Maitland-born 'Doc' Evatt (pictured) was elected to federal parliament in 1940.

After the war his position as Minister for External Affairs gave him contact with the newly formed United Nations Organisation, and he sat on the Security Council and became the first President of the Atomic Energy Commission. In 1948 he was elected President of the UN General Assembly, and he helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He was also involved in the creation of the state of Israel.

Well before his UN career, Evatt was a prolific writer on history and the law. His book The King and His Dominion Governors (London, 1936), a study in constitutional law prompted by Jack Lang's dismissal as Premier of NSW in 1932, was to be cited by both sides in the debate about Gough Whitlam's dismissal by Sir John Kerr in 1975. Injustice Within the Law, a book about the Tolpuddle martyrs, followed in 1937, and then came The Rum Rebellion (1938) on Governor William Bligh. Some believe his finest work to have been Australian Labour Leader (1940), on WA Holman, a hero of Evatt's youth. The University of Sydney awarded Evatt a DLitt in 1944.

RELATED CONTENT

Evatt contributed to Australian cultural life too. He was a patron of modern art, supported the Contemporary Art Society and was a long-term President of Trustees of the Public Library of NSW.

He became federal Labor's parliamentary leader in 1951. His leadership was fraught, however, and he lost three successive general elections to the Liberal-Country Party coalition under Robert Menzies. Evatt became mired in the Petrov Affair, and his sympathy for the Soviet Union saw him painted as dangerously close to the communist cause. In fact he was a loyal Australian nationalist, arguing during the war that the Australian media (including the ABC) was not sufficiently pro-Australia: this, he worried, affected troop morale. But his view that Russia was more enlightened than Britain on human welfare, and his support for the Communist Party cause when Menzies sought to outlaw the Party, cost him and the ALP greatly in political terms.

Evatt was a defender of civil liberties and freedom of expression, but his failure to condemn communism was part of the lead-up to the ALP split in the mid-1950s. This saw the party out of power until the 1970s.

Evatt left Parliament in 1960, the last seat he represented having been the electorate of Hunter. He had one more career, as Chief Justice of NSW from 1960-62. He died in 1965.

In the end, Evatt was something of a tragic figure in Australian politics, never achieving the prime ministership despite being Opposition leader for nearly a decade. Nevertheless his life and career can be admired for many things. He was extraordinarily energetic and a great all-rounder, excelling at sport, the law, international diplomacy and writing, but not so adept at politics.

Maitland should be proud of Evatt. In 2016 he was inducted into the City's Hall of Fame, but there was community uproar when in 1987 an East Maitland high school was named after the Evatt family at the behest of an ALP Minister for Education. The name was soon withdrawn.

Maitland and District Historical Society

Do you know you can subscribe to get full access to all Maitland Mercury stories? Subscribing supports us in our local news coverage. To subscribe, click here.