 | Australian Labor Party: Encyclopedia II - Australian Labor Party - History
Australian Labor Party - History
No exact date can be given for the founding of the Australian Labor Party, originating as it did from the various colonial labour movements. Labour Leagues and similar electoral organisations existed in New South Wales and Queensland from about 1890. Party mythology says the first Labour branch was founded at a meeting of striking pastoral workers under a tree (the "Tree of Knowledge") in Barcaldine, Queensland in 1891. The Balmain, New South Wales branch of the party also claims to be the oldest in Australia. The party as a serious electoral force dates from 1893 in Queensland, 1894 in New South Wales, and later in the other colonies. In 1899, Anderson Dawson formed a minority Labour government in Queensland, the first in the world, which lasted one week.
After Federation, the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party (informally known as the Caucus) first met on the 8 May 1901 at Parliament House, Melbourne, the meeting place of the first Federal Parliament. This is now taken as the founding date of the federal Labor Party, but it was some years before there was any significant structure or organisation at a national level. (The formal name Australian Labor Party was adopted in 1908.)
The ALP during its early years was distinguished by its rapid growth and success at a national level, first forming a minority national government under Chris Watson in April 1904, and forming its first majority government under Andrew Fisher in 1910. The state branches were also successful, except in Victoria, where the strength of Deakinite liberalism inhibited the party's growth. The first majority Labor state governments were formed in New South Wales and South Australia in 1910, in Western Australia in 1911 and in Queensland in 1915. Such success eluded equivalent social democratic and labour parties in other countries for many years.
One of the party's early innovations was the establishment of a federal arbitration system for the resolution of industrial disputes, which formed the basis of the industrial relations system for many decades.
The party was historically committed to socialist economic policies, but this term was never clearly defined, and no Labor government ever attempted to implement "socialism" in any serious sense. Labor supported national wage fixing and a strong welfare system, it did not nationalise private enterprise. The single exception to this was Ben Chifley's attempt to nationalise the private banks in the 1940s, but this was ruled unconstitutional by the High Court of Australia. The commitment to nationalisation was dropped by Gough Whitlam.
In the 1970s and beyond, the party, through the efforts of Gough Whitlam and his supporters within the party, gave up its theoretical commitment to socialism and became a social democratic party. (Some references to democratic socialism still remain in the party's constitution, but they are generally regarded as a relic). Indeed, during the 1980s the party was responsible for the introduction of many economic policies such as privatisation of government enterprises (such as the Commonwealth Bank, which was itself established by an earlier Labor government), and deregulation of many previously tightly-controlled industries, which are normally the province of conservative governments.
From its formation until the 1950s Labor and its affiliated unions were the strongest defenders of the White Australia Policy, which banned all non-European migration to Australia. This policy was partly motivated by 19th-century theories about "racial purity" (shared by most Australians at this time), and partly by fears of economic competition from low-wage labour. In practice the party opposed all migration, on the grounds that immigrants competed with Australian workers and drove down wages, until after World War II, when the Chifley government launched a major immigration program. The party's opposition to non-European immigration did not change until after the retirement of Arthur Calwell as leader in 1967. Subsequently Labor has become an advocate of multiculturalism, although some of its trade union base continue to oppose high immigration levels.
The Labor Party has suffered three major splits:
- In 1915 over the issue of conscription, when Prime Minister Billy Hughes supported the introduction of conscription, while the majority of the party opposed it. After failing to persuade the Australian voters to support a referendum approving of conscription which bitterly divided the country in the process, Hughes and his followers were expelled from the Labor Party. He formed the Nationalist Party of Australia in alliance with the conservatives and remained Prime Minister until 1923.
- In 1931 over economic issues revolving around how to handle the depression. The ALP was split between those who believed in radical policies such as NSW Premier Jack Lang, who wanted to repudiate Australia's debt to British bondholders, proto-Keynesians such as federal Treasurer Ted Theodore, and believers in orthodox finance such as Prime Minister James Scullin and a senior minister in his government, Joseph Lyons. In 1931 Lyons left the party and joined the conservatives, becoming Prime Minister in 1932.
- The 1954 split on communism. During the 1950s the issue of communism and support for communist causes or governments caused great internal conflict in the Labor party and the trade union movement in general. During the 1950's, staunchly anti-Communist Roman Catholic members (Catholics being an important traditional support base) became suspicious of Communist infiltration of unions and formed Industrial Groups to gain control of them, fostering intense internal conflict. After Labor's loss of the 1954 election, federal leader Dr H.V. Evatt blamed the subversive activities of the "Groupers" for the defeat. They were expelled from the ALP and formed the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) whose intellectual leader was B.A. Santamaria. The DLP was heavily influenced by Catholic social teachings and had the support of the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, Daniel Mannix. The DLP helped the Liberal Party of Australia remain in power for almost two decades but was successfully undermined by the Whitlam Labor Government during the 1970s and ceased to exist as a parliamentary party after the 1974 election.
The Labor Party thus served as a development ground for several conservative leaders. Conservative Prime Ministers Joseph Cook, Billy Hughes and Joseph Lyons were all ex-members of the Labor Party, with both Hughes and Lyons holding very senior positions in the party (Prime Minister and Premier respectively). Non-Labor premiers such as William Holman and Ned Hogan also began their careers in the Labor Party.
Through its membership of the Socialist International, the ALP is affiliated with other democratic socialist, social democratic and labour parties in many countries.
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 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
