How Alfred Deakin outraged Australia (1909)

we left last week with deacon's much-anticipated return to the head office having voluntarily seated control to labor and then stabbing them in the back to support george reed's free traders he brought labour back on side to then backstab reid but after just a year in office deacon had to face off against reid in the 1906 election this time raided re-branded his free trader party to become the anti-socialist party and he went hard on the attack having stabbed watson in the back and having stabbed reid in the back was to stop deacon stabbing capitalist australia in the back the results came in and deacon retained the office of prime minister but it wasn't good news for him his constant flipping had cost the protectionist 10 seats in parliament and the labor protectionist coalition was completely imbalanced the protectionists held 16 seats to labour's 26. deacon wasn't just leading a minority government he was a minority within the minority government okay so this episode is a tasty one and you might actually notice some similar themes to last week make sure to hang around until the end to take part in this week's subscriber question as well but before we get to the backstabbing we probably should talk policy because deacon's second stint as prime minister actually saw australia make some strides away from the british essentially the two had different perspectives on what to do with japan for the british they'd played a huge role in the meiji restoration and helped japan to industrialize and they were important naval allies but if you know your japanese history you'd know that 1905 was a huge year for nippon because it was the first time in the modern era that an asian nation had defeated a european nation when japan beat russia in the russo-japanese war for deakin he was pretty concerned by this because a strong japanese naval presence was now a new security issue in the pacific as a result deakin took keen interest in british new guinea the south eastern quarter of what's today called papua new guinea queensland had previously tried to annex it in 1883 but the british had denied them however in 1902 britain ceded the territory over to australia and in 1905 the deakin government passed the popular act to begin the process of australian administration then in 1907 deacon wanted australia to have a more decisive voice on foreign policy at britain's imperial conference but he was largely rebuffed how come i never get any lines in these things shut up meg in response deacon started to assert something of australian independence as he reached out to none other than teddy roosevelt roosevelt allowed the american great white flat to visit australia in 1908 and they were greeted by half a million australians in sydney the largest gathering of australians up until this point with all this fanfare deakin had the public support in commissioning an australian navy and preparation began with compulsory military training also being introduced but making his request directly to american diplomats rather than through the imperial authorities deacon had to fight protocol but this would be crucial for australian independence from the motherland with deacon so deeply in the pockets of labour he set up an arbitration court to determine a fair wage and the system would go something like this if the court found your business paid your workers a quote on quote fair wage well then the business would be exempt from the domestic tariffs the protectionists were known for putting on businesses as a result with no one having to pay those extra taxes to buy your product they would be incentivized to buy from you and so this new court delivered its famous harvester judgment where it defined what this fair wage was to be now it didn't put a number on it but instead said that a living wage had to be able to support a wife and three children in frugal comfort while a skilled worker should receive an extra margin for their skills and this is the key bit that extra margin should be regardless of the employer's capacity to pay and so minimum wages were not to be set through the free market like in america but by an external arbitrator australia was well and truly living up to its status as the working man's paradise in 1908 the deakin government added an old age pension and then construction began on an east to west transcontinental railway but deacon himself was to be railroaded like i said before in deakin's coalition government labor held the balance of power 26 8-16 and so after being egged on by his labor members their new leader andrew fisher decided to remove support for the protectionists going solo to form their own government do it okay so fischer has quite an interesting backstory he was a classic unionist but actually rose through the ranks in quite tragic circumstances his father suffered debilitating injuries in scottish coal mines in the 1800s and so just a boy fisher put himself into those same mines to feed his family what was also interesting was that in 1899 the boer war broke out in south africa between the british empire and the dutch baseball republics australia wasn't federated at this point but each of the six colonies independently supported the war however fisher now a member of the queensland parliament vemminally opposed it which put him on the map essentially after the 1906 election which saw deakin's protectionist crippled labour's leader chris watson stepped down leadership was then contested between two people obviously fisher who'd moved from the queensland parliament to the federal parliament but then someone else will pan out to be way more important in future episodes billy hughes now fischer edged out hughes and his government passed some minor reforms firstly they passed a new seat of government act which overturned george reed's act that had established dougherty as the nation's capital a new federal capital was to be built in the yas canberra area secondly fisher's government passed the manufacturer's encouragement act to provide bounties for iron and steel manufacturers who paid fair and reasonable wages to their workers okay that was such a selfish cutaway like the video if you want more lego styles cutaways that remind you of a time in life where your biggest worry was whether or not you'd pack benji and your atomic tomato sandblase anyway back to fisher he carried on with deakin's naval building plans by expanding the australian fleet with three more destroyers however his betrayal of deacon completely ruined their friendship and as with fish's predecessor chris watson deacon was out for blood whatever the cost in a meeting in melbourne's parliament house deacon met with the new leader of the anti-socialist party joseph cook now remember the anti-socialists were formerly known as the free traders and deacon had temporarily sided with the free traders as we saw last week but that was just to teach labour a lesson and put them in their place but deacon's new idea was outrageous if the protectionists and anti-socialists merged their parties together not as a coalition of two parties but as a singular party they would have the numbers to snatch government away from labour just let that sink in deacon proposed the protectionist in what used to be the free traders merged into one party like i said last time just imagine the australian progressive party and the australian conservative party merging there by definition complete opposites cook was on board with this and the two officially merged to become the fusion party now obviously this incensed some protectionist mps as the very principle that they stood for was sold out and so they defected to labor when this was announced before parliament the usually non-partisan speaker of the house sir frederick holder shouted terrible terrible william lyon whom you might remember for trying to snake edmund barton out of leadership called deacon judas but regardless of the jeers in parliament in 1909 for a third time deacon was back but deacon had to make quick work because an election was around the corner in 1910 and fisher wanted his revenge strangely deacon's physical and mental prowess was on the decline and he really struggled with memory so going into the election things were grim deakin was seen not only as a backstabber but also was a joe biden-like gaff machine hey everyone i'm joel biden's husband so deacon needed a pr win he couldn't go into the election as the fusion party because that word reminded the public of deakin's deal with cook instead deacon's party would go by the name of something else the liberal government well kind of deacon's liberal party wasn't the same as the one we see today that one was launched by menzies after world war ii but nonetheless the foundations for the modern liberal party were in place and going into 1910 for the first time in our history australia was preparing for a liberal labor showdown thanks for watching your job's not done here though let me know below who you think wins the 1910 election honor rules no googling everyone is correct gets a shout out next week next to a piece of nostalgic australiana so make sure to comment below next episode we see what happened in this election and see the build-up to australia's baptism of fire gallipoli we can't wait to see you next time for our next venture into a fascinating part of history