Liza’s Journey: Australia in the Sixties, Part 3
Mervyn Bendle, Quadrant, Dec 20 2025
Radical Thought. The Sydney Push had a lot more to it than the Libertarianism and libertinism we discussed in our previous article. As Liza discovered, it appealed also to those drawn to challenging ideas and ideologies, as well as to those, like her, who felt they had profound questions to ask. Prior to the Sixties, such youthful intellectual hunger might have been satisfied by joining the Communist Party. However, its authoritarianism, the revelations about the horrors of Stalinism, and the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary (right) discredited the Party for many. This was especially the case with Liza, who heard of the horrors first-hand from those workmates at the store who were amongst the 300,000 Hungarians who’d fled into exile, with many coming to Australia. Consequently, the Libertarian Society and the Push helped fill an ideological vacuum that lasted until the arrival of the New Left.
Intellectual Appeal. Moreover, they had a intellectual basis, derived from John Anderson’s iconoclastic philosophy, which had survived over 40 years of critique and conflict with the Establishment. The folk who made up the core membership of the Push took ideas seriously and this foundation gave it legitimacy for the intellectually-inclined, including not only the older members but younger folk like Liza or Germaine Greer, who particularly noticed the difference between Melbourne and Sydney: Melbourne’s ‘Drift’ was romantic in relationships and sloppy in reasoning while the Push (left) was realist in relationships and rigorous in reasoning.
