Farmers' parliaments and country conferences: attempts by New South Wales Labor in the 1920s and 1930s to communicate with the countryside

Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Dec, 2004 by Ken Turner

The outstanding feature of the Conference was its attitude to compulsory cooperative marketing. Committees representing products already handled by a marketing board endorsed that system. Others, like those dealing with prunes, vegetables and maize favoured it. The wheat committee approved amendments making only a simple majority necessary at a poll of growers to decide whether a compulsory pool be established. (Earlier attempts by wheat growers to do so had failed when a two-thirds majority had been necessary.)

The proceedings of the second Bathurst Conference had been a little less constructive than in 1926. It had produced a range of resolutions whose implementation could have brought political advantage for Labor. But this time the general reportage and the political context were less favourable. In addition, Labor was too overwhelmed by events to implement the resolutions. Even before the Conference, in February 1931 the Lang Plan had been announced and the New Guard formed. By March, there were two New South Wales Labor parties. Until rescinded the following day, Labor's April Annual Conference accepted a plan for socialisation of industry within three years. On 22 April the Government Savings Bank collapsed. Amidst growing economic problems and threats of State bankruptcy, the Lang Government was losing control, 'driven from one forlorn stratagem to another, with no realistic chance of Success.' (32)

The FSA President's doubt that it would be worthwhile proved well-founded. Given Labor's image by then, it is surprising that the second Bathurst Conference offered even a chance of providing the benefits derived from the first. An illustration of the background in which the second Conference met is the Bathurst Times report of Lang's opening speech:

   Mr Lang would have the people of Bathurst and the delegates to the
   conference believe he was there to do their will and to offer them
   every assistance ... yet through his instrumentality the Government
   Savings Bank and the Rural Bank have been closed, his Industrial
   Arbitration Act submitted which ... will bear exceedingly heavy upon
   the producer. He has failed in every respect to keep his promises to
   the producer in the past, and has complicated the whole trading
   position of the State by his disregard of all conditions of
   financial decency and business integrity ... Now (the farmers) must
   have immediate relief through lowered costs and better marketing,
   but no worthwhile section of the producers has ever sought nor would
   endorse the principle of repudiation, financial immorality, and
   violation of contracts. (33)

Subsequently the Farmers' Parliament tactic was dropped. Even at Labor' s 1933 Country Provincial Conference the agenda included a motion from the Dubbo Branch: 'In the opinion of Conference, the conferences of producers and consumers, such as those held at Bathurst, can never achieve any substantial gain to the Labor Movement'. (34) Lang' s 1938 policy speech made no mention of it, though he promised better facilities for the marketing of primary products. (35)