On September 30, 1938 British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain stood outside 10 Downing Street and declared the Munich Agreement had appeased German Chancellor Adolf Hitler’s territorial aims.

“I believe it is peace for our time,” he said. “…Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.”

Germany violated the agreement almost immediately. Six months later it had invaded all of Czechoslovakian territory and another six months after that – after German troops marched on Poland – the world was at war.

We know how that ended.

We know how history has judged the appeasement policy of 1930s leaders, which included both major parties in Australia, who held tight to the British empire’s coattails even as other commonwealth nations pushed for independence.

Australia’s government did not ratify the 1931 Statute of Westminster, a British law that gave formal legislative independence to commonwealth nations, until 1942.

John Curtin was prompted to ratify it after the Fall of Singapore, which put to bed the deep belief Britain would be able to protect Australia in a war.

Australia began turning to America. And we’ve been turning blind eyes, ever since.

None of this should be new information to any student of history.

What may be new is the role of the British press during the appeasement policy.

British historian Frank McDonough writes in his book Neville Chamberlain, Appeasement and the British Road to War, that after Hitler complained of bad press to the leader of the British House of Lords, Lord Halifax in 1937, Hitler was assured “His Majesty’s government would do everything in their power to influence our press to avoid unnecessary offence.”

Hitler had linked press criticism of his armament and land grabs to his reluctance to engage with world leaders, saying in recorded remarks “nine tenths of all international tension was due to the licentious press of the democratic nations’.

Halifax responded by meeting with the owners of newspapers critical of Nazis and ‘asked them to treat coverage of Nazi Germany ‘with restraint’. That included cartoonists.

It was thought to be moderately successful. Where the Chamberlain government saw a “far more successful’ response to the pressure it put on media outlets, was on BBC radio.

The public broadcaster was ‘regarded abroad as an official government organisation and needed to operate with great caution.  As a result, BBC coverage of international events hardly ever offered critical comments and severely limited the opportunities for opponents to criticise government policy’.

In 1938, a critic of the appeasement policy, Harold Nicolson, started a program on the BBC called The Past Week, but when he began to include developments on the Czech crisis (which would lead to the failed Munich Agreement and then shortly after, the start of World War II) the BBC agreed to allow the Foreign Office to review his scripts before going to air. 

McDonough reports “a reluctant and angry Nicolson changed his script and ended up talking not about the Czech crisis but about the rise in the price of milk”.

Albanese’s Gaza response

It was this period of history that came to mind as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese refused, at least a dozen times, to criticise Donald Trump’s illegal and immoral ‘vision’ to “own” Gaza as if it were a run-down New Jersey warehouse, and ethnically cleanse the Palestinian population through their forced removal to surrounding states.

Albanese said Australia’s position remained in support of a two-state solution, and he would not “as Australia’s Prime Minister, give a daily commentary on statements by the US President”.

Because his “job”, he said, “was to support Australia’s position”.

“My job here today – I tell you what Australians will be concerned about. They’re concerned about Medicare, they’re concerned about education, they’re concerned about whether they have access to Free TAFE,” Albanese said.

Australians being told about milk, while the world burned.

From the appeasement point of view, it’s understandable.

Albanese is heading to an election campaign where he will have to fight to hold on to government.  That’s the fight he has been focused on since the loss of the Voice referendum, where Peter Dutton, through trickery, lies and false promises undermined not only the proposal, but the Albanese government’s own authority.

Having won that battle, Dutton has set about laying down the election territory he wants to fight on; culture wars and populism that offer no solutions to the very real threats and issues Australians face, but give licence to anger and insecurities someone else must be to blame.

And there has been next to no pushback. In attempting to neutralise any issue Dutton raises, Albanese and his government have ceded almost all territory to the Opposition Leader.

Dutton danger

Almost every Australian is closer to being homeless than ever approaching Dutton’s own personal wealth, but Dutton has so successfully cowed the government, the words ‘top end of town’ have all but been banned from leaving Labor lips.

Trans people and their loved ones are watching the world and feeling justifiably terrified, but have found no solace that their own governments will stand up for them. 

We know, from history, that attacks on trans populations are always a portent of more sinister ideals, but in trying to neutralise Dutton and the other ‘Temu Trumps’ from further weaponising it as an election issue through a review, the Albanese government has ceded more authority.

Albanese’s constant repetition of a two-state-solution was meant as a signal Australia disagreed with Trump, but as a defence of values, human rights and international law, it was at best, mealy-mouthed hollowness.

The Albanese government has walked away from its nature positive laws, its modest superannuation changes, taking on big tech, and even the bare minimum of gambling advertising reforms, all to clear the decks ahead of an election where it will try to hold on to power.

You have to ask – what for? To do what?

Meanwhile, Dutton continues to ape Trump’s worse impulses by tearing at the fabric of social cohesion, rewriting narratives and this week, applauding the man himself who had just casually suggested ethnic cleansing like it was a Domain listing, as a “big thinker” refuses to detail any of his own policies.

And that’s apparently fine, because the media will report what he’s said in refusing to detail those policies, because that’s ‘objectivity’.

All of this is to say, we know what happens when our institutions sleepwalk towards oblivion, in the name of appeasement.

Amy Remeikis is Chief Political Analyst for The Australia Institute. Read more from her and the institute here.