Accommodating Australians: Commonwealth Government Involvement in Housing

sant rain and cold of Queenstown and the dry heat and dust of Mt Isa, Port Pirie appears to be an oasis of liveability. Eklund describes Mt Isa and Kambalda as ‘modernist’ towns, representing ‘the transformation of harsh and difficult landscapes into productive industrial and urban environments’ (174). In Kambalda modernism was also found in the application of contemporary town planning to the town’s development. However all of these towns were established in a struggle against climate and geography, so it is not quite clear why they all do not fit the modernist model. Eklund shows how community is shaped by the historical dialectics of cohesion and division, inclusion and exclusion. Cohesion was created by churches, commerce, companies, moderate unions and sport, but, particularly before World War II, it was invariably thwarted by class conflict. In the long post-war boom the trend was towards industrial cohesion; even in Broken Hill workers and bosses seemed to come together. Eklund maintains a rigorous class analysis throughout the book. Capital and labour are set against each other, but the relationships are always historically and culturally particular. Class relationship is explored in several ways*industrial relations; labour process; the place of companies in their towns; urban geography; and local politics. Only one of these towns*Kambalda*was officially a company town, although the advent of New Right management in the 1980s brought that to an end. In the rest, companies effectively controlled the towns but attempted to build cohesive communities through housing programmes, company stores, clubs, picnics, and medical benefits. Their motives for these were also pragmatic: attracting married workers and their families, reducing the cost of living and, therefore, wages. On the whole, workers welcomed these initiatives, although in class-conscious Broken Hill they remained suspicious. Yet Eklund insists that community was produced not by the companies but by the people who chose to make their lives in their towns. The argument works well but perhaps he could have explored the lives of those who were not directly associated with the mines. All his towns were more or less diverse commercially and perhaps this diversity could have been incorporated more into the discussions of their social structure. Particularly before World War II, Aboriginal people and migrant workers from mainland Europe were outsiders in all these towns. Port Pirie was a little different and it seems to have had a larger continental European population. But Aborigines were never welcomed anywhere, by companies, unions or white workers. The ethnic makeup of the towns was overwhelmingly Anglo-Celtic, so Eklund shows how being white was a source of both inclusion and division. The situation for women was different. Mining was always men’s work; women’s role was firmly as wives and mothers, but women were invariably excluded from public life. Women’s opportunities for paid work were narrow: occasionally in company offices, more often in the towns in gender-prescribed jobs, or working in informal economies, running boarding houses, cleaning, washing, etc. Except, strangely, in Kambalda, where Western Mining Corporation introduced policies supporting women’s employment. Time will tell whether Eklund has achieved his major aims. But has he written a sufficiently comprehensive history of each town? The answer, happily, is yes. His historical method and theoretical models work well, his themes are appropriate, he does not try to overburden the text with historical detail, nevertheless he displays an impressive command of his towns’ histories. He is particularly good at teasing out the generalities that add strength to comparative histories. This is a very fine book and deserves a wide readership.