After the Second World War, Labor Prime Minister Ben Chifley embarked on a radical plan to replace Australia’s century-old banking system with a single national bank. The proposal passed into legislation in 1947, igniting a nationwide wave of resistance. Australia’s banking industry launched media campaigns, legal challenges, and coast-to-coast protests to defeat the move. Opposition Leader Robert Menzies and the new Liberal Party opposed the takeover. They harnessed the fury over bank nationalisation to win the first in a series of election triumphs that lasted almost a quarter of a century. Battle of the Banks is the story of the politicians, media magnates, ad men, cartoon characters, feminists, community stirrers and bank clerks who saved Australian banking.
