THE RUSSIAN CRUISER, THE SWISS MIGRANT, AND THE AUSTRALIAN CONSTITUTION

A new book by retired professor Cameron Richards uncovers a dramatic ‘untold’ chapter in early federal architecture and Australian history more widely: how a concerned group of Queensland politicians united in bipartisan support of the advice of a new Swiss migrant to develop and implement plans to influence the founding documents of the nation - to permanently shield smaller Australian states and their more ‘diverse and regionalist’ priorities from a controlling centralist political as well as economic ‘Sydney-Melbourne duopoly’. The book was not only written for but has now been released to coincide with the author’s invited presentation about ‘the untold story of Henry A. Tardent’ at the Nov 14 Brisbane conference of the Swiss Alliance Australia.

Henry A. Tardent: The untold story of how a Swiss migrant influenced the emergence of "Australian democracy" (ISBN: 9781764488075) brings to light the extraordinary story of Tardent that unfolded directly as a result of two chance meetings soon after his arrival in Brisbane in 1887. One involved his chance meeting with the then Qld Attorney-General A.J. Thynne on a social outing at Enoggera Dam. The other related to the rare visit to Brisbane months later by a Russian naval cruiser still at a time of ‘the Russian scare’ - which Qld Premier Thomas McIlwraith saw as an opportunity to take advantage of Tardent’s ‘Swiss diplomacy’ and his fluency in the Russian language and culture. Together these events led to the polyglot Swiss migrant becoming an influential and trusted adviser to emerging ‘secret plans’ of an influential group in the Queensland Legislative Council. This pivotally included Sir Samuel Griffith, Thomas McIlwraith and A.J. Thynne also in a unique related political merger of conservative and liberal parties in Qld in 1890 to form the so-called ‘Griffilthwraith ministry’ that endured over the next decade.

With Tardent’s advisory assistance (as also translator of adapted Swiss policy docs) the ‘Qld group’ developed plans to establish a Swiss-influenced ‘Constitutional firewall’ (inc. the referendum + ‘double majority rule’) to reassure against fears of ‘Sydney-Melbourne’ political as well as economic domination (along with the ‘tyranny of the majority’ that De Tocqueville had recognised in 19th Century ‘American democracy’ as a potential future danger). This plan came to fruition during the Easter break of the 1891 National Australasian Convention when the Constitution committee driven by its chairman Griffith (supported by Thynne) successfully ‘simplified, balanced and re-framed’ an earlier Constitution draft as advised by Tardent.

This was just the start of forty years of ‘Tardent-influenced Australian democracy’ changes that further included Thynne and Tardent combining to engineer the likewise ‘Swiss-influenced Australian military defence system’ (including the 1903, 1904 and 1910 Australian Defence Acts) up to and into WWW1. In this process they were also further guided by relevant policy documents sent from Switzerland for Tardent to translate and advise on by his friend (from Vaud civic militia days) Swiss politician, military leader, and influential newspaper editor Edouard Secretan. As further detailed in the book, it might be reasonably argued that Tardent’s additional ‘cultural contributions to Australian democracy’ (i.e. to a ‘robust civil society’ as well as to ‘policy safeguards’) were even more enduringly significant (still relevant today) to Australian society and its history than his ‘political influencing’ of important national policy innovations and safeguards.