Planes de Incentivo por Retiro Voluntario

The Liberal Party was founded in 1944, but it is the fourth in a continuous succession of anti-Labor par- ties. Its 1944 materialization brought together the non- Labor members of Parliament, under the leadership of Robert Gordon Menzies, and fashioned a mass organi- zation to sustain these parliamentarians. The success of the product was manifested in an unbroken 23 years in office that the Liberal Party enjoyed in coalition with the National Party (then known as the Country Party) from 1949 until 1972, the first 17 of these years with Menzies as prime minister.

PARTY VOTING FOR THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: 1946–2004 Percentage of First-Preference Vote by Party

Year Liberal Party National Party Labor Party Australian Democrats Election Winner

1946 33 11 50 — Labor 1949 39 11 46 — Lib/Nat 1951 41 10 48 — Lib/Nat 1954 39 9 50 — Lib/Nat 1955 40 8 45 — Lib/Nat 1958 37 9 43 — Lib/Nat 1961 34 9 48 — Lib/Nat 1963 37 9 46 — Lib/Nat 1966 40 10 40 — Lib/Nat 1969 35 9 47 — Lib/Nat 1972 32 9 50 — Labor 1974 35 11 49 — Labor 1975 42 11 43 — Lib/Nat 1977 38 10 40 9 Lib/Nat 1980 37 9 45 7 Lib/Nat 1983 34 9 49 5 Labor 1984 34 11 48 5 Labor 1987 34 12 46 6 Labor 1990 35 8 39 11 Labor 1993 37 7 45 4 Labor 1996 39 8 39 7 Lib/Nata 1998 34 5 40 5 Lib/Nata 2001 35 5 36 5 Lib/Nata 2004 40 6 38 1 Lib/Nata

Some leadership instability developed after Men- zies’ retirement, and the coalition lost office in 1972. It was returned to government under the leadership of Malcolm Fraser in 1975, was reelected in 1977 and 1980, and was then defeated, still under Fraser, in 1983. The Liberal Party then had to endure a prolonged unaccustomed and uncomfortable opposition role, los- ing another four successive national elections under various leaders until led to victory by John Howard in the election of 1996; Howard was reelected in 1998, 2001, and 2004.

The Liberal Party has managed to graft a cadrelike parliamentary party onto a mass-party base. This has allowed a relatively autonomous parliamentary leader- ship largely to develop its own policies and strategies while receiving organizational support for election campaigns.

The Liberal Party’s members are disproportionately middle-class and Protestant. In comparison with their long-standing minority position within the Australian Labor Party (ALP), women have long constituted about half of the Liberal Party membership. An important function of the membership is to provide financial and election assistance, with local branches engaging in various fund-raising social activities. The Liberal Party also benefits from substantial business donations.

Far more than for the ALP, the members of Parlia- ment are central to the Liberal Party ethos. The party organization is strongly federalist, with each state division enjoying a large measure of autonomy. Some variation exists in organizational structure, but gener- ally local branches within the states, combined where necessary to cover each parliamentary electorate, have a primary role in selecting candidates and running local election campaigns. At the state level central councils representing local branches, members of Par- liament, women’s organizations, and Young Liberal Associations consider matters of general party business and policy, though their decisions characteristically do not bind the members of Parliament.

National business and policy are considered by the Liberal Party federal council, which has equal represen- tation from each state (including delegates from the women’s and young Liberal organizations), and by the federal executive. Sometimes, such extraparliamentary bodies attempt to influence the members of Parlia- ment, but generally the parliamentary party sustains its autonomy.

Among the parliamentary members, the elected leader assumes great significance. He or she chooses members of a cabinet or shadow cabinet, in contrast to the ALP, where those positions are elective. In theory

Liberal Party members are free to vote as they choose in Parliament, but apart from some rare cases of non- conformity (usually in the Senate), party discipline is in practice generally as firm as in the ALP.

Though factionalism is far less entrenched in the Liberal Party than in the ALP, there are groupings among parliamentary members based loosely on differ- ences in policy or strategic orientation. These divisions sometimes manifest themselves in support for rival leadership contenders. In the 1980s, for example, the main line of policy division was between the market- oriented “dries” and the more pragmatic and socially oriented “wets.” There was something of a reconfigura- tion in the 1990s, partly because the “dries” seemed to have triumphed in intellectual and policy terms. The party encompasses both “moderates” who are more pragmatically oriented toward an electorally successful formula and “hard-liners” with a paramount interest in pursuing market-oriented principles. A spectrum based on orientation toward economic policy, however, would not necessarily be consistent with a spectrum based on social policy: Some market ideologues are libertarian with respect to social policies, while others are explicitly conservative.

The Liberal Party features a mixture of classical liber- alism, social liberalism, conservatism, and pragmatism. Its parliamentary members range from enthusiastic free-market advocates to supporters of a relatively gen- erous welfare state, from social libertarians to conserva- tive defenders of the traditional family, from moderate protectionists to evangelical free traders.

A brief listing of the important common ele- ments of the Liberal Party platform would begin with individualism. There is a pervasive attachment to the sanctity and rights of individuals, who are regarded as responsive to incentives, such as profits, which lead to greater effort and productivity. Although the party has at times promoted a significant degree of public intervention and regulation, its long-standing strong support for private enterprise has become more pro- nounced. Whereas nearly all ALP members and politi- cians would, at least in principle, regard significant social and economic inequality as a matter for concern, Liberals would tend to accept some inequality as inevi- table and perhaps socially necessary. Stability and order are also recurring themes. Liberal Party foreign policy was strongly anti-Communist during the Cold War period and strongly in favor of traditional alliances, such as with the United States, particularly against international terrorism.

In 1992, facing an electorally successful Labor government that had adopted a number of market-

oriented policies, the Liberal Party constructed a detailed and more radical promarket policy package entitled “Fightback!” The electoral defeat of 1993, widely attributed to the perceived radicalism of “Fight- back!,” led to a more low-key approach to the success- ful 1996 election. The Howard government in office vigorously pursued a number of proposals anticipated in the “Fightback!” agenda, including industrial rela- tions reform, an attempt to weaken the influence of organized labor on the waterfront, and tax reform.

Electoral support for the Liberals has been socially more widespread than for the ALP, though it is stron- gest among those with a professional or managerial or lower-white-collar background than among blue-collar occupations. The safest Liberal seats are in more afflu- ent residential suburbs. Women, members of Eastern Europe ethnic groups, and older-age cohorts tend to support the party in disproportionate numbers. Liberal members of Parliament are overwhelmingly from a professional, managerial, or business background.