Liberalism in Australia

Liberalism in Australia dates back to the earliest pioneers of the area, and has maintained a strong foothold to this day.

The earliest pioneers of the federation movement, men such as Alfred Deakin and Samuel Griffith, were generally self-described "liberals". The degree of progressive sentiment varied from colony to colony: social liberals were prominent in Victoria and South Australia, for instance. At any rate, Australia's parliamentary institutions, especially at a national level, were brand-new, so it was difficult for anyone to be labelled "conservative" in a traditional sense. The two largest political parties, the Free Trade Party and the Protectionist Party, could both loosely be described as "liberal" in the terms of the time. They were moderates with a strong belief in parliamentary institutions, financially orthodox and attached to the British Empire, with a distaste for radicalism. The third major political force was the trade union movement represented by Australian Labor Party. The rise in popularity of the Labor party began to become the major pre-occupation of these two other parties.

In the early stages of the parliament, the Labor party engaged in a partnership with the more radical Protectionists, but Labor's wide-ranging policies for social reform met with only lukewarm support from most Protectionists. Fear of socialism became widespread among the ranks of the establishment, and as the question of tariffs was settled, there was increasing pressure on the non-Labor parliamentary forces to unite in opposition to Labor.

The result was the Fusion in 1909, composed of Joseph Cook's Anti-Socialist Party (formerly Free Trade Party), and conservative Protectionists. The Fusion soon began calling itself the Liberal Party, proclaiming its adherence to classical liberalism. After Deakin's departure, the fervent anti-socialist Joseph Cook became leader of the party and it became the dominant right-wing force in Australian politics.

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