Communism can be defined as a theory or system of social organization in which all property is owned by the community and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs (oxford dictionary) Communism is a symbol of fear for many countries and for Australia this fear about the influence of communist ideology dates back until the early 1920’s where the Australian Labour Party feared that that the democratic way of life the Australians had was under threat. The reason to why this was is due to the 5 years that followed the end of World War 2 as Australians had been witnessing the greater part of Eastern Europe and smaller parts of Asia fall behind the ‘Iron Curtain’ of communism. The 1950’s in Australia was a time of widespread fear which deals with the campaign to outlaw the communist party. The fear of the people of Australia was shown in many ways in terms of health, housing, work etc. The fear went on for a few years which eventually with action from Robert Menzies with the Referendum and also a communism election campaign following the Petrov affair led to The Australian Labour Party to split over the fears of communism and instead a Democratic Labour Party was created.
December 1949 was the start of the movements against communism that were about to take place. In December 1949, Robert Menzies of the Liberal Party defeated Ben Chifley of the Australian Labour party in the federal election. The Communist Party Dissolution Bill was introduced in April of 1950 and then was then passed through Parliament in October 1950. The Communist Party Dissolution Bill was introduced in order to ban the Communist Party and the bill itself included three measures that would deal with communism. These three measures including; ‘1, the Communist Party was declared to be an unlawful association and, as such, was to be dissolved, its property forfeited without compensation. 2, The Governor – General was authorized to declare bodies (such as trade