This is a partial audio of the Democratic Labor Party’s policy speech for the 1974 federal election.
The broadcast is delivered by the party’s leader, Victorian Senator Frank McManus.
Unfortunately, the recording is incomplete. I have only just under 5 minutes of what I think was a 10-minute broadcast.
McManus lost his seat at the election, as did all the DLP’s sitting members. The DLP’s Senate representation fell from five to zero.
The DLP disappeared as a political force for the next 32 years. It won a seat in the Victorian Legislative Council in 2006, losing it in 2010. At the 2010 federal election, John Madigan won a Senate seat in Victoria.
- Listen to Senator Frank McManus deliver the DLP’s 1974 policy speech (5m)
- Read a biography of McManus from the Australian Dictionary of Biography
Is the DLP a Drowning Man?
Two days after his policy speech, a letter from McManus was published in The Australian.
The question of a drowning man was answered at the May 18, 1974 federal election when all DLP senators lost their seats.
Aside from one brief appearance 37 years later, between July 2011 and September 2014, when John Madigan served as a DLP senator, the party has never been represented in the Australian Parliament since the 1974 election.
