The Walkley Awards founder was an oil baron who wanted to preserve white Australia

Walkley’s piece is a full-throated defence of the White Australia Policy, at a time it was being steadily dismantled by the federal government.

Three years earlier, the racist dictation test had been abolished, creating a simpler pathway for Asian migration to Australia. Two years before Walkley wrote his piece, senior Labor figures such as future premier Don Dunstan and Gough Whitlam…