Foreword: The Hon Kim Beazley, AC

On 8 May 1942, John Curtin riveted the House of Representatives with an adjournment speech on the naval battle then raging in the Coral Sea: As I speak, those who are participating in the engagement are conforming to the sternest discipline and are subjecting themselves with all that they have – it may be for many of them the last full measure of their devotion – to accomplish the increased safety and security of this territory. Given the critical character of the battle, the uncertainty then as to its outcome and the spontaneous nature of the Prime Minister’s words, I would argue that in Australian political discourse this comes in character as close to the great brief orations (greatest of all being Lincoln’s Gettysburg address) as Australian politics has ever come. For the political class in Australia, one utterly steeped in the powerful grip of the logic of British Imperial Defence, the emotional shift Curtin’s words captured was probably more important in broadening the Australian strategic mind than any cold calculation. In 1942 we learned the language of both self-reliance and new alliances in planning for our survival, even if, as fear of a threat to our national security receded, the traditional commitment to the United Kingdom was revived in later years in modified form.