Henry A. Tardent: The untold story of how a Swiss migrant influenced the emergence of ‘Australian democracy’ - Couverture souple

Richards, Cameron

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1764488075 ISBN 13 : 9781764488075

Editeur : Wild Dingo Works, 2026

Synopsis

One Swiss who became a good Australian while retaining a strong love of his country was Henry Alexis Tardent who established a family in Queensland in 1887 … Tardent was intensely active in politics, agriculture, and literary activities. He acted as an adviser in the early 1890s to the drafters of the Constitution. In 1898 he became a friend and supporter of Andrew Fisher who was the first Australian Labor Prime Minister. Around 1911 he helped the Government prepare the Act to establish a Citizen Defence Force - Gough Whitlam, 1975
Following the 2013 Swiss-Australia Declaration of Intent on a Strategic Dialogue, there was renewed interest in the ‘story of Henry Tardent’. In her 1989 book The Swiss in Australia Wegman (like Whitlam) noted that Tardent “became the most influential Swiss settler in Australia due to his involvement in moulding the Commonwealth’s constitution”. But no-one has previously gone to the trouble of detailing this claim. To correct some ‘misconceptions’, we investigated Tardent’s ‘untold story’ in depth – an inquiry focused on the question of his ‘contributions to a Swiss-influenced Australian Constitution’. Our account here further documents the alignment of the Tardent story to the historical challenge of ‘the modern Australian democracy’ to overcome its enduring ‘colonial cultural cringe’ – including in and beyond the 1975 Constitutional Crisis and the 1999 Republic Referendum result.
The book describes and discusses relevant (as well as ‘untold’) details and contexts of how Tardent’s initial and ongoing advice to Sir Samuel Griffith, A.J. Thynne, and their concerned ‘Qld group’ (especially re: referendum and double majority rule ‘democracy safeguards’) was generally embraced at the 1891 Constitutional Convention. This was then developed and refined in further drafts up to the 1987 Convention and also just prior to the 1901 Federation enactment. But Tardent’s advisory adaptations to the local context of not just the Swiss Federal Constitution, (but related models of democracy, national defence and ‘multiculturalism’) did not stop there. For forty years Tardent personally exemplified this in influentially advising key Australian politicians – especially in relation to the policy documents he obtained (and translated) from the eminent Swiss journalist, politician, and military strategist Edouard Secretan. He had befriended ‘Colonel Secretan’ after returning to Switzerland 1881 to undertake his national service with the Vaud Civic Militia. This is how (via Deakin, Fisher, Thynne and others) he came to also influence the early Australian national Defence Acts and especially its blend of military volunteerism and the 1911 universal training scheme.
But it was in his related journalistic, community, and also ‘cultural’ activities that Tardent made arguably more important contributions to Australia – including to the emergence of ‘the ALP’ as an internationally significant model of reform-oriented ‘social democracy’. In his 1923 book In Freedom’s Cause distributed by the ‘RSL’, Tardent influentially argued that Australia’s ‘all-volunteer expeditionary force’ in WWI had under Monash helped define the emerging national identity exemplified by the related ‘Anzac legend’. Tardent further promoted the idea that as an emergent ‘new world nation’ it was even more important that Australian democracy encourage a ‘robust civil society’ culture. In the 1920s Brisbane, Tardent’s artistic and multicultural model of ‘harmonising the city’ was supported by Qld Premier Ted Theodore – who he'd helped enter politics years earlier. And in addition to his later-life writings for French and Swiss newspapers (to explain the ‘emerging Australia’), he further uniquely and influentially promoted an emerging Australian tradition of literature, art, and ‘culture’ more widely grounded in convergent aspects of both nationalism and multiculturalism.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Wild Dingo Works
• Date d'édition: 2026
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1764488075
• ISBN 13: 9781764488075
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 132
• Coordonnées du fabricant: Printed by Amazon on behalf of the author; https://www.amazon.fr/hz/contact-us; ; c/o Amazon Media EU S.à.r.l., 38 Avenue John F. Kennedy; Luxembourg; L-1855; Luxembourg