Battle of the Banks: How ad men, barristers and bankers ended Ben Chifley’s boldest plan

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After the Second World War, Labor Prime Minister Ben Chifley embarked on a radical plan to replace Australia’s century-old banking system with a single national bank. The proposal passed into legislation in 1947, igniting a nationwide wave of resistance. Australia’s banking industry launched media campaigns, legal challenges, and coast-to-coast protests to defeat the move. Opposition Leader Robert Menzies and the new Liberal Party opposed the takeover. They harnessed the fury over bank nationalisation to win the first in a series of election triumphs that lasted almost a quarter of a century. Battle of the Banks is the story of the politicians, media magnates, ad men, cartoon characters, feminists, community stirrers and bank clerks who saved Australian banking.

Bob Crawshaw’s deeply researched Battle of the Banks provides a unique insight into one of the foundational moments of modern Australian politics.…It is a story which retains its resonance and offers us lessons in our own era of media disinformation and propaganda masquerading as news. – Frank Bongiorno AM, Professor of History, The Australian National University