ultimately taken to attempt to outlaw the CPA. The Communist Party of Australia Dissolution Bill 1950, introduced on 27 April, was ruled unconstitutional by the High Court of Australia and rejected by the public at a referendum the following year. The Dissolution Bill was not the first piece of legislation that the Liberal Party had considered in relation to the communist issue. In 1948 the party contemplated another Bill more in keeping with the institutionalised anti-communism of the United States. By examining the Federal Council of the Liberal Party’s consideration of the earlier legislation, this article will shed light on the discussions which influenced the form and content of the ultimate Dissolution Bill 1950. It will also identify those individuals within the Coalition parties who were members of the anti-communist propaganda organisation, the Political Research Society, and who led the push for a body similar to the United States’ House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). An examination of the Liberal Party’s rejection of their proposals reveals why the push for more American methods of combating communism in Australia was ultimately unsuccessful. 1 This article does not contend that it was this issue which won the election for the Liberal Party, and such an evaluation is outside the scope of this article. Other issues, such as a rejection of the Chifley government’s plan for bank nationalisation, the continuation of wartime petrol rationing, and the handling of the 1949 coal strike, also played a role. Lee analyses the election in detail, though his assertion that Menzies concluded, following the coal strike, that his government (if elected) would need to take steps to ban the Communist Party is incorrect. As this article will show, this decision was taken by the Federal Liberal Party prior to the strike. David Lee, ‘The 1949 Federal Election: A Reinterpretation’, Australian Journal of Political Science 29, no. 3 (November 1994): 501 19. 23