Australian Labor Party split of 1955

The Australian Labor Party split of 1955 was a splintering of the Australian Labor Party along sectarian and ideological lines in the mid 1950s. With the exception of the consequences of The Petrov Affair, the Australian conservative parties of the time had little or no influence on the split; it was essentially an internal conflict between elements of the Australian Labor Party. Key players in the split were the federal opposition leader H. V. "Doc" Evatt and B. A. Santamaria, the ruling mind behind the "Catholic Social Studies Movement" or "the Movement".

I have witnessed three disastrous splits in the Australian Labor Party during the past fifty-six years. ... The first split occurred in 1916 over conscription in World War I; the second in 1931 over the Premiers' Plan for economic recovery in the Great Depression; and the third in 1955 over alleged communist infiltration of the trade union movement. The last was the worst of the three, because the party has not yet healed the wounds that resulted from it.
'[1]Arthur Calwell, Be Just and Fear Not, p 188

Evatt denounced the influence of Santamaria's Movement on 5 October 1954. The Victorian ALP state executive was officially dissolved, but both factions sent delegates to the 1955 Labor Party conference in Hobart. Movement delegates were excluded from the conference. They withdrew from the Labor party, going on to form the Democratic Labor Party. The split then moved from federal level to states, predominantly Victoria and Queensland.

Historians, journalists, and political scientists have observed that the split was not a single event but a process that occurred over the early 1950s in state and federal Labor parties, and that it siphoned off enough support for the conservative Catholic and anti-communist Democratic Labor Party to prevent the election of an Australian Labor Party federal government until 1972.

Contents

Terminology

The Australian Labor Party split of 1955 is also described as the "Labor split of 1955",[2] the "Labor split of 1954-55"[3] or within the context of the Australian Labor Party and Roman Catholicism in Australia simply "the split".[4][5][6]

Background

The split had its origins in Melbourne in the 1930s. A group of that city's Catholics, predominantly lawyers, formed "The Campion Society" and published "The Catholic Worker". B. A. Santamaria, then a recent graduate of Melbourne Law School,[7]became its editor. For both Santamaria and his sponsor Archbishop Daniel Mannix, Adolf Hitler's Nazism was a lesser evil than Joseph Stalin. By 1941 Santamaria had set up the "Catholic Social Studies Movement"[8] In the late 1930s and early 1940s, there was an effort by Communists to infiltrate trade unions in Australia.[9][10] In response, the Labor party instituted "industrial groups" within trade unions to counter the perceived Communist threat.[10]

In September 1954, journalist Alan Reid published an exposé in The Sydney Sun about Santamaria. He wrote of him that:

"In the tense melodrama of politics there are mysterious figures who stand virtually unnoticed in the wings, invisible to all but a few of the audience, as they cue, Svengali-like, among the actors out on the stage."[11][12]

Chifley and the crises of 1948-9

In 1947 then prime minister Ben Chifley attempted to nationalise Australia's banks. The Banking Act 1947 (Cth) was struck down as unconstitutional by the High Court of Australia in the 1948 Bank Nationalisation Case. In 1949, the Chifley government called in troops to break the 1949 Australian coal strike.

Aftermath of the 1949 federal election

After the Australian federal election, 1949, Labor was left with only 47 members in the lower house.[13] Of these, eight were new members from Victoria. Mostly Catholics, they were staunchly anti-Communist and had white-collar union and professional backgrounds.[14] Western Australian MP Thomas Burke persuaded his state ALP executive to support the Menzies government's controversial 1950 Communist Party Dissolution Bill. To Chifley's chagrin, the resultant majority in the federal executive instructed the party's parliamentary caucus to let the bill through the Senate. The bipartisan passage of the bill on 20 October 1950 was short-lived. An immediate High Court challenge was sustained, the Act being invalidated on constitutional grounds by a judgment delivered in Melbourne on Friday, 9 March 1951. Menzies then sought to amend the Constitution through a referendum, which failed to be carried on 22 September 1951.

The split

On 13 June 1951 Ben Chifley died from a heart attack. Evatt was elected unopposed as leader of the Federal Labor party caucus.[14] Evatt adopted a "mercurial" style of leadership.[14] Without the approval of or consultation with Caucus or the Federal Labor executive, he led the legal challenge to the Communist Party Abolition Bill, sought rapprochement with those ALP members who had opposed it - especially in the Victorian Labor party's anti-Communist wing - and moderated the ALP's Nationalisation policy to a focus on a Welfare state.[14]

The Petrov Affair

Main article: Petrov Affair

In April 1954, prime minister Robert Menzies revealed details of the defection of Vladimir Petrov.[15] It has been claimed that the Petrov Affair was the primary event that precipitated the split.[6]

Evatt's press release

On 5 October 1954 in a Press release, Evatt blamed Labor's defeat in the 1954 Federal election on "a small minority of members, located particularly in the State of Victoria", and they were in conspiracy to undermine him.[14][16]

The Federal Labor Party splits

Following an intervention by the Federal ALP executive, the Victorian ALP state executive was dissolved, and a new executive appointed in its place. Delegates from both executives were sent to the 1955 ALP national conference in Hobart. The delegates from the old Victorian executive were excluded from the conference. They went on to form the Australian Labor Party (Anti-Communist), which went on to be the nucleus of the Democratic Labor Party.[16][17]

The split and the DLP in state politics

The split had ramifications in Labor politics in Australian states.

Victoria

In Victoria, the home state of Movement leaders B. A. Santamaria and Archbishop Daniel Mannix, the split destroyed the state government of John Cain (senior)[18] after the ALP federal executive expelled "disloyal" members. In a legal battle over succession after the split, the Victorian Supreme Court held that those who became the Democratic Labor Party were the legitimate Labor Party and not the renegade ALP that expelled them.[19] The original party was formally wound up in 1978. Soon after, a small group of supporters formed a new Democratic Labor Party which continues to this day. In November 2006, its candidate Peter Kavanagh was elected[18] to the Legislative Council. The first "DLP" Senator in decades but elected largely on preferences, John Madigan was elected to the Senate in Victoria at the 2010 federal election. He took his seat for a 6-year term in July 2011.

Queensland

In Queensland, Vince Gair was expelled from the Labor party in 1957.[20] Gair had previously attempted to mobilise the Industrial Groups to counteract a perceived Communist influence of the Australian Workers' Union in the Queensland Trades and Labor Council. With other Queensland Caucus members, Gair went on to form the Queensland Labor Party, which was absorbed into the DLP in 1962.[20]

Western Australia

The member for Perth, Tom Burke was closely associated with the Catholic-instigated opposition to H. V. Evatt but refrained from joining the new party which became the DLP. With Kim Beazley (senior) and others, Burke was banned for three years from representing Western Australia at federal conferences.[21] Having been defeated at the 1955 federal election, Burke promoted the political careers of his sons Terry Burke and Brian Burke who were prime architects of the WA Inc corruption scandals of the 1980s.

Long-term consequences

The "thirty-six faceless men"

After Evatt's unilateral actions split the federal Labor party, the federal ALP executive re-asserted its control over the party. In 1963 Federal party leader Calwell and his deputy Gough Whitlam were photographed outside the Hotel Kingston, awaiting the outcome of the federal labor conference.[22]

See also

References

  1. ^ Calwell, Arthur Augustus (1972). Be just and fear not. Hawthorn, Victoria: Lloyd O'Neil Pty Ltd.. ISBN 855503521. 
  2. ^ Costar, Brian (14 July 2005). "The 1955 Bob and Bert Show". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/perspective/stories/2005/1402332.htm. Retrieved 31 January 2009. 
  3. ^ "The Letters of B. A. Santamaria". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 31 January 2007. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/stories/2007/1837440.htm. Retrieved 31 January 2009. 
  4. ^ Clearey, John (15 September 2002). "Keeper of the Faith - Jim Cairns Speaks Out". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. http://www.abc.net.au/sundaynights/stories/s1239055.htm. Retrieved 31 January 2009. 
  5. ^ "Old Parliament House - The Split". Museum of Australian Democracy. http://moadoph.gov.au/exhibitions/online/petrov/content-44328.html. Retrieved 27 October 2010. 
  6. ^ a b Mark Colvin (28 October 2010). "ABC The Drum - I Spry with my little eye". ABC Online (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/10/28/3050289.htm. Retrieved 2 November 2010. 
  7. ^ Sexton, Michael (14 June 2003). "The Pope's Battalions - Santamaria, Catholicism and the Labor Split". www.smh.com.au Sydney Morning Herald. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/06/13/1055220761444.html. Retrieved 23 January 2009. 
  8. ^ "Mannix, Daniel (1864 - 1963)". Australian Dictionary of Biography Online Australian National University. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A100391b.htm. Retrieved 5 January 2009. 
  9. ^ Murray, Robert (1970). "2". The Split: Australian labor in the fifties (First ed.). F. W. Cheshire. p. 13. 
  10. ^ a b Gavan Duffy (9 April 2005). "AUSTRALIAN HISTORY: The Labor Split - 50 years on - 9 April 2005". News Weekly. http://www.newsweekly.com.au/articles/2005apr09_alp.html. Retrieved 28 October 2010. 
  11. ^ Holt, Stephen (July 2006). "The Ultimate Insider" (PDF). National Library Australia News. http://www.nla.gov.au/pub/nlanews/2006/jul06/story-3.pdf. Retrieved 3 November 2010. 
  12. ^ Carr, Bob (17 July 2010). "Sleeping with the Enemy". The Spectator. http://www.spectator.co.uk/australia/page_7/6163653/part_2/sleeping-with-the-enemy.thtml. Retrieved 4 November 2010. 
  13. ^ "Commonwealth Parliament, House of Representatives election 1949". University of Western Australia Australian Politics and Elections Database. http://elections.uwa.edu.au/elecdetail.lasso?keyvalue=704. Retrieved 13 October 2010. 
  14. ^ a b c d e Scalmer, Sean (2001). "7". In John Faulkner and Stuart Macintyre. True Believers: The Story of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party. Crows Nest, New South Wales: Allen & Unwin. pp. 90–91. ISBN 1 86508 609 6. 
  15. ^ "Old Parliament House - The Petrov Affair". Museum of Australian Democracy. http://moadoph.gov.au/exhibitions/online/petrov/content-48393.html. Retrieved 7 October 2010. 
  16. ^ a b "Old Parliament House - The Split". Museum of Australian Democracy. http://moadoph.gov.au/exhibitions/online/petrov/content-44328.html. Retrieved 14 October 2010. 
  17. ^ Wendy Lewis, Simon Balderstone and John Bowan (2006). Events That Shaped Australia. New Holland. pp. 201–206. ISBN 9781741104929. 
  18. ^ a b Paul Austin Cain warns on DLP comeback The Age 16 February 2007
  19. ^ Democratic Labor Party History Revised party history on official website
  20. ^ a b "Gair, Vincent Clare (Vince) (1901 - 1980) Biographical Entry - Australian Dictionary of Biography Online". Australian Dictionary of Biography Online Australian National University. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A140269b.html. Retrieved 3 November 2010. 
  21. ^ Bolton, G. C. (1993). "Burke, Thomas Patrick (Tom) (1910 - 1973)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra: Australian National University. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A130344b.htm. Retrieved 19 February 2008. 
  22. ^ Scalmer, Sean (2001). "7". In John Faulkner and Stuart Macintyre. True Believers: The Story of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party. Crows Nest, New South Wales: Allen & Unwin. pp. 100–101. ISBN 1 86508 609 6. 

Further reading

External links