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Electric Eric: The Life and Times of Eric Reece, an Australian State Premier
486 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
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August 9, 2022
‘In Australia up to the mid to late 1930s, economic depression was not just a single economic event. It was a permanent way of life for that section of the population typified by the Reece family’.
‘Electric Eric: The Life and Times of Eric Reece, an Australian State Premier’ by Jillian Koshin is fully described by its title. Eric Reece (1909 – 1999) was Labor Premier of Tasmania twice: 1958 to 1969, and 1972 to 1975. Reece was born to a poor family in the small goldmining hamlet of Mathinna in Tasmania’s west, and grew up from extreme hardship to become one of the most successful and longest serving State Premiers in Australian political history. He is largely forgotten now thanks to what he would no doubt say was mainland bias, nevertheless he played a central role in the rise of the modern environmental movement. His role was ‘negative’ in that his strong advocacy of the Tasmanian Hydro Electric Commission’s plans to flood Lake Pedder, and build the Gordon-below-Franklin Dam, brought about the backlash out which contemporary ‘green’ politics emerged.
Koshin writes critically but still sympathetically about Reece’s develop-at-any-cost mentality and where it came from. Young Eric grew up in conditions where there was no electricity outside big towns, typhoid was common, and schools were so scarce he spent a year without education at all. Reece’s father George was a worker all his life and died of silicosis - which Reece saw as both a tragedy and an example of deep social injustice. Reece joined the Australian Workers’ Union (AWU), became an organiser at age 24, won a closed shop at Mount Lyell in 1939, and entered state parliament for Labor on his third attempt in 1946. He was certainly not on the Left of the labour movement, although he was a fervent opponent of the anti-communist ‘Groupers’ during the great Labor split of the 1950s (he was Federal Labor President at the time). Reece favoured what Koshin calls the ‘pragmatic conservatism’ of the AWU, and fully embraced developmentalism as the ideology that would improve the lives of people like his parents and workmates from Tasmania’s remote towns and mining camps.
So Reece became a staunch advocate of harnessing wild rivers for the generation of power. From this power would come abundance both economically and socially. Koshin points out that Australian state politics in the 1960s and 1970s was the golden age for this kind of thinking. Other state premiers such as Thomas Playford in South Australia, and Charles Court in Western Australia, also embraced headlong industrial development and economic growth. Reece stands out as being a Labor Premier who did so (others were usually Liberals) though this might be a symptom of Labor’s relatively dismal record in mainland politics at the time. The Hydro Electric Commission’s status as quasi-state socialist development agency also stands out from the Reece approach.
Reece certainly misread the political and attitudinal changes towards ‘the environment’ that took place in the 1970s both outside and inside the labour movement. He had frosty relations with the more socially progressive Whitlam Labor Federal government, and in the 1980s he found plenty in common with Tasmanian Liberal premier Robin Gray in enthusiasm for Dams. Gray even named one of his schemes the ‘Reece Dam’. One of the ironies of history is that Hydro Electricity is now making a comeback among environmentalists in the form of ‘pumped Hydro’ - because it is a low carbon energy source. Contemporary environmental politics prioritises cutting carbon emissions so highly that it has almost forgotten its original, more ‘aesthetic’ objections to industrial development, namely that it consumes and destroys the natural world.
Reece’s pre-occupation with ‘big projects’ as a means of delivering social justice make him appear dated in contemporary political terms, when much of the Left focusses on distribution and the limits of development. However, while Reece’s ‘means’ should not be revisited, his ‘ends’ - his goals to make tangible, material improvements to people’s lives - deserve more emphasis from the Left. Connecting means to ends is the oldest challenge of politics. Reece wouldn’t have put it like this, but he had a ‘theory of change’: energy abundance leading to material improvements and increased opportunities for those who previously had none. Its simplicity as a formulation is its strength, and there’s much to gain from it. Similarly, to the extent that contemporary environmental politics might find it has a surprising amount in common with an ‘old foe’ regarding energy sources, it should revisit some of the earlier arguments for preserving the natural world as a worthy goal in its own right, rather than simply ensuring we have enough carbon sinks.
‘Electric Eric: The Life and Times of Eric Reece, an Australian State Premier’ by Jillian Koshin is fully described by its title. Eric Reece (1909 – 1999) was Labor Premier of Tasmania twice: 1958 to 1969, and 1972 to 1975. Reece was born to a poor family in the small goldmining hamlet of Mathinna in Tasmania’s west, and grew up from extreme hardship to become one of the most successful and longest serving State Premiers in Australian political history. He is largely forgotten now thanks to what he would no doubt say was mainland bias, nevertheless he played a central role in the rise of the modern environmental movement. His role was ‘negative’ in that his strong advocacy of the Tasmanian Hydro Electric Commission’s plans to flood Lake Pedder, and build the Gordon-below-Franklin Dam, brought about the backlash out which contemporary ‘green’ politics emerged.
Koshin writes critically but still sympathetically about Reece’s develop-at-any-cost mentality and where it came from. Young Eric grew up in conditions where there was no electricity outside big towns, typhoid was common, and schools were so scarce he spent a year without education at all. Reece’s father George was a worker all his life and died of silicosis - which Reece saw as both a tragedy and an example of deep social injustice. Reece joined the Australian Workers’ Union (AWU), became an organiser at age 24, won a closed shop at Mount Lyell in 1939, and entered state parliament for Labor on his third attempt in 1946. He was certainly not on the Left of the labour movement, although he was a fervent opponent of the anti-communist ‘Groupers’ during the great Labor split of the 1950s (he was Federal Labor President at the time). Reece favoured what Koshin calls the ‘pragmatic conservatism’ of the AWU, and fully embraced developmentalism as the ideology that would improve the lives of people like his parents and workmates from Tasmania’s remote towns and mining camps.
So Reece became a staunch advocate of harnessing wild rivers for the generation of power. From this power would come abundance both economically and socially. Koshin points out that Australian state politics in the 1960s and 1970s was the golden age for this kind of thinking. Other state premiers such as Thomas Playford in South Australia, and Charles Court in Western Australia, also embraced headlong industrial development and economic growth. Reece stands out as being a Labor Premier who did so (others were usually Liberals) though this might be a symptom of Labor’s relatively dismal record in mainland politics at the time. The Hydro Electric Commission’s status as quasi-state socialist development agency also stands out from the Reece approach.
Reece certainly misread the political and attitudinal changes towards ‘the environment’ that took place in the 1970s both outside and inside the labour movement. He had frosty relations with the more socially progressive Whitlam Labor Federal government, and in the 1980s he found plenty in common with Tasmanian Liberal premier Robin Gray in enthusiasm for Dams. Gray even named one of his schemes the ‘Reece Dam’. One of the ironies of history is that Hydro Electricity is now making a comeback among environmentalists in the form of ‘pumped Hydro’ - because it is a low carbon energy source. Contemporary environmental politics prioritises cutting carbon emissions so highly that it has almost forgotten its original, more ‘aesthetic’ objections to industrial development, namely that it consumes and destroys the natural world.
Reece’s pre-occupation with ‘big projects’ as a means of delivering social justice make him appear dated in contemporary political terms, when much of the Left focusses on distribution and the limits of development. However, while Reece’s ‘means’ should not be revisited, his ‘ends’ - his goals to make tangible, material improvements to people’s lives - deserve more emphasis from the Left. Connecting means to ends is the oldest challenge of politics. Reece wouldn’t have put it like this, but he had a ‘theory of change’: energy abundance leading to material improvements and increased opportunities for those who previously had none. Its simplicity as a formulation is its strength, and there’s much to gain from it. Similarly, to the extent that contemporary environmental politics might find it has a surprising amount in common with an ‘old foe’ regarding energy sources, it should revisit some of the earlier arguments for preserving the natural world as a worthy goal in its own right, rather than simply ensuring we have enough carbon sinks.
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