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An editorial is presented on anti-intellectualism and an apparent hostility towards education in New Zealand and Australia. It discusses anti-intellectualism in the U.S., and topics include McCarthyism during the 1940s through the 1950s, which reportedly entailed making unfair allegations based on treason, sedition or subversion. Other topics discussed include activist anti-intellectualism, the likening of the spread of anti-intellectualism to a virus, and fake news or post-truth politics.

This article deals with one part - the first segment - in a period of Australian post-war history. The entire period concerns the reaction to Communism in Australia following World War II. The period itself began with the introduction of the Communist Party Dissolution Bill by the Menzies Government in April 1950. It concluded with the formation of the Democratic Labour Party in 1955. The first segment relates to the prevention of McCarthyism in Australia and concludes with the commencement of the Petrov Affair in May 1954. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legislation introduced by Prime Minister Robert Menzies to ban the Communist Party of Australia in 1950 has been studied in great detail, but there has been little discussion about why Menzies considered that an outright ban was the best way to thwart the Communist Party. Australia did not, for example, follow the American example of public show trials, denunciations and informants, characteristics of the phenomenon known as McCarthyism. This article explores the decision to reject the American model by focusing on legislation that the Liberal Party drafted in 1948, but never introduced. It also details the internal division of the Liberal Party over communism and the conflicted nature of Menzies’ own views. As a consequence, Australia did not introduce the equivalent of the anti-communist state apparatus of the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]