Economic growth and suburban living

Australia enjoyed significant growth in prosperity in the 1950s and 1960s, with increases in both living standards and in leisure time.[345][346] 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.[347] 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."[348]

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.[349] 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 million in 1965. Wool production increased from 518,000 to 819,000 tonnes in the same period.[350] Wheat, wool and minerals ensured a healthy balance of trade between 1950 and 1966.[351]

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.[352] 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.[353] Car ownership also flourished, with 1970/1971 census data estimating that 96.4 per cent of Australian households in the early Seventies owned at least one car.[354] However, not all felt the rapid suburban growth was desirable. Distinguished Architect and designer 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."[355] In 1956, 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, a morose elderly suburbanite, Barry McKenzie a naive Australian expat in London and Sir Les Patterson, a vulgar parody of a Whitlam-era politician.[356]

Some writers defended suburban life, however. 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."[357] 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..."[358]

In 1954, the Menzies Government formally announced the introduction of the new two-tiered TV system—a government-funded service run by the 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.[359] Colour TV began broadcasting in 1975.