It is right to make Anzac Day a special day of the year. It allows us to recognise the pathos of young life cut short, the courage of soldiers in facing danger, the links between family members and war. It also prompts reflection on Australian values.
But it is a pity that Anzac Day has become almost the one day of the year. Quite apart from its commercialisation, it provides a thin picture of military life at its best, and an even thinner picture of Australian virtues at their best.
Cursing the darkness is easy. Is there any way in which military service, an experience of a significant number of Australians, can be woven into a richer story that reflects the depth, variety and generosity of Australians at their best? Pondering this question, I found illumination in an unlikely place: a book about the beginnings and the naming of a northern Melbourne suburb.
The story begins with soldiers returning to Australia after the Second World War. They had nowhere to live. And they could not build homes. Building materials were scarce, permits were given mainly to dilatory large firms, and the demand was very strong.
So a few former members of the Pay Corps, who worked in the most demanding circumstances in Australia and overseas to ensure that soldiers were supplied and paid, formed an ambitious plan to build and distribute houses on land north of Melbourne. Their cooperative was to be open to everyone, regardless of religion or race, and to provide cheap houses for the members.
The founders of the cooperative had learned how to organise and plan large ventures. They also returned from war determined to make Australia a better place free from the class divide and unfairness of the Depression.
When publicising the cooperative they evoked the Anzac myth, but in a way that deepened it and turned it to the good of society: ‘Initiative and mateship are the traditional characteristics of Australian troops... They are important in this transition period of re-establishment and reconstruction.’ The spirit of Gallipoli was not simply an occasion for self-admiration but was to be put to use.
The Lalor Cooperative had deep roots in European and Australian history. It was influenced by the Garden City movement, with its vision of small centres close to nature where people could live and work. The reformist ideas of Ebenezer Howard, the inspiration behind the Garden City, had in turn been