William Arthur Holman (4 August 1871 – 5 June 1934) was the second Labor Party Premier of New South Wales, Australia. He later split with the party on the conscription issue in 1916 during World War I, and immediately became Premier of a conservative Nationalist Party Government.

As a cabinet maker in Sydney he was interested in the ideas of John Stuart Mill, William Morris, Herbert Spencer and Charles Darwin, and became very active in the Australian labour movement. He joined the Single Tax League, the Australian Socialist League and the newly formed Labor Electoral League, a forerunner to the Australian Labor Party (ALP). In the Australian Socialist League he mixed with anarchists and socialists and met future Prime Minister Billy Hughes, Creo Stanley, Ernie Lane, Henry Lawson and J.D.Fitzgerald. Holman and Hughes were ironically associated with Arthur Desmond on the scandal sheet paper, The New Order (no link available).

Note: Arthur Desmond (c. 1859 – 26 January 1929), also penned as Arthur Uing, Ragnar Redbeard (speculated), Richard Thurland, Desmond Dilg, and Gavin Gowrie, was a British-born politician, poet, and author.

He is believed to be the author of the book Might Is Right, written under the pen name Ragnar Redbeard. Might Is Right is an essay illustrating the author's support of Social Darwinism and its belief that power, strength, and superiority is the mark of a moral human being and that inherent human rights are nonexistent.

He is also known for his book Rival Caesars.


In 1893 Holman became Secretary of the Railways and Tramways Employees’ Union, representing the union on the Sydney Trades and Labor Council. With the support of the Labor Electoral League he unsuccessfully stood for election to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in 1894 and 1895. During this period he was the proprietor of the Daily Post newspaper, sympathetic to the labour movement, which wound up in liquidation, with Holman and four other directors convicted of fraud. He spent nearly two months in jail before the conviction was quashed. He went on to become a journalist for the Grenfell Vedette, and later its proprietor. From 1896 to 1898 he worked as an organiser for the Australian Workers' Union.


In the times of Holman, the “press” was more than hostile to the ideals of the Australian Labour Party. Like the Daily Telegraph today, it was putrid! It became difficult, like it is now to have a “free” press that is not in the pocket of any rightwing ratbags. 

Instead of "share" the motto for the rightwing ratbags was "grab and grab”. It still is. This is why it was difficult for Holman to set up a newspaper sympathetic to the Labour Movement. A lot of tricks by the rightwing paper made sure his “would not survive”. He managed later with the Grenfell Vedette…

In Mill’s words:
We… looked forward to a time when society will no longer be divided into the idle and the industrious; when the rule that they who do not work, shall not eat, will be applied not to paupers only, but impartially to all; when the divisions of the produce of labour, instead of depending, as in so great a degree it now does, on the accidental of birth, will be made by concert on an acknowledged principle of justice; and when it will no longer either be, or be thought to be, impossible for human beings to exert themselves strenuously in procuring benefits which are not to be exclusive to their own, but to be shared with the society they belong to. The social problems of the future we consider to be, how to unite the greatest individual liberty of action with a common ownership in the raw material of the globe, and an equal participation of all the benefits of combined labour.

When Holman was in charge of the NSW government he faced similar "negativity” as Rudd and Gillard faced one hundred years later, when Tony Turdy Abbott was in charge of the opposition, and of course this “opposition” was fully supported by the rightwing ratbag press. Holman said:

"The offences committed by the Opposition are systematic, continuous and wholesale. Their offence do not consist of incidental or accidental breaches of Parliamentary decorum, but do constitute in the case of a certain number of members what is apparently a studied attempt to make it impossible for the speaker to conduct the business of the house.”

The Opposition was thus described by some people as "a band of ruffians” “a group of political hooligans” and the more moderate “Bulletin" calls them “half a dozen larrikins” with much intimidation of the speaker and other members. We described Tony Abbott as a lying turd. He lied, lies and he is a dag (according to his daughters).

Holman’s ways were still attacked by the press, by the industrialists, through various defamation, plus political vilification…  Nothing new.
Holman’s epiphany was about John Stuart Mills :
"Most of his conclusions are valueless nowadays… Mill’s steady inculcation of the doctrine that we must prove all things and hold fast only to that which was good in the sense of being provable, is invaluable…"
Read from top.

New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian has become ensnared this week in the sensational ICAC hearings into alleged corruption by former MP Daryl Maguire — and suddenly finds her future very much in doubt.

In yesterday's hearing, Maguire admitted to using his parliamentary office and resources to conduct private business dealings, including receiving thousands of dollars in cash as part of a visa scam.

Meanwhile, Berejiklian, who has denied any wrongdoing by maintaining a personal relationship with Maguire even after he was forced to resign as MP, has faced calls from the Opposition for her to resign.

Whether Berejiklian will be forced to step down remains to be seen. But it's becoming clearer by the day that, at the very least, her reputation will be seriously tarnished by the explosive revelations.

Berejiklian is hardly the first NSW politician to become enmeshed in scandal.

Corruption has been ingrained in the political culture of NSW, from the days of its founding in the 19th century. This is the very reason the Independent Commission Against Corruption was formed in 1988 — and why it remains a vital watchdog over the inner workings of state government.

A corrupt old town

Before NSW began governing itself in 1856, the colony was run for many years by the upright, dedicated and incorruptible Colonial Secretary Edward Deas Thomson.

With a fully elected parliament and premier, however, things changed. And democratic politics attracted corruption from the beginning.

Historian John Hirst said that after 1856,

to conservatives it appeared as if the government had been debased into a giant system of corruption with needy ministers and members bound together by their joint interest in plunder.

Politics then (and now) was a honey pot for some: needy, greedy ministers and MPs were looking to benefit from public works, jobs, development and government contracts, as well as through the manipulation of the criminal justice system.

NSW has also always had a sleazy subterranean network of fixers and door-openers who could influence decisions for the right price.

Sydney has traditionally been thought of as a corrupt old town. Whether this was because of its buccaneering origins in the convict era or because it was where all the action took place has long been an open question.

A few of NSW's not-so-finer moments

The colony's early days set the stage for a long history of political and public corruption. Among the more notable episodes:

• a royal commission in 1905 revealed Lands Minister Paddy Crick had been involved in large-scale extortion and corruption, leading to his resignation
• the corrupt dealings of Agriculture Minister WC Grahame led to his resignation in 1920
• the 1951 Maxwell Royal Commission revealed widespread police involvement in corruption and the "sly grog" trade
• the term of Liberal Premier Bob Askin (1965–75) saw rampant corruption at the highest levels of politics and the police
• during Labor Premier Neville Wran's time in office (1976–86), the corrective services minister and chief magistrate were tried and subsequently imprisoned for corruption
• and in the late 1990s, the Wood Royal Commission revealed entrenched, systemic corruption in the police force.

Read more:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-15/nsw-history-of-corruption-icac/12767346

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BUMMER...