What did John Curtin do as Prime Minister of Australia that made him so well known?

Answer 1

Extract from Digger History.

It was the inspiring leadership of John Curtin that pulled Australia successfully through World War Two. He united a country still suffering the divisions caused by the conscription referenda of World War One and the Depression. It was Curtin who argued with Churchill for the sending of Australia's forces back to New Guinea to fight off successfully the Japanese thrust. This was to be until the United States could mobilise for the drive back to Japan. It was Curtin who battled unsuccessful with both Churchill and Roosevelt to have the Pacific war against the Japanese given the same priority as the European war against the Germans. During Curtin's first two years of office he had to rely on the support of two Independents in the House of Representatives and was in a minority in the Senate. While he placed the winning of the war first on his priorities, he recognised that there were urgent reforms required within Australia. While his Government reorganised the war effort and provided Australia with its own front line aircraft, it's own guns, tanks, munitions and soldiers, there was still time to provide widows' pensions, unemployment benefits, to plan an Australian Government airline (later TAA), to plan a system of free hospitals throughout Australia, and to rationalise the income tax system so that there was only one income taxing authority - the Commonwealth Government which returned to the States their share of income tax revenue. It was Curtin's Government which took the Commonwealth directly into education for the first time and which developed the Australian National University so that the best Australian brains could be retained in this country. He provided a research University equal to the best in the world. Again, it was Curtin's Government that began the long process of removing the greatest defence and economic handicap-the differing rail gauges-and seeking a standardisation of rail gauges in all states. It was Curtin's Government which recognised that housing was a national problem and provided the first Commonwealth finance for home building. One other achievements of Curtin must be noted which relate to his experiences during the Depression. The first was the 1945 Banking Act which gave the Federal Treasurer the power to regulate private banking in the interest of the whole Australian community. The second was the establishment of a Department of Post-War Reconstruction in 1942. It was this department, headed by J. B. Chifley, the Treasurer, which laid the foundations of Australia's post-war full employment programmes. As with Theodore, Curtin believed that every able bodied person had a right to a job and that it was the responsibility of the community through its governments and private enterprise to see that jobs were provided. Curtin did not live to see the end of the war or to see his post-war reconstruction policies come to fulfilment. He died in July 1945 and is regarded as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, Australian Prime Minister.