Talk:Arthur Calwell

2 Wongs do not make a White

It is actually in his memoirs. The quote there is only a part of his explanation in his memoirs. --58.172.251.46 (talk) 06:59, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

A reporter changed 'White' to 'white'

"In December 1947, Calwell responded to a question from a Liberal, Thomas White, about the wrong Mr Wong receiving a deportation notice, saying teasingly that he had to say - and was sure the Honorable Member for Balaclava would not mind him doing so - that 'Two Wongs do not make a White'. A reporter changed 'White' to 'white' and sent the comment to the Straits Times in Singapore." "The Australian People" By James Jupp p71

Calwell controversies

Hi all,
Added a little tidy, but that's it for me, will not go anywhere near the controversies. Happy editing, folks.--Shirt58 (talk) 14:04, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Glossing over xenophobic positions

While I won't immediately move to incorporating any of the following, I would like to attract feedback on this extract from a journal, with the aim for inviting disputation of its relevance. As it stands, it has to be said that the article gives an impression of Calwell which is somewhat in contradiction to the anecdotal indications here contained:

From Blewett (1973) ‘Memoirs of a Paleolaborite’. Politics 8(2): 391-392

While in the overblown radical rhetoric of the contemporary world we are no doubt all racists, there are clearly racists and racists. Calwell admired Enoch Powell who "has been saying what millions of white Britons think, and I believe", and like Powell he warns against our "being flooded by hordes of non-integratables". And for those who do not get the electoral message he alleges, on what evidence I know not, that "it must not be forgotten that it was Enoch Powell, and not Edward Heath, who defeated Harold Wilson's Labor Government" (p. 118). He boasts of "my white skin" as though it were somehow a product of his industry or intelligence and repeats his claim that "no red-blooded Australian wanted to see a chocolate-coloured Australia in the 1980s" (p. 126). He would cut the present level of non-European immigration, and "scrap" the Colombo Plan so that "No more Asian or African students should be brought to Australia".

Oakum ouroboros (talk) 08:16, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

The picture

The picture is probably the worst picture of Arthur Calwell that physically exists. I'll leave this section here for a bit, and if there's no disputes, I will change it to something better. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 14.202.198.250 (talk) 12:24, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

2017 revisit

Will continue to revert - this 1951 photo takes precedence over this 1940 photo as 1951 is closer to his time as Labor leader, a position unarguably more noteworthy than a ministry position. There have been hundreds of Labor ministers but only 20 Labor leaders. Regardless, he was immigration minister 1945-49 which is 5 years later than the 1940 photo but only 2 years earlier than the 1951 photo. The early 1940 photo is rightly chronologically placed in the article body. Timeshift (talk) 14:39, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Agree. His time as minister of immigration was important, yes, but he was LotO for seven years, unquestionably the most significant thing about him. Frickeg (talk) 23:07, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Was White Australia Policy relaxed?

If he allowed in Croatians, Italians, Greeks etc, should we say that there was a "relaxation" of the White Australia Policy? Would Anglos have viewed people from these countries as "white" back then? I doubt it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.22.252.68 (talk) 16:08, 31 December 2020 (UTC)