When Parliament resumed on 1955, the members of the ALP who had joined the ALP-AC sat as a group on the opposition cross benches in the House of Representatives. Those who split from the ALP to Form the ALP (AC) are shown in the following table:-
Table 6: Federal Parliamentary Members of the Australian Labor Party (Anti Communist) (ALP (AC)) 1955
Member Electorate Religion Term in Parliament Andrews TW Darebin VIC Catholic 1949-1955
Bourke WM Faulkner VIC Catholic 1949-1955 Bryson WG Bourke VIC Catholic 1943-1946 1949-1955 Cole GR Tasmania (Senate)
Sitting ALP Senator who held his seat after split
Protestant 1949-1965
Cremen JL Hoddle VIC Catholic 1949-1955
(Vic State 1945-49) Joshua R Ballaarat VIC Protestant 1951-1955
Keon SM Yarra VIC Catholic 1949-1955
(Vic State 1945 - 1949)
Mullens JM Gellibrand VIC Catholic 1949-1955 (1937-1946 Vic State)
McManus FP Victoria Senate (former Secretary of Vic ALP
Catholic 1956-1962 1965-1974
Source: Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates (Hansard)
At the Federal election, later that year all members of the ALP-AC in the House lost their seats. However, in the Senate Coles’ term did not expire in 1955 and McManus, the former assistant secretary of the ALP in Victoria, was elected to represent the new party in Victoria.
In the State of Victoria, a number of ALP State parliamentarians split from the Party to join the ALP (AC). Their details are shown in the following table.
Table 7: Victorian State Parliamentary Members of the Australian Labor Party (Anti Communist) (ALP (AC)) 1955-1958
Member Electorate Religion Term in Parliament Barry WP MLA Northcote
Member of Cain Ministry
Catholic 1932-1955
Leader of ALP (AC)
Coleman PL MLC Melbourne West
Catholic 1943-1955
Leader of ALP (AC) In Leg Council Corrigan ST MLA Port
Melbourne
Catholic 1952-1955
Hayes T MLA Melbourne Catholic 1924-1955 Jones P MLC Doutta Galla Catholic 1938-1958 Little JA MLC Melbourne Nth Protestant 1954-1958 O’Carroll JP MLA Clifton Hill Catholic 1949-1955
Randles PJ MLA Brunswick Catholic 1949-1955 Scully FR MLA Richmond Catholic 1949-1958
Source: Victorian State Parliamentary Debates (Hansard)
McManus (1977:74) recorded that Cain the Victorian Premier was ‘ordered by Stout to recast his ministry and drop any who supported us.’ As a consequence, the Liberal opposition moved a motion of no confidence in the Labor government. The motion was carried and at the
subsequent election, a Liberal government was elected and remained in office, winning elections, until 1982. At the same election, most of the ALP (AC) members lost their seats. However, three were able to survive and serve another term. They were Jack Little MLC and P Jones MLC, whose six year terms had another three years to run, expiring in 1958 when they did lose their seats. The third member was Frank Scully MLA, who was also defeated in 1958. In the Cain ALP government, Scully was an Assistant Minister as well as Secretary to Cabinet from December 1952 to March 1955.
In 1956 the party changed its name to the Australian Democratic Labor Party (ADLP shortened to DLP). In 1962, the Queensland Labor Party (QLP) merged into the DLP.
Table 8: DLP Members of Federal Parliament 1955-1974
Member State Birth Year Term in Parliament Highest Education Level Paid Work before Parliament Year Joined DLP Byrne, Condon QLD 1910 1951-1958 1968-1974 Post Grad Arts Law ALP Senator 1957 Cole, George Tas 1910 -1955 ALP 1955-1964 DLP Post Grad Arts Teaching School Teacher, ALP Senator 1955
Gair, Vince QLD 1900 1964-1974 Secondary
School
QLD Premier 1957
Kane, Jack NSW 1905 1970-1974 Secondary
School
DLP Organiser
1955
Little, Jack Vic 1914 1968-1974 Post Grad ALP State
Member, Trade Unionist 1955 McManus, Frank Vic 1905 1955-1961 1964-1974
Post Grad School
teacher, ALP State secretary
1955
Source: Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates (Hansard)
Who voted for the DLP?
Although the Party’s support varied from state to state, given the policies of the DLP, it would be fair to assume that the typical DLP voter and long term supporter would be strongly anti- Communist, support increased defence spending as a result and support strict moral values such as no divorce, strict censorship and be anti-abortion and ‘right to life’. A strong possibility is that they would be regular church going Roman Catholics.
In addition, some of the DLP leaders such as McManus in particular (with the catchy slogan ‘vote Mac back’), and Gair did enjoy a strong personal following. George Cole the Party’s senator in Tasmania also enjoyed a strong personal following until ill health impeded his parliamentary representation and his lost his seat as a result, dying a few years later.
The DLP is not such a small group, nor are its members concentrated – with the important exception that they are much more numerous in Victoria than elsewhere
The DLP voters were not concentrated as they were with the National Party, thus the National Party today gets candidates elected to the House of Representatives with a similar percentage of the vote as the DLP once achieved even though it could not get candidates elected to the House of Representatives as its vote was more dispersed. Hence the Senate was the only place DLP candidates were likely to be elected. The party’s main source of strength was Victoria, with the support of Santamaria and Mannix along with most of the parliamentary members who split from the ALP.
Aitkin also commented that (page 7)
There seems to be general agreement that the DLP has managed to attract as voters some non-Catholics who agree with its emphasis on foreign policy, defence and anti-
Communism or who vote for it in response to a temporary disaffection with their own party.
Aitkin (1972:9) concluded that:-
The DLP has a solid core of committed voters who are regular church going Roman Catholics; they make up around three per cent of the electorate and about half of those who vote for the DLP.
Regarding the other half Aitkin concluded that:-
Most of the other DLP voters are Liberals and Protestants, and it is likely that their choice of the DLP as a first preference is temporary only. Such an analysis of the DLP vote is consistent with the known very high second preferences of DLP voters for the non-Labor parties and it is consistent also with the clear downward trend in which the DLP vote at elections is set.
Aitkin’s comment is significant in that in Victoria at both the 1967 and 1970 Senate elections the DLP was the beneficiary of a sizable swing from the major parties. In 1967, the Holt government was very unpopular and in the 1970 elections both the Liberal Party under the then Prime Minister Gorton and the ALP were both very unpopular. In the same period, support for the DLP in House of Representatives elections continued to decline from previous elections.
It is significant too that Mackerras (1972:3) considered DLP voters in House of Representatives elections to be in effect Liberal voters. Mackerras argued that those voters who vote DLP, make a ‘nominal vote only’. Those voters knew only too well, that the DLP candidate had almost no hope of being elected, so their real vote flowed straight through to the Liberal Party. The DLP voters’ main aim was to keep the ALP out of government and this strategy worked until the 1972 House of Representatives election.
Many of the DLP candidates were Catholic and a number had been around at the time of the Split although not necessarily in parliament. Some of the DLP candidates were young and in
Victoria some were also members of the Young Democratic Labor Association (YDLA) the Party’s youth wing. Many DLP candidates were professional and some were primary producers.