(thing) by rougevert Sun Jun 03 2001 at 7:00:25
The Australian Labor Party is the oldest political party in Australia, tracing its foundations back to the formation in the 1890s of several colony-based labour parties. Many of these were formed in the lead-up to Federation as political wings of the Australian Trade Union movement. The movement was especially successful in the colonies of New South Wales and Queensland, and Australia's first Labour government was elected in Queensland in 1899. It lasted only seven days.

When the six colonies and the territories federated as the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901, the ALP competed against the Free Traders and the Protectionists in the first Federal election, winning 16 of the 72 Lower House seats and 8 of 36 in the Senate. The first Federal Labor Government was elected in 1904 but was a minority government. It had little success under Prime Minister John Christian Watson, and collapsed after three months.

The most recent ALP Prime Minister was Paul Keating (1991 - 1996) who staged an internal coup of sorts to replace Bob Hawke (1983 - 1991). Hawke defeated the unpopular Liberal Party PM Malcolm Fraser, who had replaced Labor's Gough Whitlam (1972 - 1975) when Whitlam's government was sacked in 1975 in controversial circumstances by Governor-General Sir John Kerr (see The Dismissal). The current leaderof the ALP is Simon Crean, who replaced Kim Beazley following the Federal election of November 2001 in which John Howard's Liberal Party won a third consecutive term.

The ALP has never been revolutionary in any sense but in the past it did do a good job of protecting workers' rights and implementing/maintaining various social welfare programs, such as Medicare. In the last 20 years however it has followed the path of mainstream leftist parties everywhere, and has shifted considerably to the right. In terms of economic and social policies the ALP is almost indistinguishable from its major opponent, the Liberal Party of Australia.

Labor is often criticised for its factional infighting, although of course the Liberal Party makes much more of this issue than is warranted. The Right-wing faction of the party is known as Unity and is dominant in most States and Territories. The Centre left and Socialist Left (not really socialist) factions are much weaker individually but often side together. A few independents also exist, as well as a "non-aligned" faction. Members of the three major factions hold executive positions (ie. are Ministers/Shadow Ministers) in proportion to each faction's influence. All current ALP Premiers are Unity members, as is Simon Crean.

In the 1950s cries of "reds under the beds" led to the formation of the Democratic Labor Party, composed of those who feared the Labor Party was being infiltrated by Soviet agents. Of course this was a simple case of mass paranoia, but the DLP managed to scare Catholic voters especially (traditionally ALP supporters) into abandoning the party. The DLP was in many ways even more right-wing than the Liberal Party, and was instrumental in keeping Labor out of power for many years - most notably during the Menzies era. The DLP is still in existance but has the support of less than one percent of the Australian population.

The ALP has branches in all States and the two mainland Territories. At the time of writing (May 2002) it is in government in all eight continental States and Territories, but Federally in opposition. The most recent State election was held in Tasmania which the ALP led by Jim Bacon won by a landslide.

"Labor" is spelled in the Amerikkkan fashion thanks to the influence of the US Trade Union movement. Or so all the textbooks and the party's website (http://www.alp.org.au/) say, but it's not a very satisfying explanation in my opinion. /msg me if you know more.

A list of all Federal leaders of the Party since the Federation of the colonies in 1901. Those who served as Prime Minister have their names highlighted in bold, with the dates of their time in office in bold+italics.

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