page_title: John Curtin
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: John Curtin / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Image of a statue of John Curtin, located outside the Fremantle Town Hall, Western Australia.
context_page_description: John Curtin was an Australian politician who served as the 14th Prime Minister of Australia from 1941 until his death in 1945. He led the country for the majority of World War II, including all but the last few weeks of the war in the Pacific. He was the leader of the Australian Labor Party from 1935 to 1945, and its longest serving leader until Gough Whitlam. Curtin's leadership skills and personal character were acclaimed by his political contemporaries. He is frequently cited as one of Australia's greatest prime ministers.
  Curtin left school at the age of 13 and became involved in the labour movement in Melbourne. He joined the Labor Party at a young age and was also involved with the Victorian Socialist Party. He became state secretary of the Timberworkers' Union in 1911 and federal president in 1914. Curtin was a leader of the "No" campaign during the 1916 referendum on overseas conscription, and was briefly gaoled for refusing to attend a compulsory medical examination. He moved to Perth the following year to become the editor of the Westralian Worker, and later served as state president of the Australian Journalists' Association.
context_section_description: MacArthur said of Curtin that "he was one of the greatest of wartime statesmen, and the preservation of Australia from invasion will be his immemorial monument".
  Curtin is credited with leading the Labor Party to its best federal election success in history, with a record 55.1 percent of the primary half-senate vote, winning all seats, and a two party preferred lower house estimate of 58.2 percent at the 1943 election, winning two-thirds of seats.
  One legacy of Curtin was the significant expansion of social services under his leadership. In 1942, uniform taxation was imposed on the various states, which enabled the Curtin Government to set up a far-reaching, federally administered range of social services. These included a widows' pension (1942), maternity benefits for Indigenous Australians (1942), funeral benefits (1943), a second form of maternity benefit (1943), a wife's allowance (1943), additional allowances for the children of pensioners (1943), unemployment, sickness and Special Benefits (1945), and pharmaceutical benefits (1945). Substantial improvements to pensions were made, with invalidity and old-age pensions increased, the qualifying period of residence for age pensions halved, and the means test liberalised. Other social security benefits were significantly increased, while child endowment was liberalised, a scheme of vocational training for invalid pensioners was set up, and pensions extended to cover Aborigines. The expansion of social security under John Curtin was of such significance that, as summed up by one historian:
  Australia entered World War II with only a fragmentary welfare provision: by the end of the war it had constructed a "welfare state".
  Curtin defended the White Australia policy in a speech in which he stated: "This country shall remain forever the home of the descendants of those people who came here in peace in order to establish in the South Seas an outpost of the British race."
  The Curtin government's October 1942 enactment of the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942, reversing the stance of four previous governments, marked the moment of Australia's legal independence.  This law, along with the Constitution of Australia and the Australia Act 1986, is one of the key components of Australia's modern constitutional framework.
  His early death and the sentiments it aroused have given Curtin a unique place in Australian political history. Successive Labor leaders, particularly Bob Hawke and Kim Beazley, have sought to build on the Curtin tradition of "patriotic Laborism". Even some political conservatives pay at least formal homage to the Curtin legend. Immediately after his death the parliament agreed to pay John Curtin's wife Elsie a £1,000 per annum pension until legislation was passed and enacted to pay a pension to a past prime minister or their widow after their death.
  Curtin is commemorated by the federal seat of Curtin, the Canberra suburb of Curtin, Curtin University in Perth, John Curtin College of the Arts in Fremantle, the John Curtin School of Medical Research in Canberra, the John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library, Curtin Springs in the Northern Territory, John Curtin House, the former headquarters of the Australian Labor Party, Curtin House in Swanston Street, Melbourne, and many other buildings, roads, parks and structures throughout Australia. In 1975 Curtin was honoured on a postage stamp bearing his portrait issued by Australia Post. On 14 August 2005, the 60th anniversary of V-P Day, a bronze statue of Curtin in front of Fremantle Town Hall was unveiled by Premier of Western Australia Geoff Gallop.
caption: John Curtin statue at Fremantle Town Hall.
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