The Great Depression was the pivotal movement for Australia, that challenged the government and society of Australia to survive. Australia was deeply affected by the great depression not just to one group of people but to every single person in the community. The Great Depression had a long-lasting impact on both men and women, rich and poor, young and old, and the government. Australia was in fact affected severely but also learnt from this dilemma that improved Australia greatly.
One of the most affected areas of the depression where the poor and people living on the outskirts of town. When the Depression hit, the poor were at their weakest. The unemployment rate skyrocketed to 50% of the poor (estimated by McQueen). Many men lost their pride and where so humiliated they went on the tracks, an estimated 30 000 people, wandering the fringes of town in search of a job. Men that were “on the tracks”, every now and then had to check into a police station so they were eligible for ‘track rations’ of food. Because of such a vast number of people were unemployed, everyone was searching for jobs which made it very rare that anyone would get a job, especially in the countryside. Sometimes this sparked many violent city riots especially from 1931 to 1932. A major contributing factor for all the unemployed citizens was the uncertainty and insecurity that hit the community like a wave ever since the depression started. People that were fortunate enough to have a job were consistently paranoid that their job would disappear overnight and as a result would lose their pride and sanity. When times were harder, families could not afford electricity, gas, or heating, so when a family member contracts an illness it has devastating consequences for the family. Most poor families lived in shanty towns (Happy Valley), houses were built from rotting furniture and even rusted car bodies. A source from the Worker’s Weekly (February 1934) exclaimed that ‘The roofs are mostly made of scrap sheets of tine rescued from the garbage tip … the floors are wet sand, smooth out and covered with bags. Fleas? Millions of’em!’. This shows the harsh reality that is faced by the poor people and what they suffered just to survive.
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Within the year 1929 over 5000 banks crashed, six million workers became unemployed and by 1933 half of the population were unemployed. For the more fortunate, the wealthy, their lives didn’t change much, they grabbed at the opportunity for depression parties and the value of land dropped and they took advantage of this. With the stock-market crash, the wealthy tried to adapt to the new economic circumstances by being frugal and lived by the motto “Use it up, wear it out, make do or do without”. Many doctors and lawyers saw their income drop by forty percent; families that had once enjoyed their economic security instantly faced financial vulnerability. On the outside, they dressed properly and behaved the same way but they had an increasing financial stress looming over their heads, this had a mental toll and many families, as a result the suicide rates soared. Marriages had struggled, many couple couldn’t afford to get a divorce therefore many men abandoned their families out of embarrassment and humiliation. When men left their homes, all the women were left with their kids. Left to raise them, left to feed then all by themselves. From ‘The Working Woman’-1st September 1931 ‘As a farmer’s wife, I lead a lonely existence, striving to make the best of things and slaving for my family year after year.’ ‘I hope to be freed from household drudgery and by able to follow my natural inclinations and always do field work. This explicates the true horror that women have to face day to day because of their husband’s foolishness. Another source ‘The Working Woman- 1st February 1932’ depicts the tough everyday life that they have to survive. ‘I am unable to obtain Child Endowment. My family is ineligible for the dole. I am unable to obtain work. I cannot get the widow’s pensions, as I divorce a husband I had not seen or hear of for five years’ This illustrates that women were treated disrespectfully and unjustly.
Even before the depression started, Australia had a large debt towards England, and because Britain was our mother country, we had a duty to repay that debt. The value of commodities was steadily decreasing, and therefore our country was falling apart. The response of the government was very controversial with two very different opposing views of approaches to the problem of the economy. One of the approaches was to activate the deflationary policy, which was to balance the budget and reduce its consumer population. This policy was put forward by Sir Otto Niemeyer, whom was selected by the Scullin government in 1930. Another proposition was to enact the opposite; the inflationary policy. Which instead would increase spending to galvanise the economy, but when it was put in place by Edward Granville it failed as the commonwealth bank refused to support the ideation of enhancing the economy. In June 1931, a meeting which held all state leaders was a way to find a medium of which plan to be agreed on. The final agreement was to deploy the deflationary approach previously proposed by Niemeyer. From this approach there were major improvements starting from 1932. The value in commodities started to rise as well as unemployment started to recover. These improvements were slow and gradual, this forced the Australians to see the reality was that the Great Depression was too much of an impact to the economy and that two crucial factors that led to this uncertainty was inexperience and unreliability.
The Great Depression was an era of change and struggle. The force of the depression on Australia was both positive and negative. This era allowed the economy and government to learn from this. Improving their strategies was one advantage from the depression. But the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. The poor, children, unemployed were affected deeply both physically and mentally. The Great Depression allowed Australia to embark on a resilient journey to help the economy recover from this economic disruption.
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