Editing History of Australia (section)

===Economic growth and suburban living===
[[File:Tumut3GeneratingStation.jpg|thumb|[[Tumut 3]] power station was constructed as part of the vast [[Snowy Mountains Scheme|Snowy Mountains Hydro Electric Scheme]] (1949–1974). Construction necessitated the expansion of Australia's immigration programme.]]

Australia enjoyed significant growth in prosperity in the 1950s and 1960s, with increases in both living standards and in leisure time.<ref name="Susan_Something">{{cite book|editor-first=Susan|editor-last=Hosking|display-editors=etal|title=Something Rich and Strange: Sea Changes, Beaches and the Littoral in the Antipodes|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6mQ_-ZD5xBUC&pg=PA6|year=2009|publisher=Wakefield Press|isbn=978-1-86254-870-1|page=6}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first1=Brian|last1=Hodge|first2=Allen|last2=Whitehurst|title=Nation and People: An Introduction to Australia in a Changing World|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qE0OAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA184|year=1967|publisher=Hicks, Smith|page=184}}</ref> The manufacturing industry, previously playing a minor part in an economy dominated by primary production, greatly expanded. The first [[Holden]] motor car came out of General Motors-Holden's Fisherman's Bend factory in November 1948. Car ownership rapidly increased—from 130 owners in every 1,000 in 1949 to 271 owners in every 1,000 by 1961.<ref>Lynn Kerr and Ken Webb (1989) ''Australia and the World in the Twentieth Century''. pp. 123–24 McGraw Hill Australia. {{ISBN|0-07-452615-4}}</ref> By the early 1960s, four competitors to Holden had set up Australian factories, employing between 80,000 and 100,000 workers, "at least four-fifths of them migrants".<ref name="Bolton-1990">Geoffrey Bolton (1990) ''The Oxford History of Australia'', Volume 5, 1942–1988, p. 99 Oxford University Press, Melbourne. {{ISBN|0-19-554613-X}}</ref>

In the 1960s, about 60 per cent of Australian manufacturing was protected by tariffs. Pressure from business interests and the union movement ensured these remained high. Historian Geoffrey Bolton suggests that this high tariff protection of the 1960s caused some industries to "lapse into lethargy", neglecting research and development and the search for new markets.<ref name="Bolton-1990"/> The [[CSIRO]] was expected to fulfil research and development.

Prices for wool and wheat remained high, with wool the mainstay of Australia's exports. Sheep numbers grew from 113 million in 1950 to 171&nbsp;million in 1965. Wool production increased from 518,000 to 819,000 tonnes in the same period.<ref>Geoffrey Bolton (1990) p. 92</ref> Wheat, wool and minerals ensured a healthy balance of trade between 1950 and 1966.<ref>Geoffrey Bolton (1990) p. 97</ref>

The great housing boom of the post war period saw rapid growth in the suburbs of the major Australian cities. By the 1966 census, only 14 per cent lived in rural Australia, down from 31 per cent in 1933, and only 8 per cent lived on farms.<ref>Geoffrey Bolton (1990) p. 122</ref> Virtual full employment meant high standards of living and dramatic increases in home ownership, and by the sixties, Australia had the most equitable spread of income in the world.<ref>The New Rulers of the World by John Pilger</ref> By the beginning of the sixties, an Australia-wide McNair survey estimated that 94% of homes had a fridge, 50% a telephone, 55% a television, 60% a washing machine, and 73% a vacuum cleaner. In addition, most households had now acquired a car.<ref>{{cite book|first1=Robert|last1=Crawford|first2=Kim|last2=Humphery|title=Consumer Australia: Historical Perspectives|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S1kaBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA174|date=9 June 2010|publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing|isbn=978-1-4438-2305-0|page=174}}</ref> According to one study, "In 1946, there was one car for every 14 Australians; by 1960, it was one to 3.5. The vast majority of families had access to a car."<ref name="Susan_Something"/>

Car ownership flourished during the postwar period, with 1970/1971 census data estimating that 96.4 per cent of Australian households in the early Seventies owned at least one car; however, not all felt the rapid suburban growth was desirable.<ref>{{cite book|first=Jim|last=Kemeny|title=The Myth of Home-ownership: Private Versus Public Choices in Housing Tenure|url=https://archive.org/details/mythofhomeowners0000keme|url-access=registration|date=1 January 1981|publisher=Routledge & Kegan Paul|isbn=978-0-7100-0634-9|pages=[https://archive.org/details/mythofhomeowners0000keme/page/50 50]–}}</ref> Distinguished Architect and designer [[Robin Boyd (architect)|Robin Boyd]], a critic of Australia's built surroundings, described Australia as "'the constant sponge lying in the Pacific', following the fashions of overseas and lacking confidence in home-produced, original ideas".<ref>Geoffrey Bolton (1990) p. 123</ref> In 1956, [[dadaism|dadaist]] comedian [[Barry Humphries]] performed the character of [[Edna Everage]] as a parody of a house-proud housewife of staid 1950s Melbourne suburbia (the character only later morphed into a critique of self-obsessed celebrity culture). It was the first of many of his satirical stage and screen creations based around quirky Australian characters: [[Sandy Stone (Barry Humphries character)|Sandy Stone]], a morose elderly suburbanite, [[Barry McKenzie]] a naive Australian expat in London and [[Sir Les Patterson]], a vulgar parody of a Whitlam-era politician.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/barryhumphries/|title=Cultureandrecreation.gov.au|publisher=Cultureandrecreation.gov.au|date=7 February 2007|access-date=14 July 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110410090505/http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/barryhumphries/|archive-date=10 April 2011}}</ref>

Some writers defended suburban life. Journalist Craig Macgregor saw suburban life as a "...solution to the needs of migrants..." Hugh Stretton argued that "plenty of dreary lives are indeed lived in the suburbs... but most of them might well be worse in other surroundings".<ref>Cited in Geoffrey Bolton (1990) p. 124</ref> Historian Peter Cuffley has recalled life for a child in a new outer suburb of Melbourne as having a kind of joyous excitement. "Our imaginations saved us from finding life too humdrum, as did the wild freedom of being able to roam far and wide in different kinds of (neighbouring) bushland...Children in the suburbs found space in backyards, streets and lanes, playgrounds and reserves..."<ref>Peter Cuffley (1993) ''Australian Houses of the Forties and Fifties.'' p. 26. The Five Mile Press, Victoria. {{ISBN|0-86788-578-5}}</ref>

In 1954, the [[Robert Menzies|Menzies Government]] formally announced the introduction of the new two-tiered TV system—a government-funded service run by the [[Australian Broadcasting Corporation|ABC]], and two commercial services in Sydney and [[Melbourne]], with the [[1956 Summer Olympics]] in [[Melbourne]] being a major driving force behind the introduction of television to Australia.<ref name="first24">{{Citation|title=Australian Television: the first 24 years|publisher=Nelsen/Cinema Papers|year=1980|page=3|location=[[Melbourne]]}}</ref> Colour TV began broadcasting in 1975.