Regulator Par Excellence: Sir Henry Bland and Industrial Relations 1950-1967

Study of the role of individuals in the bistory of Australian industrial relations has so far been limited largely to biographies of labour leaders and of a bandful of arbitration judges. This paper looks at the part played by Sir Henry Armand Bland (1909-1997), a federal public servant who for nearly two decades wielded an influence in national labour relations unprecedented this century. It is informed not merely by access to official archives and other literary records but also by Bland's own, carefully considered oral testament of achievement, which he bequeathed to posterity. The picture that emerges is somewhat surprising. As secretary of the Department of Lahour and National Service, Bland was interventionist in everything from exemtive government and secret surveillance of labour activists to arbitral determination and trade union governance. His range of intimate personal contacts was remarkable, including not just arbitration judges and union officials but also newspaper editors, press gallery journal ists and anti-communist polemicists. He enjoyed direct access to prime ministers and treasurers as well as to spycatchers and to his own, greatly contrasting ministers for labour: The character sketches be has bequeathed are devastatingly frank. His role was a crucial one in every piece of labour legislation introduced in the sixteen years of Robert Menzies' prime ministership. The industry that presented by far the greatest problems to Bland was stevedoring, which in the 1950s replaced coalmining as tbe strategic industrial bottleneck. It is Bland's claims for success on the watelfront that are most closely considered in this article, but other more general aspects of his policy are also noted—including his calculated policy of integrating the Australian Council of Trade Unions within the state.