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Carlo Carli on the workforce in the Brunswick community

Carlo Carli and Mara Moustafine.

Brunswick MP Carlo Carli describes the migrant workforce of the post-war era.

Created:

unknown

Date Added:

31 March 2009

Source:

source not available

Format:

mov (Quicktime);

File size:

4.9 MB

Length:

01min53sec

Transcript

It was classic post-war industrial workforce the kids’ parents largely worked in the factories, the exception was Pentridge, there were a lot of parents, particularly the Aussie parents, that were working in Pentridge, but the largest number were factory workers and then of course, you had a smattering of small business people -fish and chip shop ownerspizzeria owners and that sort of stuff but overwhelmingly they were strictly factory workers and henceit was a working class community,– I remember one of the most vivid days for me, just in terms of the whole school response was 1975 when Whitlam was sacked the whole school shut down.
01:00
Everyone stopped and a lot of the kids just walked out of the school and went off to march in the city square and I thought that was a very interestingsort of response of the time, that was the side we were on and it was not quite universal, it was pretty close to. And I remember when I came to university, finding friends of mine who had gone to private schools where the exact opposite had gone on, where once the sacking had occurredkids cheered it on rather- so I think we had very strong Labor solidarities in that school. And you know, factory – the fact that it was factory workers and a lot of the car plants in particular were the major employers in that area, Ford and General Motors– it did create a certain bonding within that community.
01:52
End transcript