In 1933, two young members of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA), Reginald “Shorty” Patullo and Noel Counihan, initiated one of the most successful working-class protests to take place in Australia during the Great Depression.
The Battle of Phoenix Street — as it came to be known — began in Brunswick, a then working-class suburb in Melbourne. In defiance of anti-protest laws targeting the Left, Patullo scaled a moving tram and “shouted communistic slogans,” as Counihan locked himself inside a steel cage nearby.
Enraged, Victoria Police officers shot Patullo in the thigh before surrounding Counihan’s cage, demanding he submit himself to arrest. But Counihan wouldn’t budge — instead, he addressed thousands of bewildered onlookers. As he later recalled, “My speech called for maximum support for the free speech campaign and the plight of the unemployed.”
The Battle of Phoenix Street and subsequent trial of Patullo and Counihan consolidated public support behind the “Free Speech League,” which led the campaign to defend freedom of speech, organization, and protest. In fact, the campaign drew such a level of support that it forced a public retreat from the state’s conservative attorney general, Robert Menzies. Menzies was a vociferous anti-communist crusader and went on to become prime minister and founder of the Australian Liberal Party (ALP). Nevertheless, in July 1933, he was forced to publicly concede that “there is nothing illegal about communism.”
In short, the Battle of Phoenix Street was a turning point — and it deserves to be remembered as one of the great victories in working-class history in Australia.
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Auteur: James Hogg
