Australia's Great Depression - ONLINE ONLY

Details

When: Thursday 25 August 2022 AEST
Time: 12.30 pm - 1.30 pm AEST
Cost: Members: free, non-members: $5 (join or renew)
Venue: On line only

The Great Depression is still recognised as the worst economic crisis the world has faced.  Australia was hit particularly hard. Possibly one in three Australians were unemployed at the depths of the Depression. Yet the capacity of Australian governments to respond to the mass social distress proved limited. Joan Beaumont will discuss the various policy options that were canvassed; the debates that caused the federal Labor government of James Scullin to fall and the premier of New South Wales to be sacked; and the constraints on federal government policy making which led to the abandoning of the gold standard and deflationary economics of austerity.  How, too, do we explain the recovery of the Australian economy, which is some ways was complete only with the onset of World War II.

About the Speaker

Joan Beaumont is Professor Emerita the Australian National University Canberra and Honorary Professor at Deakin University, Melbourne. She is  author of the comprehensive history, Australia’s Great Depression (Allen & Unwin, 2022) and the multi-award winning Broken Nation: Australians in the Great War (2013).

Link to Professor Beaumont's book: 

https://www.booktopia.com.au/australia-s-great-depression-joan-beaumont/book/9781760293987.html

Registration 

To register please book online below. Members - the link to join this webinar will be included in your auto-generated invoice email. Non-members, the link will be sent to you separately.  Note, our emails sometimes get caught in spam folders.

Members should login before registering to avoid paying $5 non-member fee.