The Australian Democrats resulted from a merger of two previous minor parties, the Australia Party and the Liberal Movement in South Australia. Literature on both these parties is very scarce. However, various records relating to these parties were tracked down in the manuscripts room at the National Library of Australia. These records have been consulted in the writing of this thesis and they have provided a valuable insight into the reasons why these parties emerged and then started to decline. An examination of other records detailed the early attempts to merge the two parties and then seek out Don Chipp who recently resigned from the Liberal Party as a leader of the merged party. At the time Chipp was very well known and had a reputation for modern and progressive thinking.
Warhurst (1997) has amassed a collection of papers discussing the rise of the Australian Democrats. One of the papers discusses the Australia Party (Warhurst 1997b:23-36), while another discusses the Liberal Movement (LM) (Jaensch 1997:37-48). These papers discussed the rise of those two parties, but did not consider their individual decline and transition into the Australian Democrats. With a publication date of 1997, the GST and its debate were some three
years away and the wrangling and lack of voter support that heralded the party’s demise were yet to come.
This thesis argues that both the Australia Party and the New Liberal Movement emerged, but then started to decline. The two parties arrested that fall by agreeing to amalgamate into one party and at the same time successfully finding a high-profile leader, the ex-Liberal Don Chipp, to lead the new party.
Reviewing the very scarce literature on the Australia Party, Blackshield (1972) gave a history of its founding and early days. This party was founded by Gordon Barton. In fact, the party’s founding was a reaction to a newspaper advertisement Barton placed in TheAustralian
newspaper in 1966 protesting about Australia’s involvement in Vietnam. The reaction was a number of people contacted Barton asking what could they do. The result was a hastily formed party which fielded candidates in the 1966 Federal election.
Warhurst (1997b:23) considered that the Australia Party was founded in the mid-1960s when the ‘political party contest’ changed from the influences of the 1950s Cold War politics
demonstrated by the DLP’s ‘ensuring office’ for the Coalition parties. At that time the ALP was ‘struggling to emerge from the split’ and ‘the Liberal Party was at odds with itself’ and finally ‘the Country Party was little changed’ with the times.
As a consequence, Warhurst argued, there was considerable animation in the electorate in the form of challenges to settled Australian ways of doing things. Warhurst listed as examples, the Vietnam War, conservation of the environment and women’s rights among others. The
Australia Party was part of that challenge.
The Liberal Movement was a breakaway group from the Liberal Country League in South Australia. The Liberal Movement was led by the former Premier of the State, Steele Hall. Jaensch and Bullock (1978) provided the first scholarly account of the rise of the Liberal Movement and the reasons behind the splitting of the Liberal Party which brought on the Liberal Movement. Jaensch and Bullock also explain the New Liberal Movement and the start of the merger that formed the Australian Democrats. Jaensch and Bullock’s account of the Liberal Movement was written at the time it happened. This thesis explores the rise and fall of the Liberal Movement and the merger that formed the Australian Democrats in hindsight after nearly 38 years.
Jaensch (1997:37) gave an account of the formation of the Liberal Movement (LM) in South Australia. The Liberal Movement was at first a mere faction of the Liberal Country League, but later became a party in its own right. Jaensch listed the reasons for the rise of the Liberal Movement, the major one being the ‘Playmander’. The ‘Playmander” was the aligning of South
Australian electoral boundaries in the 1930s, by Premier Sir Thomas Playford, to significantly advantage the Liberal Country League and markedly disadvantage to Labor Party.
Jaensch (1997:42 traced the transition of the LM as a faction into a political party in its own right, after the 1973 State election in which members associated with the LM did very well. In Jaensch’s words ‘the party within a party was clearly a potent force’. As a consequence, the LM was declared ‘an outside political body’ to which LCL members could not join. Hall retaliated by resigning from the LCL and setting the LM as a separate political party.
The Liberal Movement fell after the Liberal Country League commenced merger talks in 1976 (Jaensch 1997:44). The LM was ‘deeply in debt’ and Hall had acknowledged that the LM had ‘dramatically changed the LCL (Jaensch 1997:46).
Robin Millhouse and some others refused to re-join the ‘reformed’ LCL and responded by forming ‘the New Liberal Movement.’ It was this party that merged with the Australia Party to form the Australian Democrats.
Some of the earlier Democrat Senators were members of one of the two formative parties, for example Siddons was a member of the Australia Party, Evans and Haines were members of the New Liberal Movement.
With regard to the literature on the rise of the Australian Democrats, Warhurst (1997a:3-22) considered the first 20 years of the party, up to 1997. Warhurst mentioned the ructions in the party with six leaders over 20 years, three of which were short term leaders. Warhurst also discusses the Democrats participatory ethic which also caused the party problems, which were increased by the party’s shrinking membership base. This thesis explores in some depth the leadership problems of the Democrats and argues that these problems were exacerbated by the party’s adherence to participatory democracy in a very pure form. The thesis goes on to argue that this pure form of participatory democracy was a major cause in the party’s eventual demise.
Gauja (2010:486-503) firstly evaluated the Democrats long term electoral impact. She then evaluated the party’s unique organisation and its impact on Australian political culture. Thirdly she analysed the party’s parliamentary role and its contribution in promoting the Senate as a house of review. However Gauja did not explore the lack of an ideology in the Australian Democrats and the resultant ability to attract a distinct group of voters. Nor did she discuss the more significant olicies of the Australian Democrats and their impact, for example the decision to support the goods and services tax.
Floyd (2014) who was a member of the Australian Democrats, discussed the rise and the fall of the Australian Democrats. Commenting on the rise of the Democrats, Floyd discussed the role and influence of Don Chipp. According to Floyd, in early days of the party:-
. . . the media spotlight was on Don Chipp. To many it must have seemed if he was the Australian Democrats. From its inception and through 1977 he was its voice and spirit – and he drove himself relentlessly through gruelling feats of endurance to publicise its aims (Floyd 2014:12).
With regard to the demise of the Australian Democrats, in Floyd’s view leadership of the parliamentary party and resignations of Senators were significant factors. However much of the blame can be attributed to the debate within the party and the ultimate support for the GST. In addition, Floyd considers the negotiations with the Liberal leadership of Howard and Costello was poorly conducted resulting in much negative publicity for the Democrats. (Floyd
2014:188).
As with the DLP, there is a scarcity of literature on the decline and fall of the Australian Democrats. Madden (2009) listed several reasons for the demise of the Democrats, but she provides little more than a list with no in depth discussion of those reasons. Economou and Ghazarian (2008) considered the main reason for the fall of the Democrats were the rules and the structure of the party. They saw the parliamentary party’s decision to support the GST legislation in 2000, as a catalyst to the party’s decline and demise. This thesis provides an in- depth study of the reasons behind the fall of the Democrats and identifies a number of other reasons for the party’s fall.
Ghazarian (2015:90ff) considered that the usage of participatory democracy was a major reason for the demise of the Australian Democrats, as it ‘allowed leadership tensions to perpetuate.’
This thesis has explored other reasons for the demise of the Democrats and has explored the reasons given by Madden along with Economou and Ghazarian in greater detail.