John Halfpenny interviewed by Barry York [sound recording]

Halfpenny speaks of his family origins in Donald, near Bendigo, the influence of his father was an active railways unionist and communist, his education, his move to Melbourne at age 15, how he he got an apprenticeship and then worked for the Railways Union headed by Communist J.J. Brown, his views of various communist leaders of the 1950s in particular Clarrie O'shea, Ted Hill and Paddy Malone, his own lack of personal ambition, his involvement in assisting in the printing of the then illegal publication "Power without Glory" by Frank Hardy along with other volunteers using the homes of Communist Party members in Melbourne, discussion of the Eureka Youth League, his participation in an Australian Communist Party delegation to study the Soviet Union in 1960-1962, detailed recollections of his impressions of China on their way to the Soviet Union, subsequent visits in 1972 and the late 1970s, his assessments of various industrial and political campaigns including the O'Shea penal powers struggle and the anti-Vietnam War movement, his views of the Whitlam years and the Hawke/Keating years, migrant workers, women in unions, his reaction to the Whitlam Government dismissal on Nov. 11, 1975 and the union reaction that followed, his period as State Secretary, Metal Workers Union of Victoria (1972-1988) then as Secretary, Trades Hall Council of Victoria (1988-1995) and the most significant matters occurring in those years, his involvement in the Australian Labor Party, his rejection to stand for the safe Federal seat of Reservoir, the interference of the Federal ALP in his placing on the Victorian Senate ticket.