Australian Labor Party
오스트레일리아 노동당
An Australian social democratic party descended from the labour parties founded by the trade union movement in the Australian colonies from 1891. In 1904 it formed the world’s first national labour government under Chris Watson, and in 1910 it became the first party to win a majority in the federal parliament. One of Australia’s two major parties, closely tied to the trade unions, it is in government today.
In depth
The party’s roots lie in the labour parties founded in the Australian colonies in the 1890s, before federation. Labor tradition traces the founding of Queensland Labour to a meeting of striking pastoral workers under the Tree of Knowledge at Barcaldine, Queensland, in 1891, and the shearers’ strike of 1891 is credited as one of the factors in the party’s formation. In the 1891 New South Wales election Labour candidates won 35 of 141 seats and held the balance of power, and in 1899 Anderson Dawson formed the world’s first Labour government in Queensland, which lasted one week.
At federation in 1901 the state Labour parties won 15 of the 75 seats in the House of Representatives, and their members formed the Federal Parliamentary Labour Party. The 1901 platform called for the White Australia policy, a citizen army and compulsory arbitration of industrial disputes. In April 1904 Chris Watson formed a minority government lasting four months, the world’s first national labour government, and in 1910 Andrew Fisher won majorities in both houses of the federal parliament. According to the Russian source, during the First World War Prime Minister Billy Hughes left the party and founded the National Labor Party, and in 1920 some left-wingers left to found the Communist Party of Australia. Following a resolution of the 1921 trade union congress, the 1922 national conference adopted the objective of “the socialisation of industry, production, distribution and exchange”, immediately qualified by the Blackburn amendment as desirable only when necessary to eliminate exploitation.
John Curtin became prime minister in October 1941 and led the country through the Pacific War, turning to the United States as an ally. His successor Ben Chifley attempted to nationalise the banks in 1947, which the High Court held unconstitutional, and lost the 1949 election to Robert Menzies’ Coalition. The party then spent 23 years in opposition, led mainly by H. V. Evatt and Arthur Calwell. In 1955 it split and the anti-communist Democratic Labour Party broke away. The party strongly defended the White Australia policy from 1900 to 1940 and turned to multiculturalism only after Calwell retired in 1967.
Gough Whitlam returned the party to power in 1972 but was dismissed by Governor-General John Kerr in the constitutional crisis of 1975. Bob Hawke and Paul Keating governed from 1983 to 1996, and Kevin Rudd from 2007 and Julia Gillard, Australia’s first female prime minister, from 2010 led governments. The party returned to power under Anthony Albanese at the 2022 election.