Stanley Bruce

Who was Stanley Bruce?

Stanley Melbourne Bruce, 1st Viscount Bruce of Melbourne CH MC FRS PC, was the eighth Prime Minister of Australia. Bruce made wide-ranging reforms and mounted a comprehensive nation-building program in government, but his controversial handling of industrial relations led to his dramatic defeat at the polls in 1929. He later pursued a long and influential diplomatic career as High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, at the League of Nations and as Chairman of the Food and Agriculture Organization Council.

Born into a wealthy Melbourne family, Bruce studied at the University of Cambridge and spent his early life tending to the importing and exporting business of his late father. He served on the front lines of the Gallipoli Campaign in World War I and returned to Australia wounded in 1917, becoming a spokesperson for government recruitment efforts. He gained the attention of the Nationalist Party and Prime Minister Billy Hughes, who encouraged a political career. He was elected to parliament in 1918, becoming treasurer in 1921 and then prime minister in 1923.

In office Bruce pursued an energetic and diverse agenda. He comprehensively overhauled federal government administration and oversaw its transfer to the new capital city of Canberra. He implemented many reforms to the Australian federal system that strengthened the role of the Commonwealth. He established the Commonwealth Peace Officers and Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, the forerunners of the Australian Federal Police and the CSIRO. His "men, money and markets" scheme was an ambitious attempt to rapidly expand Australia's population and economic potential through massive government investment and closer ties with Great Britain and the rest of the British Empire. However, his endeavours to overhaul Australia's industrial relations system brought his government into frequent conflict with the labour movement, and his radical proposal to abolish Commonwealth arbitration in 1929 prompted members of his own party to cross the floor to defeat the government. In the resounding loss at the subsequent election the Prime Minister lost his seat, an event unprecedented in Australia and one that would not occur again until 2007.