A pact between editors, a blank front page and a Labor minister hellbent on confronting the press – what happened when the Sydney papers stood up to the censors?
Eighty years ago, in September 1943, Australia’s newspaper owners feared the worst when Labor’s Arthur Calwell was sworn in as minister for information in John Curtin’s wartime government.
Unlike most politicians, the federal member for Melbourne relished fighting with the press. Calwell’s political career had begun with a libel action against a newspaper – and it would end the same way three decades later.
