Curator's IntroductionResponsible government. It’s a term that tends to provoke scepticism, even laughter. Most people suppose it to be a specimen of ‘weasel words’, coined for the purpose of ‘spin’. But it’s not. ‘Responsible government’ actually means something, and in 2006 Victoria is celebrating 150 years of it.
With the enactment of its own constitution in 1855, Victoria gained substantial independence from Britain. Not only would Victoria’s government now be chosen by parliament instead of by the governor, it would also be responsible to parliament and thus to the Victorian people. Naked Democracy marks the anniversary of responsible government in Victoria, which came into effect with the elections of 1856. Early in 1856, workers building Melbourne’s brand-new Parliament House had joined a campaign for shorter working hours. The result was an eight-hour working day for Melbourne’s stonemasons – a world first. Naked Democracy acknowledges the 150th anniversary of the stonemasons’ achievement by tracing one of Victoria’s longest struggles for a shorter work day – that of 19th-century shop assistants. The notion of democracy underlies both anniveraries celebrated by this exhibition. Democracy was still a new and dangerous idea in the 1850s – so much so that our first premier shuddered at the prospect of a ‘naked democracy’. But the ‘laboratory’ of colonial Victoria pioneered numerous democratic reforms which eventually would be adopted in the countries of the Old World.
Naked Democracy looks at ways in which the governing of Victoria has made a difference to how people live, and vice versa. What stands out boldly, across the span of 150 years, is a sense of big ideas sown on still-shifting ground. Robyn Annear Illustrations |
