ALP's Current Troubles Reminiscent Of The UAP's 60 Years Ago

by Norman Abjorensen - Canberra Times

The Australian Labor Party, out of office at national level for a decade and beset by internal wrangling, is eerily reminiscent of another political party from some six decades ago - the doomed United Australia Party.

The criticisms currently being made of Labor - and, significantly, criticisms from inside the ALP tent - are remarkably similar to those directed at the UAP in the 1940s.

The United Australia Party was a ramshackle organisation at best, a hastily confected body created to accommodate the ALP rebel Joe Lyons and his followers back in 1931.

It had no real membership base, no branch structure and its finances were controlled by shadowy finance committees, beholden to vested interests, about which Labor had plenty to say.

A noted economist and founder of the Institute of Public Affairs, C.D. Kemp (father of Federal Sports Minister Rod Kemp), looked at the floundering UAP wallowing in opposition while a popular wartime Labor government flourished and observed in 1943 that the ALP had "a clearly defined goal which on the face of it offers a better life for the great mass of the people. It has definite objectives, it is vigorous and unswerving in their pursuit and its aims can be stated in simple terms understandable by all."

In a post-mortem on the 1943 federal election won by Labor, Kemp saw little to praise on the conservative side, where there was "the spectacle of disunity", with too many "open or silent contenders" for leadership.

A prominent business leader, F.E. Lampe, characterised the UAP's performance in 1943 as "United they stood, divided we fell". He noted the care taken by the Labor Party not to reveal to the public any sign of dissension in its ranks, prime minister John Curtin's leadership contrasted with the lack of leadership in the UAP, disagreement between UAP and Country Party leaders on major points of policy, lack of a clear and constructive policy, political expediency, and a general lack of organisation.

During the 1943 election campaign, the perceived shortcomings of the Opposition parties were publicly paraded.

The Sydney Morning Herald made the point in a leading article that not only had they failed to make the case for an alternative government, they had even failed in the basic tasks of an opposition. They were without vision and lamentably lacking in talent.

The Herald concluded, "Their most fervent supporters will be hard put to discover within the UAP the germs even for the distant future of a strong and capably led organisation with the national spirit wholeheartedly behind it."

The Herald, normally a strong supporter of the conservative parties, was unrelenting in its criticism. An article written by the Herald's proprietor, Warwick Fairfax, returned to the theme of a pronounced lack of practical administrative ability in non-Labor ranks.

He wrote, "The notion so prevalent in the UAP and UCP that 'new blood' means getting hard-boiled graziers and business executives of 45 or 50 should be scrapped forthwith. Not only are such men apt to think in terms of commercial rather than of human values, but their very association with a certain industry or business tends to unbalance their view of the national affairs.

"There is no suggestion, of course, that able men in politics have not often been recruited from business classes, or that such classes should not be represented. Administrative capacity is obviously needed, but unlike political leadership, it is fairly plentiful in this country. The problem is only how to associate it with politics."

In other words, the pool of talent for leadership was as narrow as it was shallow; the class and social constraints of non-Labor merely churned out more of the same type of politician. If a new start were to be made - and this was the thrust of the Herald's argument - then serious attention needed to be given to the encouragement of more diverse talents.

Fairfax wrote that a malaise had overtaken the Opposition parties; they stood for vested interests rather than the general interest, and, while not representing them directly, were nevertheless organised "through a clique of professional politicians who close their ranks to new talent.

"Supporters themselves have been the first to complain that, except in moments of extreme stress, their organisation is notoriously lackadaisical and apathetic. If new talent is suggested to the UAP, there is a stereotyped reply that there are no seats available, and that 'Old Brown' or 'Old Robinson' would have a better chance of holding or winning this or that seat anyhow."

He wrote in a scenario not at all unfamiliar today - but on the other side of the political fence.

The statements by Mark Latham and others that the ALP has been "hollowed out" were levelled at the UAP, as were criticisms that its candidates were unrepresentative, as the Monash University's Centre for Population and Urban Research reported about the Labor Party last year.

The remedy for the UAP's terminal malaise was drastic: it was simply put out of its misery and a new party was formed out of its remnants and the merger with other like-minded organisations to form the modern-day Liberal Party.

Labor will find little solace in that solution, but the real political lesson the conservatives learned was how to broaden their base and open the ranks up to talent. And isn't that what is needed in the Labor Party today?


Dr Norman Abjorensen is a Canberra political historian.