The Democratic Labor Party (DLP) was an Australian political party. The party came into existence following the 1955 ALP split as the Australian Labor Party (Anti-Communist), and was renamed the Democratic Labor Party in 1957. In 1962, the Queensland Labor Party, a breakaway party of the Queensland branch of the Australian Labor Party, became the Queensland branch of the DLP.Frank Mines. Gair, Canberra City, ACT, Arrow Press (1975);
In 1978, a new Democratic Labor Party was founded by members of the original party, which remains active as of .
History Origins
The Australian Labor Party (Anti-Communist) was formed as a result of a split in the Australian Labor Party (ALP) which began in 1954.Robert Murray. The Split. Australian Labor in the fifties, Melbourne, Victoria, F.W. Cheshire (1970); The split was between the party's national leadership, under the then party leader Dr H. V. Evatt, and the majority of the Victorian branch, which was dominated by a faction composed largely of ideologically-driven anti-Communist Catholics.Paul Ormonde. The Movement, Melbourne, Victoria, Thomas Nelson (1972); Many ALP members during the Cold War period, most but not all of them Catholics, became alarmed at what they saw as the growing power of the Communist Party of Australia within the country's trade unions. These members formed units within the unions, called Industrial Groups, to combat this alleged infiltration.Bruce Duncan. Crusade or Conspiracy? Catholics and the Anti-Communist Struggle in Australia (2001), University of New South Wales Press;
The intellectual leader of the Victorian Catholic wing of the ALP was B. A. Santamaria,Ross Fitzgerald. The Pope's Battalions. Santamaria, Catholicism and the Labor Split, (University of Queensland Press, 2003) a Roman Catholic Italian-Australian Melbourne lawyer and lay anti-Communist activist, who acquired the patronage of Dr Mannix.Niall Brennan. Dr Mannix, (Rigby, 1964) Santamaria headed The Catholic Social Studies Movement (often known as The Movement),B. A. Santamaria. The Price of Freedom. The Movement - After Ten Years, Melbourne, Victoria, Campion Press (1964). modeled on Catholic Action groups in EuropePaul Ormonde. "The Movement - Politics by Remote Control" in Paul Ormonde (ed.) Santamaria. The Politics of Fear, Richmond, Victoria, Spectrum Publications (2000); and, ironically, in organizational terms, on some of the methods employed by its principal target, the Communist Party of Australia. That group later became the National Civic Council (NCC).Gerard Henderson. Mr Santamaria and the Bishops, Sydney, NSW, Studies in the Christian Movement (1982); Evatt denounced the "Movement" and the Industrial Groups in 1954, alleging they were disloyal and trying to deflect the Labour Movement from pursuing Labor objectives.P.L. Reynolds. The Democratic Labor Party, Milton, Queensland. Jacaranda Publ. (1974); , p. 12
At the 1955 ALP national conference in Hobart, Santamaria's parliamentary supporters in the federal and Victorian parliaments were expelled from the ALP. A total of seven Victorian federal MPs and 18 state MPs were expelled. The federal MPs were: Tom Andrews, Bill Bourke, Bill Bryson, Jack Cremean, Bob Joshua, Stan Keon and Jack Mullens. In New South Wales, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Norman Cardinal Gilroy, the first native-born Australian Roman Catholic prelate, opposed the Movement's tactics, and there was no party split in that state.
The expelled ALP members formed the Australian Labor Party (Anti-Communist) under the influence of B. A. Santamaria.Paul Strangio and Brian Costar (2005), "B. A. Santamaria: Religion as Politics", in Brian Costar, Peter Love and Paul Strangio (eds.), The Great Labor Schism. A Retrospective, Scribe Publications, Melbourne. Ideologically, the ALP (Anti-Communist) followed universalism and kept the NCC anti-communist position. The DLP started opposing the White Australia policy as early as 1957 even while both major parties supported it.
1950s to 1970s 1955 elections
Seventeen state representatives were suspended from the Labor caucus, likewise suspending the majority of John Cain's Labor government in the Victorian Legislative Assembly. The suspended members held a caucus of their own on 30 March 1955 where the founded their own party; electing Bill Barry and Les Coleman leaders in the lower and upper house respectively. On the night of 19 April, Liberal and Country Party leader Henry Bolte moved a motion of no-confidence against John Cain's Labor government in the Victorian Legislative Assembly. After twelve hours of debate on the motion, in the early hours of 20 April, 11 of the expelled Labor members crossed the floor to support Bolte's motion.Bob Corcoran. "The Manifold Causes of the Labor Split", in Peter Love and Paul Strangio (eds.), Arguing the Cold War, Carlton North, Victoria, Red Rag Publications (2001); With his government defeated, Cain sought and received a dissolution of parliament later that day, with the election set down for 28 May 1955.Ainsley Symons (2012), 'Democratic Labor Party members in the Victorian Parliament of 1955-1958,' in Recorder (Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, Melbourne Branch) No. 275, November, Pages 4-5.
At the election, 11 of the 12 expelled MPs in the Victorian Legislative Assembly, as well as other candidates, and the one MP facing re-election in the Victorian Legislative Council lost their seats. The party drew 12.6% of the vote, mainly from the ALP, which was directed to the non-Labor parties. Labor won 37.6% of the vote and 20 seats to the Liberals' 34 and the Country Party's ten. The Cain Labor Government lost government at the 1955 election. Only one of the expelled Labor members, Frank Scully, was re-elected for the seat of Richmond. Scully had been a Minister in the Cain Government and a member of the Movement, and was expelled from the ministry and the ALP as part of the 1955 split.Ainsley Symons (2012), 'Democratic Labor Party members in the Victorian Parliament of 1955–1958,' in Recorder (Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, Melbourne Branch) No. 275, November, Pages 4–5. Five other MPs whose terms had not expired remained in the Legislative Council until the expiry of their terms at the 1958 Victorian election, and all who recontested their seats were defeated.
At the 1955 federal election held in December, all the 7 expelled federal MPs were defeated. However, Frank McManus was elected as a senator for Victoria at the 1955 election, and successful ALP candidate George Cole had chosen before the election to become part of this party.
Membership The parliamentary membership of the ALP (Anti-Communist) was almost entirely Roman Catholic of Irish descent.Lyle Allan (1988), "Irish Ethnicity and the Democratic Labor Party", Politics, Vol. 23 No. 2, Pages 28-34.Joe Sampson. The Democratic Labour Party (DLP) and Bob Santamaria; a talk given at the Melbourne Unitarian Church on 8 July 2014. http://atheism.quantechsolutions.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/The-Democratic-Labour-Party-DLP-and-Bob-Santamaria2.pdf The only two non-Catholics were its federal leader, Bob Joshua, who represented Ballarat in the Australian House of Representatives, and Jack Little, who led the party in the Victoria Legislative Council between 1955 and 1958. It has been suggested that the party was substantially a party of Irish-ethnics, a result of the ALP split of 1955 being a 'de-ethnicisation', a forcible removal of the Irish-Catholic element within the ALP.Ernest Healy (1993), 'Ethnic ALP Branches - The Balkanisation of Labor,' in People and Place Vol.1, No.4, Page 38. However, many ALP (Anti-Communist) members were not of Irish descent. The party attracted many voters among migrants from Catholic countries in southern Europe, and among anti-Communist Eastern European refugees.
A significant minority of its voters were also non-Catholics.Gavan Duffy. Demons and Democrats. 1950s Labor at the Crossroads, Freedom Publishing (2002), p. 54. Journalist Don Whitington argued in 1964 that the DLP, as a basically sectarian party, was a most dangerous and distasteful force in Australian politics.Don Whitington. The Rulers. Fifteen Years of the Liberals, Lansdowne Press, Melbourne (1964), pp. 145-146. Whitington observed that the party was backed by influential sections of the Roman Catholic Church, and that although the party professed to exist primarily to combat communism, it had less commendable reasons behind its coming into being. Daniel Mannix, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, was a DLP supporter, as were other influential clerics.
Democratic Labor Party In 1957, the ALP (A-C) changed its name to the Democratic Labor Party (DLP), although the exact date of the party's renaming is unclear. At least one source claims it was renamed in 1956, but this appears to have been the founding of a DLP in New South Wales (where an ALP split had largely been avoided). The NSW DLP was separate to the ALP (A-C), and NSW DLP president Alan Manning said it was not connected "in anyway" to the Victorian-based party, saying "if B. A. Santamaria joined the Democratic Labor Party I would get out of it". The Tasmanian branch of the ALP (A-C) chose to affiliate with the NSW DLP in February 1957, and Tribune reported that Manning was "trying to link the anti-Communist Labor Parties and the DLP into a national party". Beginning in May 1957, the DLP name began to be used outside of NSW. On 27 August 1957, Tasmanian senator George Cole officially informed the Senate that the ALP (A-C) has been renamed to the DLP following a conference held on 18 August 1957.
In the same year, the Labor Party split in Queensland following the expulsion of Vince Gair, a conservative Catholic, from the party. He and his followers formed the Queensland Labor Party, which, in 1962, became the Queensland branch of the DLP.
Between 1955 and 1974 the DLP was able to command a significant vote, particularly in Victoria and Queensland, with their large numbers of Catholics. During the period the party held between one and five seats in the Senate (which is elected by proportional representation). The DLP Senate leaders were George Cole (from Tasmania; 1955–1965), Vince Gair (from Queensland; 1965–1973), and Frank McManus (from Victoria; 1973–1974).Frank McManus. The Tumult and the Shouting, Adelaide, South Australia, Rigby (1977); Other DLP Senators were Condon Byrne (from Queensland), Jack KaneJack Kane. Exploding the Myths. The Political Memoirs of Jack Kane, North Ryde, NSW, Angus and Robertson (1989); (from New South Wales), and Jack Little, a Protestant (from Victoria).
No DLP senators or state politicians were ever elected in South Australia or Western Australia. Owing largely to demographic reasons, the ALP did not split in these states, although some lay branch members switched to the new party once it had been established. As the ALP and the conservative parties traditionally held approximately equal numbers of seats in the Senate, the DLP was able to use the balance of power in the Senate to extract concessions from Liberal governments, particularly larger government grants to Catholic schools, greater spending on defence, and non-recognition of the People's Republic of China.
During this period the DLP exercised influence by directing its preferences to Liberal candidates in federal and state elections (see Australian electoral system), thus helping to keep the ALP out of office at the federal level and in Victoria. The DLP vote for the House of Representatives gradually declined during the 1960s, but remained strong enough for the Liberals to continue to need DLP preferences to win close elections.