Who is herbert evatt

He pursued this theory relentlessly before the Royal Commission on Espionage. It was to lead to the split of the Labor Party in Menzies announced the defection of Petrov and established the Royal Commission into Espionage. He entered Victorian state politics as a member of the Victorian Legislative Council in Click here to see the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Australia was a founding member of the UN and played a prominent role in the negotiation of the UN Charter in Australia was also one of eight nations involved in drafting the Universal Declaration.

Dr HV Evatt was a prominent figure in Australia politics during the middle of the 20th century. Dr HV Evatt was renowned as a champion of civil liberties and the rights of economically and socially disadvantaged people.

He also persuaded the then sceptical Australian Government to vote in favour of the Universal Declaration. Under the leadership of Eleanor Roosevelt, Colonel Hodgson, along with representatives from other countries, helped define the basic human rights and responsibilities that were to be included in the Universal Declaration. A major reason for the Foundation's success has been the support of its loyal membership base.

The guiding hand of the institution's policy direction and management has always been the Executive Committee.

A booklet commemorating the 40th anniversary is available as a free download. The Evatt Foundation was established in as a memorial to Dr Herbert Vere Evatt with the aim of advancing the highest ideals of the labour movement: equality, democracy, social justice and human rights.

For 41 years, the Foundation has been helping to promote these ideals through research, publications, public discussion and debate. Before a large audience of supporters. To encourage the Foundation to pursue its objectives, major grants were awarded by the New South Wales Government, the Tasmanian Government and other public and private bodies, including trade unions and business enterprises.

From to the Foundation received an annual grant from the Commonwealth Government and was managed by a full-time executive director. Since , the chief executive role has been undertaken by an executive member in an honorary capacity. The Evatt Foundation is dedicated to upholding the highest ideals of the labour movement by promoting:. You can help by becoming a member of the Evatt Foundation.

That year Evatt lobbied General Douglas MacArthur , supreme commander, Allied Powers in Japan, in the hope of obtaining an assured role for Australia in any peace negotiations, but Australia's influence remained negligible, especially after the communists' victory in China in Evatt's concentration on foreign policy cost him some of his effectiveness as postwar attorney-general. Confident of his ability to master complex issues quickly, he was apt to display a poor tactical sense in promoting the Labor government's policies.

Although the High Court consistently restricted the spread of Federal power, Evatt showed an honourable, albeit a politically crippling, reluctance to influence the composition of the court. He repudiated a cabinet proposal in to appoint three new judges, made no attempt to introduce a retirement age and chose as his only nominee to the bench the lacklustre Sir William Webb. Having publicly supported the contentious bank nationalization legislation of , Evatt chose to lead for the government when the banks took the matter to the High Court.

His forensic skills were rusty and his ex-colleagues sceptical; the majority found that the legislation was invalidated by s. Forgetful of nationalist sentiment, Evatt appealed to the Privy Council in London.

His presentation took fourteen days and his response eight, interrupted by a dash to New York to preside over the U. General Assembly. By this time an election was imminent. An early enthusiast for the development of atomic energy in Australia, Evatt had keenly supported Sir Mark Oliphant's plans to build a cyclotron at the Australian National University; he was also involved in promoting the Anglo-Australian Joint Project which established the Woomera rocket range.

In the U. Chifley responded in by forming the Australian Security Intelligence Organization within the attorney-general's department. The Americans did not remove their embargo until the government changed.

Labor's enemies made much of bank nationalization and the Cold War as harbingers of creeping socialism. Evatt, who had been deputy-leader of his party from October , parried these thrusts energetically.

Anxious to rebut the Opposition's allegations of being soft on communism, he willingly framed legislation in June to defeat the coalminers' strike, and rejected advice from the Department of External Affairs favouring diplomatic recognition of the communist regime in China. More constructively, he approved the departmental initiatives which led in to the formulation of the Colombo Plan.

But by then Evatt was out of office following Labor's defeat on 10 December Slow at first to resist the measure, Evatt swung into strong opposition when it became clear that civil liberties would be jeopardized. Although Labor was obliged by its executive to support the legislation in principle, Evatt accepted a brief to appear in the High Court for the Waterside Workers' Federation in a challenge to the Act.

This time his arguments persuaded the court, which, by a six to one majority, held in March that the statute was invalid. That month Menzies secured a double dissolution. His government was returned in April with a majority in both Houses. Chifley died in June and Evatt was unanimously elected to succeed him.

The Menzies government responded to its defeat in the High Court by proposing a referendum giving the Commonwealth power to deal with communism.

Evatt might have chosen to proceed cautiously. Instead, he launched himself into one of his most vigorous barnstorming campaigns, stumping the country for a 'No' vote in defiance of public opinion polls which forecast majorities of between 70 and 80 per cent in favour of the proposal.

It has been called his finest hour. Enough voters were persuaded to change their minds for the referendum to be defeated by a narrow margin in September Evatt's attack on anti-communist legislation had come under fire from a right-wing section of his party, mainly Victorian Catholics sympathetic to the industrial groups who were attempting to wrest control from communists in the trade unions.

Identified with the 'groupers', though separate from and not always in accord with them, was the Catholic Social Studies Movement directed by B. Evatt sought to conciliate these factions, initially with some success. In Labor benefited from the government's inept handling of inflation, performing well in State polls and at the half-Senate elections in May Yet, at the May Federal elections, although Labor won over 50 per cent of votes in all contested seats, the Menzies government scraped home with a 64 to 57 majority.

This outcome was partly due to the aftermath of the first visit February to April by Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh to Australia and more immediately to the rash prodigality of Evatt's campaign promises. Eager for office, he had pledged to abolish the means test on pensions without costing the scheme.

To his colleagues he made contradictory commitments about the allocation of cabinet offices. Ultimately, the scales may have been tilted against Labor by the defection of Vladimir Petrov, an official from the Embassy of the Soviet Union. Menzies announced the defection on 13 April, the last night of the outgoing parliament, without managing to alert Evatt to the imminence of an important issue which might have led him to cancel a prior appointment in Sydney.

Petrov's wife was subsequently removed in dramatic circumstances from a Moscow-bound aircraft. Menzies set up a royal commission to investigate the Petrovs' testimony about Soviet espionage in Australia. Evatt convinced himself that the Petrov revelations were timed for maximum effect in damaging Labor's prospects at the elections.

This conviction hardened into certainty when the royal commission heard allegations that members of his personal staff had been in communication with the Soviet embassy. To a person of Evatt's intense ambition and suspiciousness, the provocation was irresistible. He decided to appear as counsel before the royal commission to defend his staff and expose what he saw as a conspiracy orchestrated by Menzies. Despite the hostility of the three royal commissioners all judges of lesser stature than his own , Evatt made some progress against A.

Sections of the Labor caucus were also growing restive at Evatt's preoccupation with the Petrov inquiry. In August he faced a post-election challenge to his leadership from T.

Burke , and, although he won easily, it was an omen of future dissension. A subtler leader might have noticed differences between Santamaria's 'Movement' and Labor's largely Catholic Victorian right wing, and used them to maintain party unity. Such was not Evatt's style. On 5 October he launched a sensational attack against 'disloyal' elements which aimed 'to deflect the Labor Movement from the pursuit of established Labor objectives and ideals'. At a caucus meeting on 20 October the party voted by 52 votes to 28 against a motion to throw all leadership positions open to contest, but Evatt's insistence on counting the names on either side added to the acrimony.

He then urged the federal executive of the A. The showdown came at a special federal conference in Hobart in March By a narrow margin the conference backed Evatt and withdrew support from the industrial groups.