Henry A. Tardent: The untold story of how a Swiss migrant influenced the emergence of 'Australian democracy'

One Swiss who became a good Australian while retaining a strong love of his country was Henry Alexis Tardent who established a family in Queensland in 1887 … Tardent was intensely active in politics, agriculture, and literary activities. He acted as an adviser in the early 1890s to the drafters of the Constitution. In 1898 he became a friend and supporter of Andrew 5 who was the first Australian Labor Prime Minister. Around 1911 he helped the Government prepare the Act to establish a Citizen Defence Force. - Gough Whitlam (1975)

Following the 2013 Declaration of Intent on a Strategic Dialogue signed off by the Swiss and Australian governments there was renewed interest in the ‘story of Henry Tardent’. In her 1989 book The Swiss in Australia Wegman noted that Tardent “became the most influential Swiss settler in Australia due to his involvement in moulding the Commonwealth’s constitution”. Also lauded in ‘ALP legends’ (as reported by Whitlam in 1975), the problem is that no-one has previously gone to the trouble of detailing or more adequately explaining Tardent’s contributions to his adopted homeland. So, to correct some newly arising ‘misconceptions’, we investigated Tardent’s ‘untold story’ in depth – an inquiry focused on a request from the Swiss Alliance Australia to look at the question of Tardent’s ‘contributions to the drafting of a Swiss-influenced Australian Constitution’ (and related ‘model of democracy’).       Our fascinating account here further documents the alignment of the Tardent story to the historical challenge of the modern Australian Society to overcome its enduring ‘colonial cultural cringe’ – including in and beyond the 1975 Constitutional Crisis and the 1999 Republic referendum result. This book describes and discusses some particularly relevant details and contexts of how Henry A. Tardent’s initial and further ongoing advice to Sir Henry Griffith and his concerned ‘Qld group’ (especially re: the ‘double majority rule’ democratic safeguard) was generally embraced in the 1891 Constitutional Convention. This was then developed and refined in further drafts (especially the draft presented to the 1897 Convention), before being the focus of successful 1890s State referendums prior to the 1901 Federation enactment. Tardent was perhaps effectively a ‘founding father’ also of some important related imperatives up to the end of his life – of both Australian cultural nationalism and multiculturalism simultaneously. And he was a significant pivotal contributor himself (as well as adviser also to such influential early figures as Andrew Fisher and Ted Theodore) in the foundational emergence of the Australian Labor Party. We further explore how and why Henry A. Tardent’s story is perhaps more important today than ever before