Australian Labor Party (Tasmanian Branch)
Australian Labor Party (Tasmanian Branch) | |
|---|---|
| |
| Leader | Rebecca White |
| Deputy Leader | Michelle O'Byrne |
| Secretary | Stuart Benson |
| Founded | 1903 |
| Headquarters | Level 2, 63 Salamanca Place, Hobart, Tasmania |
| Youth wing | Tasmanian Young Labor |
| National affiliation | Australian Labor Party |
| Tasmanian House of Assembly |
10 / 25
|
| Tasmanian Legislative Council |
4 / 15
|
|
Australian House of Representatives (Tas seats) |
3 / 5
|
|
Australian Senate (Tas seats) |
5 / 12
|
| Website | |
|
taslabor | |
The Australian Labor Party (Tasmanian Branch), commonly known as Tasmanian Labor is the Tasmanian branch of the Australian Labor Party.
The Labor Party came into existence in Tasmania later than in the mainland states, in part due to the weak state of nineteenth-century Tasmanian trade unionism compared to the rest of the country. The two main Trades and Labor Councils, in Hobart and Launceston, were badly divided along north-south lines, and were always small; they collapsed altogether in 1897 (Hobart) and 1898 (Launceston). Denis Murphy attributes the poor state of the unions to a number of factors, including a more conservative workforce, divisions between various groups of workers, the smaller nature of Tasmanian industry, heavy penalties directed against a prominent early union leader, Hugh Kirk, and a lack of job security for the miners on the north-west coast. Unofficial pro-Labor candidates contested parliamentary seats from 1886. Allan Macdonald was elected at the 1893 election and has been regarded as Tasmania's first Labor member, but was not himself a worker and in any case was shortly forced to retire due to ill-health. Numerous other candidates from liberal or democratic leagues were elected, but often showed little regard for workers' issues.
As a result of these issues, there was no state Labor Party by the time of Federation, and as such there was no formal Labor campaign in Tasmania at the 1901 federal election.King O'Malley was elected as an independent in the House of Representatives, and David O'Keefe was elected to the Senate endorsed by the Protectionist Party. O'Keefe joined the Labor Party when parliament sat for the first time, and O'Malley arrived unpledged but joined in June after the anti-Labor parties refused to support his idea for a Commonwealth Bank.George Mason Burns, secretary of the Queenstown branch of the Amalgamated Miners' Association, convened a small conference in September 1901, chaired by future Premier John Earle, which drew up a moderate Labor platform, and a Political Labor League formed on the north-west coast. However, there was understood to be no Labor organisation in Tasmania as late as 1902.
...
Wikipedia