The Death of the ALP

Much is said and written about the demise of the Australian Labor Party. But it is said with an ignorance of history. Whatever else you may think of the ALP, and more broadly the Left of politics, the Labor Party is a great Aussie battler. The ALP is the oldest political party in Australia by a wide margin; it has suffered internal schisms and ructions that would have decimated other parties. Prior to the intervention of Sir. Robert Menzies, the conservative, or at least non-Labor, side of politics disintegrated every time it lost an election; prior to Menzies, the non-Labor side of politics, in its various party guises, often anointed to senior positions, and therefore relied upon, former Labor Party members. Three non-Labor Prime Ministers, in fact, were former Labor party members. One was, in fact, a founding member of the party; another a serving Labor Prime Minister at the time! This is a testament both to the turbulence that the ALP has always suffered from, but also the pre-Menzies turbulence experienced by the conservative parties. Whatever else you may think of Menzies, he changed irrevocably the path of Australian politics. But that's for another day.

The two Prime Ministers to whom I referred above are Joseph Cook and Billy Hughes, respectively. Joseph Lyons was the third. Joseph Cook was a notorious "party hopper"; having helped found the Labor Party, he would later move on to the Free-Trade Party, then the Commonwealth Liberal Party (after which the current Liberal Party is named), and when that party collapsed he joined the Nationalist Party that replaced it. Billy Hughes was Prime Minister when he switched parties over the issue of conscription from Labor to Nationalist (with Cook as his Deputy). Joseph Lyons was elected as a Labor Party member but resigned from the party, crossed the floor, and with the remaining Nationalists (then in opposition), formed the United Australia Party (which Robert Menzies would eventually lead to electoral oblivion before starting the modern-day Liberal Party). Interestingly, Hughes would serve as a Minister in Lyons UAP government. Hughes would eventually return as leader of the UAP in opposition (after Menzies had lost government through the machinations of the last federal hung parliament) and led that party to defeat, and its final election.

Jack Lang, Labor Premier of NSW in the late 20s and early 30s, and, other than Gough Whitlam, leader of the only government to be sacked by the Queen's Representative, is another notable figure in the tumultuous history of the ALP. "Lang Labor," the collective title for the various breakaway parties led by Lang, ran candidates independently of the central party at a number of federal elections in the 30s and 40s. Lang, along with the likes of Billy Hughes, are characters in Australia political history that are worth knowing about. Lang was a particularly radical individual who, among other things, supported the repudiation of foreign debt; that is, he supported not paying foreign creditors the money that was owed to them. For Lang, this was a way of alleviating some of the financial difficulties wrought by the Great Depression. Lang's intransigence as Premier helped bring down the Federal Labor government led by James Scullin, whom Joseph Lyons would replace as the first UAP Prime Minister (are we beginning to see a picture?). In fact, Lang Labor in the Federal parliament crossed the floor and voted with the UAP in a no-confidence motion in 1931 to bring Scullin down.

This is all pre-Menzies Liberal-era stuff, of course. One would think that the ALP would have gotten its stuff together after the chaos of the first half of the 20th Century. Not so. The Lang split can be seen as a precursor for a later split that would see the ALP out of power federally for 23 years. Lang, while quite radical, was nonetheless anti-communist. One of Lang Labor's incarnations was the "Australian Labor Party (Non-Communist)." It contested only one election (1940). Later, there would emerge the "Australian Labor Party (Anti-Communist)," no affiliation to Lang, however. This party would eventually become known as the Democratic Labor Party, or DLP. The DLP emerged from the "great split" of 1955, and would become the first "minor party" in modern Australian political history (proportional-preferential voting was only brought in 6 years earlier). The DLP would help keep Menzies and the Liberal-Country (now National) Party Coalition in power for 23 years. The Coalition would win nine consecutive elections, from 1949 to 1969. During this time, the DLP preferenced Liberal candidates ahead of ALP candidates. To illustrate the significance of the DLP's influence, in three elections in this period, 1954, 1961, and 1969, the ALP actually won the primary and two-party vote. The DLP also held the balance of power in the Senate at various points during this time.

Then, of course, there was the infamous "Dismissal" of the Whitlam government in 1975, perhaps the most famous political crisis in Australia's short history. The dismissal was followed by a massive electoral defeat (although, in raw numbers of seats lost, not the worst defeat for Labor of all time). Added to this was the indignity of opposition during Fraser's "double majority"; that is, a majority in the House as well as the Senate. For two consecutive terms, Fraser held a massive margin in the House, and a slim majority in the Senate from 1975-1980 - a rare feat since 1949. The only time this has happened since then is in 2004-2007 when John Howard held a one-seat majority in the Senate. One could point to the historical Hawke-Keating tenure as a the silver-lining for Labor; perhaps a dramatic change of fortunes. 13 years in government is by far the longest continuous period of time Labor has ever spent in power federally. This, however, is not the focus of this blog. I believe that the current maladies afflicting the Labor Party have their roots in this period of success, but I will deal with that in another blog.

My point is this: the Labor Party is a survivor - it is a survivor largely of self-inflicted wounds, but it has nevertheless survived more than 100 years of internal fracturing, disintegration, and reformation. What is currently happening to the Labor Party is not new - it's not even the worst the party has gone through. Again, I will deal with the underlying causes of the current problems in another post. But it is important to understand history to know how robust the ALP is - but it is also important to understand Labor's Phoenix-like nature: conflagration followed by rebirth. No other party does it better. To be fair, no other party would be crazy enough to try! Arguably, were it not for the influence of Sir Robert Menzies, the conservative, or non-Labor, side of politics would still be stuck in its own cycle of destruction and rebirth.

You might then wonder what the point is if the party is forever devouring itself: "what is to be achieved from such violent self-harm?" However self-destructive the ALP can get, it has nevertheless achieved vital reforms for Australia; it almost kills itself doing it, but it does it. In the area of health, as a prime example, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, which so many of us rely on for affordable medication, was introduced by Chifley; Medicare by Whitlam (or its forerunner Medibank, which would be replaced by Medicare under Hawke). Initiatives such as the National Disability Insurance Scheme and Dentacare belong to this line of Labor reforms. The successful 1946 Referendum, which introduced new social services, also came under the stewardship of a Labor government. Free tertiary education, which was later replaced with the HECS program by the Hawke-Keating governments (ostensibly, to make the system more sustainable), was introduced by Whitlam. Many of the institutions we rely on today stem from Labor initiatives.

Whatever you may think of the ALP, it has managed to survive; longevity in Australian politics is a mark of success. Question may arise as to whether, in the new "Information Age" that a political party can carry on this way; after all, we are no privy to the machinations of politics now more than ever, and with the advent of social media we have greater access to our politics, and they to us. There does appear to be some fragmentation in federal politics more broadly. Membership of the major parties has been eroded over time, and there is a solid third-party vote in Australia (although this vote is divided among dozens of small parties, which dilutes the strength of any anti-incumbency attitude at present). Both major parties try to maintain strict control over their parliamentary members, and this is can cause tension which is always preyed upon by the media. With greater media and public scrutiny, such tensions are exacerbated. What the Information Age holds for our political dynasties I can only speculate, but one should not doubt the resilience of the Labor Party.