“Japan Calling”: An Australian Quisling

Australians are being forced to live unnatural lives, forced to sacrifice their lives for the benefit of others. For Washington, we Australians are nothing but a sub-state and for London we are still a colony. National independence is our only salvation.
Alan Raymond, “Australian Affairs”, Radio XMHA, Shanghai, August 1944

At the height of the Japanese invasion scare of early 1942, the new Minister for the Army, Frank Forde, promised the assembled members of the House of Representatives, “We shall stand no Quislings, whether they come from the highest or the lowest.” Noted, and mocked, amongst both his Labor and conservative peers for his long-winded pomposity, Forde was referring to the recent arrests across the continent of those associated with the “Australia-First” movement, thought to be complicit with a threatened Japanese penetration of Australia. The minister’s rhetorical flourishes were stimulated on this afternoon of March 26 by the presence in the chamber of a…