Baby boomers With the end of World War II in 1945 Australia's servicemen and women returned and family life resumed after an interruption of almost six years of wartime conflict. Nine months later saw the start of a population revolution as childbirth rates soared - more than four million Australians were born between 1946-1961. People born during this period became known as baby boomers. Combined with an increase in European migration to Australia3, the baby boomers changed Australia (and the world) in the second half of the 20th century.
The 1950s: new arrivals A Little Bit Louder Now, Johnny O'Keefe Initially, baby boomers represented a new market whose needs were quickly met due to wartime advances in technology and a new economic optimism. The first vinyl LPs (Long Playing, commercially-available audio recordings on vinyl discs) appeared in the early 1950s and, with the release of Bill Haley 6's Rock Around the Clock in 1955, the younger generation was exposed to a new and different music - rock and roll. Australian bands soon began playing the new music and artists like Col Joye and Johnny O'Keefe were topping the charts. Blue jeans and t-shirts became fashionable when teenagers mimicked American movie stars like James Dean and Marlon Brando. Comic books became the literature of youth and children started twirling in hula-hoops. The newspapers used the term 'juvenile delinquent' to describe young people for the first time, but mostly the baby boomers represented change in the eyes of the older generation
The 1960s: coming of age In 1964, eighteen years after the baby boom began, 'The Beatles' (the UK pop group) whirled around Australia with sell-out shows and frequent mobbings in Australia's cities. It was clear that young people were in control of culture. Though 'square' parents might not have liked it, rock and roll was the mainstream music.
At the same time Australian bands came of age and in 1964 The Seekers became the first Australian group to release a recording that reached one million in sales. In the same year, Australia was shocked when the world's highest paid model, Jean Shrimpton, came to the Melbourne Cup horse race wearing a mini-skirt that showed off her knees. The shock didn't last long as mini-skirts rapidly became the height of fashion. Politics was also changing with the baby boomers. The 'Freedom Rides' saw busloads of protestors led by Aboriginal activist Charles Perkins15 roll through New South Wales in 1963 exposing the discrimination against Aboriginal Australians who were not permitted to enter cinemas, pubs and public pools in rural areas. It forced the Liberal-National government into a referendum that changed the constitution to give Aboriginal people the vote. There was more 'people power' when the war in Vietnam was opposed with a series of moratorium marches17 that shut down metropolitan Melbourne in 1970. The arrival of this political thinking in the late 1960s followed the rise of 'hippy' culture and alternative lifestyles.