Leighton James and Raymond Markey | Class and Labour: The British Labour Party and the Australian Labor Party Compared | Labour History, 90

Class and Labour: The British Labour Party and the Australian Labor Party Compared

Leighton James and Raymond Markey^*

The class nature and political trajectory of the British Labour Party (BLP) and the Australian Labor Party (ALP) have been remarkably similar. The greatest manifestations of this similarity have been in terms of each party being the main representative working class political party; the structural significance of trade unions within both parties; and each party being characterised by a dominant ideology of 'labourism'. However, there have also been significant differences. The ALP succeeded in consolidating as an electoral force much earlier, and has enjoyed somewhat more electoral success ever since. Furthermore, the programmatic expression of labourism differed in some important respects. This article first aims to explain the early electoral success of the ALP through the consideration of four factors: the timing of political consolidation, the structure of the Australian and British states, the political environment, class structure and party membership. Secondly, it examines the trajectories of the BLP and ALP in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries through the prism of labourism, which has itself been affected by changes in class structure and party membership.

In January 1905 an article contributed by Tom Mann, who was then touring Australia, appeared in the pages of the Clarion. In it he noted the similar challenges faced by the Australian and British labour movements:

The standard obtaining here in Victoria is for, some sections of the workers, a distinct advance upon the standard in Britain for similar workers; but a large proportion have exactly the same struggle to make ends meet financially; the proportion of unemployed is much the same as in England; charitable agencies are at work in similar fashion; orthodox politicians grumble at the Labour Party, and call out for fair play for capitalism.¹

In a later article he explained how the Victorian Labor Party was 'very much like the Labour Representation Committee with you in the old land'.² Mann was not the only British activist to visit Australia. Ben Tillett and H.H. Champion also visited the country. Yet, despite these early links there has been little comparative historical work on the British and Australian labour movements.³ Both the British Labour Party (BLP) and the Australian Labor Party (ALP) have been the main political representatives of the working class in their respective countries. The parties share a range of fundamental characteristics which they believed set them apart from the European-style Social Democratic or Communist Parties (SDPs or CPs) which have been the equivalent major political vehicles for the working class on the European continent.⁴ This is perhaps to be expected because of the original colonial status of Australia, which meant considerable inheritance of political and industrial institutions, including trade unions, from imperial Britain.

One of the most important similarities between the two parties has been the key role of unions in their formation and ongoing structures. Unions formed a major bloc in the extra-parliamentary party apparatus, which sought to control parliamentary representatives as delegates of the party and underwrote a pragmatic parliamentary-oriented political practice. Neither the BLP nor the ALP ever adopted Marxist platforms, even in theory as distinct from practice (as was arguably the case with European SDPs).⁵ Finally, the BLP and the ALP, together with the unions that formed them, shared relatively democratic political environments which enabled the development of independent working class parties that could aspire to form government. European SDPs devoted far more of their early histories to creating a democratic political environment in which they could effectively function.

Yet despite the similarities in their formation the ALP enjoyed electoral successful far sooner than the BLP. As Table 1 reveals, the ALP formed its first, short-lived national administration in 1904. By contrast the BLP had to wait another 20 years before forming a government. Nevertheless, the ALP only emerges a little ahead of the BLP in terms of total time spent in national office. In the course of the twentieth century the ALP enjoyed over 32 years in government at Canberra. In the same period BLP Prime Ministers inhabited 10 Downing Street for 28 years.

On a superficial level the relative success of the ALP seems at first counter-intuitive given Britain's early industrialisation. Space precludes this article providing a comprehensive overview of the two parties, but it does seek to contribute to a greater comparative understanding by focusing on two specific points of comparison. First it aims to explain the early electoral success of the ALP through the consideration of four factors: the timing of political consolidation, the structure of the Australian and British states, the political environment, class structure and party membership. Secondly, it examines the trajectories of the BLP and ALP in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries through the prism of labourism, which has itself been affected by changes in class structure and party membership.

Parameters of Electoral Success

Although there were similarities in the formation of the BLP and ALP the social, political and economic framework in which they emerged differed in four important respects.

First, in Australia the timing of political consolidation occurred relatively early. From the late 1850s three Australian colonies enjoyed white adult male suffrage excluding migratory workers who could not satisfy a six months residency qualification: New South Wales (NSW), Victoria and South Australia. Full adult suffrage was gained for national Australian elections in 1902, and by 1909 for all State elections, although indigenous people were excluded until 1966. Payment of members of parliament was gained by all colonies bar Western Australia by the late 1880s.⁶ In contrast, in Britain a majority of adult males gained the vote in 1885, but this was well short of full male suffrage. Universal male suffrage, along with female suffrage for those over 30, was only introduced following the Great War. The importance of this widened electorate for the BLP has been the subject of some controversy in Britain, but whether it represented a crucial factor in the party's subsequent success or not, it undoubtedly provided wider potential support.⁷ It was not until 1928 that Britain enjoyed full adult suffrage. Meanwhile, payment of members of parliament was only introduced in 1911 in Britain.⁸

Table 1: Periods of BLP Governments and ALP State and Commonwealth Governments, 1901–2005

C'wealth	NSW	Vic.	Q'ld	SAB	WA	Tas.	UK
1904 3.5 mths		1913 2 wks		1905–09 3 yrs/10 mths	1904–05 1yr/5 mths	1909 1 wk	1924 11 mths
1908–09 (5.5 mths)	1910–16 6yrs/2 mths	1924 5 mths	1915–29 14 yrs	1910–12 1 yr/8.5 mths	1911–16 4 yrs/10 mths	1914–16 2 yrs	1929–31 2 yrs/2mths
1910–13 3 yrs/2 mths	1920–22 2 yrs	1927–28 1 yr/6 mths		1915–17 2 yrs/3.5 mths		1923–28 4 yrs/8.5 mths	1945–51 6yrs/3mths
1914–16 2 yrs/2 mths	1925–27 2 yrs/4 mths	1929–32 2 yrs/6 mths		1924–27 3 yrs	1924–30 6 yrs
1929–32 2 yrs/2 mths	1930–32 1 yr/6 mths	1943 4 days	1932–57 25 yrs/2 mths	1930–33 3 yrs	1933–47 14 yrs/1 mths	1934–69 35 yrs
1941–09 8 yrs/3 mths	1941–65 24 yrs	1945–47 2 yrs		1965–68 3 yrs/1 mth	1953–59 6 yrs/1 mth		1964–70 5yrs/8mths
1972–75 2 yrs/11 mths	1976–88 12 yrs/10 mths	1952–55 2 yrs/6 mths		1970–79 9 yrs/4.5 mths	1971–74 3 yrs/1 mth	1972–82 10 yrs	1974–79 5yrs/2mths
1983–96 13 yrs		1982–90 10 yrs/6 mths	1989–96 6 yrs/1 mth	1982–93 11 yrs/1 mth	1983–92 10 yrs	1989–92 3 yrs
	1995–2005 10 yrs/10 mths	1999–2005 5yrs/3 mths	1998–2005 7 yrs/6 mths	2001–2005 5 yrs.	2001–2005 4 yrs/10 mths	1998–2005 6 yrs./6 mths	1997–2005 8 yrs
TOTAL: 32.42 yrs.	59.67 yrs.	24.71 yrs.	52.75 yrs.	42.38 yrs.	50 yrs.	61.23 yrs.	TOTAL: 28.17 yrs.
31%	57%	24%	51%	41%	48%	59%	27%

Pre-1991 figures based on information in C. Macintyre, Political Australia: A Handbook of Facts, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1991 and subsequent figures from various public sources.

These differences gave the Australian labour movement greater opportunities for political organisation from an earlier stage. The ALP is the oldest of all labour parties internationally. It was established in the various colonies beginning in 1890 in Queensland and NSW. It returned parliamentary members in its first electoral contest in South Australia in 1891, and a few months later in NSW the Labor Party held the balance of power in parliament. It formed a minority colonial government in Queensland in 1899, and a minority national government in 1904, the first examples of labour or social democratic rule in the world. Both were short lived, but by 1910 the ALP held majority governments nationally and in the States of NSW and South Australia. In Britain, Labour did not form a government until 1924 and this minority administration proved short lived (10 months). Labour formed a longer-lasting minority government from 1929–31, before finally making the breakthrough to majority government in 1945 on the back of support for the Beveridge plan.⁹ Although the party made gains at the local, municipal level it was only after World War I that it became the main opposition party, successfully inheriting the mantle of progressivism (along with much of its rhetoric) from the Liberals.¹⁰

The early successes of the ALP were keenly followed in Britain. In 1895 Fred Hammell of the Fabian Society alluded directly to the Australian experience when he called on the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress to initiate formation of an independent Labour Party in 1895.¹¹ At the 1905 Labour Representation Committee conference Isaac Mitchell referred to the ALP as a model for the British party.¹² During 1906 to 1908 two key early BLP leaders, Keir Hardie and Ramsay MacDonald, separately visited Australia, and were impressed by the achievements of the ALP and the emergent welfare state.¹³ Labour movements in other countries, including even Germany, also looked towards Australia for a possible model for political organisation,¹⁴ although in New Zealand, and for Tom Mann by 1913, the ALP was a negative model.¹⁵

Secondly, the structure of the Australian and British state had an important impact on party development. Local politics were critical to Labour's success or failure in both countries. Successful candidates enjoyed community-embedded networks, whether they were Labor or non-Labo(u)r. Candidates in Britain and Australia were dependent on the local organisations of trade unions, Trades and Labour Councils and the branches of socialist societies.¹⁶ Indeed, it was at this local level that the BLP first began to make an impact.¹⁷ Control of local councils offered the party an opportunity to show that it could administer effectively even during times of crisis such as the World Wars, the 1926 lockout in the mining districts and the 1930s slump generally.¹⁸ The significance of locality in the community networks of party, union and friendly society well into the twentieth century has been noted elsewhere.¹⁹ In the thinking of many 'state socialists' at the end of the nineteenth century, the focus was upon the municipal level of the state. In both countries the Labo(u)r parties had to contend with popular long-standing members who had reputations as 'workingmen's friends' even though they were not Labo(u)r members. In Britain and the colony of Victoria this was complicated by the progressive alliance the Labo(u)r Parties formed with Liberals who had previously enjoyed widespread working-class support. Even in mining regions some non-Labo(u)r candidates with union connections were difficult to shift for Labo(u)r in both countries.²⁰

Beyond the municipal, however, the differences in state structure were to have important implications. Whereas Britain has a centralised state structure, Australia represents a federation of the original colonies, which became States of the Commonwealth in 1901, each with their own parliaments. Under the Commonwealth Constitution the federal national government has relatively limited powers, with many areas of government remaining under the jurisdiction of the States. The federal structure of many Australian institutions, including the ALP, parallels that of the state itself. Furthermore, the ALP has had different opportunities to develop policies in support of the working class at State and federal levels. At the State level, the socio-economic context for political organisation has varied, producing different support bases for the ALP. These differences have translated into a diverse electoral record, as shown by Table 1. The ALP has been far more successful in attaining government at the State level than nationally, and more so in some States than others. In the light of this, it is notable that in major areas of ALP concern, social welfare areas such as health and education, road and rail transport, and urban development, the State level of government has been responsible for service delivery. In the shared area of industrial relations, the importance of State jurisdiction relative to federal has varied between States, but in key States such as NSW and Queensland, far more workers were affected by State legislation than federal for most of the twentieth century.²¹

The ALP structure and political environment contrasted with the more centralised national structure of the BLP. As a unitary state Britain lacked an intermediate stage for the BLP to demonstrate its governmental credentials. The BLP's main source of fragmentation was at the regional level, which has played a far more important role in the political structure of Britain. It was Labour's concentration of support in the industrial areas in the north of England, south Wales and Scotland that eventually provided it with the basis to displace the Liberals.²² Despite this Labour has been centralist for much of its history.²³ It was not until the 1970s that the notion of devolution gained support and only since 1998 have the devolved parliaments of Scotland and Wales provided something akin to the State structure of Australia.

The third main difference between the BLP and ALP related to their respective political environments. In both countries a major strike provided the catalyst for trade union support for a political party. In Australia, it was the great 1890 maritime strike which finally provided the mass rank and file enthusiasm for forming branches and leagues of Labor Parties. Traditionally, this has been interpreted as recognition by workers of the need for political organisation to achieve their ends after the weakness of industrial organisation alone had been revealed. Most importantly, if Labor Parties could achieve government, or hold the balance of parliamentary power, they might neutralise the state to prevent its active support of employers.²⁴ Similarly, although many among the organised working class had already turned to the BLP, the legal decision made in the aftermath of the Taff Vale strike of 1901, which made trade unions liable for damage caused by strikes, reinforced support for independent political representation.²⁵

However, the BLP, unlike the ALP, moved into a 'prestructured' political environment with an established two-party parliamentary system. There had been several working-class MPs from the middle of the nineteenth century, such as Henry Broadhurst. Later in the century a group of working-class Lib-Lab politicians emerged. As their name suggests they were orientated toward the Liberal party.²⁶ The Independent Labor Party (ILP), formed in 1893, had little electoral impact beyond the return of its leader, Keir Hardie, as the joint representative for Merthyr Tydfil.²⁷ The Labour Representation Committee established in 1900 remained the junior partner in a progressive alliance with the Liberal party before 1914. This was evident in an electoral pact concluded between Ramsay MacDonald and Gladstone in 1903.²⁸ Despite the stimulus given to the party by Taff Vale, the Liberal party could still count on a substantial working-class vote through the Lib-Lab MPs. A crucial turning point was reached in 1908–09, when the Mineworkers Federation of Great Britain, which until then had been committed to Lib-Labism, affiliated to the Labour Party. Since the Miners Federation was the largest trade union in Britain its affiliation represented a substantial boost for the BLP and resulted in 13 former Lib-Lab MPs joining the parliamentary Labour Party. Attitudes, however, took longer to change. Some of the Lib-Lab MPs continued to co-operate with the Liberal associations in their constituencies.²⁹ Towards the end of the first decade of the century, relations between the two parties became more fractious. Some in the BLP chafed under the restraint of the electoral understanding with the Liberals as illustrated by the Colne Valley by-election in 1907.³⁰ It was only after World War I that the party essentially displaced the Liberals as the main alternative to the Conservatives.

In Australia Lib-Labism was the dominant parliamentary modus operandi for the Labor Parties in Victoria and South Australia during the 1890s. In Victoria this tendency was strongest because of the importance there of conservative craft unions and their political alliance with liberal protectionist employers, as well as the significance of the Amalgamated Miners Association whose members included many independent gold diggers.³¹ However, the independent parties in NSW and Queensland became the model for the federal ALP after 1900. The ALP became in effect the first modern political party, and it was in response to its threat that anti-Labor forces developed a fully-fledged party structure, commencing with the 'fusion' of Free Traders and Protectionists into the Liberal Party in 1909. The federated state structure of the Commonwealth of Australia of 1901 also emerged after the formation of the separate Labor Parties in the colonies.

The BLP, on the other hand, had a varied organisational structure prior to World War 1 involving trade unions, Trades Councils and socialist societies. Some, like Arthur Henderson's local party at Bernard Hill were seen as 'model' parties with independent fee-paying membership. This principle was adopted by the party nationally in 1918 along with the establishment of constituency Labour parties (CLPs). However, the unions retained their dominance over the party.³²

A final major difference related to socio-economic and class structure and its implication for membership patterns. As the first industrialiser in the world, Britain showed the characteristics of a capitalist industrial society earlier than Australia, even though Australia was a relatively early industrialiser itself. The clearest indication was in the proportion of the workforce engaged in agriculture at the beginning of the twentieth century: 8 per cent in Britain and 16 per cent in Australia.³³ Both declined thereafter, but in Australia there remained a substantial proportion of small farmers, and a wider agricultural labour force which aspired to independence on the land, for some time afterwards. Furthermore, small-scale independent mining retained some importance in the late nineteenth century. Consequently, the class base to which the ALP appealed in electoral terms was not confined to the working class.³⁴

Early ALP members of parliament had a mixed social background, although many were unionists. In Australia the ALP drew much of its support from urban and mining electorates. However, the NSW and Queensland parties included a strong rural voice in the form of the Australian Workers Union (AWU), which initially represented many small landholders as well as pastoral workers. Many of the ALP's members and leaders, therefore, were drawn from intermediate social strata.³⁵ By the second decade of the twentieth century the ALP had emerged as a genuine mass working-class based party in electoral terms. However, the significance of a rural vote remained for NSW Labor for some time afterwards because of the continued importance of the AWU as a rural union until the 1930s. Even in the 1940s Labor gained a significant number of rural seats, as it did in the late 1970s and early 1980s.³⁶

In Britain the Hobsbawmian view that a homogeneous working-class culture underpinned the creation of the BLP has been questioned. Instead, the multiplicity of identities held by workers has been emphasised. In this interpretation, class appears as one identity among many other identities. These shifting identities sometimes overlapped, were sometimes in conflict. Despite the differences in these two interpretations, both are agreed that the early Labour party was imbued with a strongly working-class ethos.³⁷ Although it is too simplistic to divide the party membership neatly into socialists and trade unionists, the party remained, until relatively recently, dominated by the trade unions through the block vote system. This served to maintain a strong working-class image despite the fact that much of the leadership came from middle-class backgrounds. Although the party generally avoided the language of class warfare, the class nature of its support was born out by electoral geography. Its strongholds became the industrial heartlands of the North, Scotland and south Wales, where even in the catastrophic 1931 election Labour actually managed to increase its share of the vote.³⁸

In marked contrast to the ALP, the BLP never had a large rural vote and has often struggled to extend its influence outside the industrialised regions and cities. Moreover, BLP recruitment drives have mainly aimed at securing the middle-class vote.³⁹ Despite this the party maintained a working-class ethos and image for much of the twentieth century. Between 1906 and 1918, 89 per cent of Labour MPs came from working class occupations, while in 1935 only 11 per cent had university education compared to 62 per cent of Tories.⁴⁰ Post-war affluence also seems to have had little effect on this image. John H. Goldthorpe's famous study concluded that the idea of Labour as a working-class party still retained importance in the political consciousness of the 'affluent worker'.⁴¹

Membership of the ALP and BLP peaked in the 1950s. By 1954 ALP membership was 75,000, with affiliated unions representing 75 per cent of unionists, and 40 per cent of workers.⁴² In Britain, Labour's membership stood at 1 million in 1951/2.⁴³ Thereafter, both parties declined. The BLP lost 20 per cent of its membership between 1966 and 1970.⁴⁴ In Australia, significant decline in membership occurred after the 1955 split, to about 45,000 at the end of the 1950s.

Membership decline can broadly be attributed to two common, inter-related themes: social change and party-political difficulties. Social change included the decline of heavy industry, the growth of tertiary sector employment, the shrinking membership of trade unions, the suburbanisation of cities, the break-up of traditional working-class communities and the individualisation of leisure activities. Party-political difficulties included intra-party conflict, ideological decomposition, division between the rank and file and the leadership and the failure of the executive to control the parliamentary party.

As their blue-collar support declined, both parties attracted professionals and white collar employees to their ranks. Between 1961 and 1981 their proportion of ALP party membership virtually tripled, to about a quarter, higher than their general workforce proportion. The federal ALP policy agenda from the late 1960s under the leadership of Gough Whitlam specifically appealed to this base. It has been argued that the 'middle-classing' of ALP membership has led to changed policy priorities, including the dismantling of the traditional tenets of labourism, which has further alienated traditional blue collar voters and potential members.⁴⁵ Notably, in 2004 the Labor Council of NSW changed its title to 'Unions NSW', specifically to distance itself from association with the ALP.

BLP membership has been transformed in similar ways to the ALP during the last two decades, a process accentuated by the 'one member, one vote' campaign and drives to increase individual membership in the 1990s.⁴⁶ Between 1990 and 1997 the proportion of Labour membership made up by the blue-collar working class fell from one-fifth to one-seventh. In the same period the salariat as a proportion of party membership has increased from 50 to 75 per cent. Moreover, individual trade union membership fell by 30 per cent. This has led Patrick Seyd and Paul Whiteley to conclude that 'at its grassroots the Labour Party is now neither a working-class nor a trade union party'.⁴⁷ In contrast to Goldthorpe's 1960s study, Seyd and Whiteley found that the party's image as protector of the working class, unemployed and trade unions had generally declined among both the party membership and its electorate.⁴⁸ There also is growing evidence that the relationship between the BLP and trade unions is breaking down. In 2004 the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union defended the decision of its Scottish branches to support the Scottish Socialist Party, while in July the GMB union decided to withhold an extra £750,000 from the party.⁴⁹

Generally, changes in electoral support have followed the same trends identified for party membership, although not as drastically. Although such classifications are fraught with difficulties, it does seem that from the late 1980s the blue-collar working class vote for the ALP declined,⁵⁰ while the 'middle class' vote increased. In Britain, manual workers still represent the largest single group of Labour supporters, but at the 2001 general election the party lost a significant portion of its working-class electorate.⁵¹

On the other hand, the transformation of the parties' membership base has benefited women. Both parties accepted women as members from an early date, but equally both have struggled to attract and retain female members for most of the twentieth century. This has been largely due to the attitudes of trade unionists, who often saw women as posing the threat of dilution. Furthermore, the macho atmosphere of some local associations could be off-putting for women, and they were provided few leadership opportunities.⁵² In the last two decades, however, the proportion of women has increased. As the number of female ALP caucus members grew, aided by affirmative action, they slowly began to enter leadership positions in the parliamentary parties.⁵³ Senator Susan Ryan was the first female ALP federal cabinet member, and she played a major role in organisational changes designed to promote gender equality in representation. From the late 1980s a number of others joined the front bench, with Jenny Macklin becoming deputy federal leader in 2001. Two female ALP Premiers emerged in 1990, Joan Kirner in Victoria, and Carmen Lawrence in Western Australia, although both were appointed as caretakers for ALP governments seriously disabled by perceptions of economic mismanagement and fraud. Both proved to be relatively short-lived positions. No woman has reached such a senior position in the BLP at Westminster, or in the recently devolved governments in Scotland or Wales. However, women are increasingly to be found in important cabinet positions and there was much media hype surrounding 'Blair's Babes' following the 1997 general election.

These changes in the electorate and membership patterns have been paralleled by changes in party policy. It is to this aspect that we now turn.

Labo(u)rism

Ideology provides another prism through which to compare the ALP and BLP. Generally ideological and policy changes have paralleled changes in the membership of the two parties. Initially, representation of workingmen by workingmen was the main theme for the organisation of the early Labor parties.⁵⁴ This was expressed through the shared commitment of the ALP and BLP to 'labourism'. The term has been used to describe the political ideology of both parties, neither of which ever adopted the Marxist ideology of the European Social Democratic Parties. Labourism has been interpreted as an outgrowth of trade union influence, tempered by other influences such as socialism and liberalism.⁵⁵ Saville, Macintyre and Burgmann also argued that the mobilisation of a pre-industrial working class inevitably resulted in its acceptance of liberal ideology in Britain and Australia.⁵⁶

Writing about the ALP, Jim Hagan argued that Labourism assumed that 'the capitalist state could be managed to the advantage of the working class by a combination of a strong trade union movement with a Parliamentary Labor Party'.⁵⁷ This echoed Willie Thompson's description of British Labourism as being driven by the skilled, organised workers' desire to secure social improvement.⁵⁸ Moreover, the comment of a visiting French socialist, who referred to the Australian labour movement as 'socialism without doctrine' in 1901, has a curious resonance with Ralph Miliband's much later criticism that the BLP represented not socialism, but labourism.⁵⁹ The emphasis for both parties was, and remains, on incremental reform rather than violent revolution, although Terry Irving has disputed the class collaborationism ascribed to this concept of Labourism by the New Left.⁶⁰ In Britain, this trend was reinforced both by the 'ethical socialism' of the ILP and the austere utilitarianism of the Fabian Society, early components of the party, both of which stressed gradualist reform.⁶¹

The programmatic expression of labourism varied in some ways between the BLP and ALP. Most significantly, the BLP never developed an equivalent to the ALP's 'three pillars' of policy adopted by the beginning of the twentieth century:

protective tariffs for domestic industry to maintain manufacturing employment and enable payment of 'fair and reasonable wages',
compulsory state arbitration to ensure union recognition and deliver 'fair and reasonable wages', and
a 'White Australia' policy based on a fear of cheap Asian labour, but also an overt racism that was shared generally throughout European society in the antipodes, and therefore, increased the ALP's appeal to a broader electorate than just workers.⁶²

This policy framework became the basis of a labourist political consensus accepted by non-Labor as well, and remained in place until the 1970s to 1980s.⁶³ It had the added effect of making the ALP the major bearer of nationalism in Australian politics.⁶⁴

The unions and the parties were influenced by other ideological trends in both countries. Notably, the Single Tax League followers of Henry George exerted some influence in the Australian labour movement in the 1890s.⁶⁵ Meanwhile, syndicalism (promoted by Tom Mann, recently returned from Australia) and G.D.H. Cole's guild socialism briefly enjoyed some support from sections of the British labour movement during the first two decades of the twentieth century.⁶⁶ Yet, it was 'labourism', which reflected the pragmatic reformism of trade unions so influential in forming and maintaining both parties, that dominated the political world-view of the Labo(u)r parties for much of the twentieth century.

'Labourism' found its most cogent expression through the desire to extend public ownership. This attracted, and was influenced by, various socialist groups which existed within both parties from the outset. However, the state socialism of the ALP and BLP never became a wholehearted program for the complete displacement of capitalism. The boundaries of state socialism were regularly contested in both parties, but always contained within the pragmatic reformism of labourism.

Clause IV of the new constitution adopted by the BLP in 1918 committed it to securing 'the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange'. The clause has been variously described as 'an uncharacteristic adornment', which concealed the fact that the party had moved to the right during the war,⁶⁷ and the result of growing support for collectivism and a decline of deference among the working class. Either way, it clearly differentiated the BLP from the Liberal party with which it had previously been allied and acted as the lodestone for policy. In fact, despite the debates that later surrounded it, Clause IV was a relatively unproblematic issue at the time and was hardly mentioned during discussion of the new constitution.⁶⁸ The Clause dovetailed well with trade union support for state ownership, especially among the coal miners. This was facilitated by a generally positive experience of state control, during which the miners' unions had received many concessions.⁶⁹

In Australia the original platform drawn up by the Queensland party in 1890 called for the complete nationalisation of industry, but this was rejected overwhelmingly by affiliated unions in favour of a more moderate program of political and industrial reform. In 1897 the NSW party adopted 'nationalisation of the land and the whole means of production, distribution and exchange' as a plank, but this was diluted to the 'collective ownership of monopolies' in 1905, which was also adopted federally.⁷⁰ In 1921 the federal ALP's objective became 'the socialisation of industry, production and exchange'.⁷¹ The methods by which this would be achieved included not only 'nationalisation of banking and all principal industries', but also 'the municipalisation of such services as can best be operated in limited areas'.⁷² However, in 1921 the Blackburn Declaration was adopted to qualify this objective: collective ownership would only be 'to whatever extent may be necessary' for 'preventing exploitation'.⁷³ By 1957, after the gradual consolidation of the objective, it became: 'The democratic socialisation of Industry, Production, Distribution and Exchange — to the extent necessary to eliminate exploitation and other anti-social features in those fields'.⁷⁴

For both parties the commitment to public ownership often represented more of a symbolic rallying point than a concrete proposal for social reform. Early ALP governments did create state enterprises, mainly at the State level, for example, abattoirs, brickworks, timber yards, quarries, and insurance companies, and they expanded the largest enterprises of all, the State railway corporations.⁷⁵ At the national level the Commonwealth Bank was formed in 1912.⁷⁶ The first two BLP governments, on the other hand, did not attempt a programme of collectivisation and generally supported older policy initiatives such as free trade and economic orthodoxy. The BLP has been criticised for its failure to adopt a more radical approach in the 1920s and 1930s.⁷⁷ However, it doubtful how much those minority governments could have achieved anyway. Furthermore, it was during the 1920s that a concrete commitment to a mixed economy began to develop and was outlined in policy reviews such as Plan or No Plan (1934).⁷⁸

During the 1940s 'labourism' as public ownership reached its apogee in both countries. In Australia, it was marked by the efforts of the federal ALP government to nationalise banks in 1947–54, although the High Court and Privy Council ultimately ruled this unconstitutional.⁷⁹ This ruling seemingly prevented further efforts for nationalisation, at least by the federal government, and the issue never arose again in ALP policy. In Britain, the BLP, under the leadership of Clement Attlee, capitalised on a groundswell of support for social renewal after the war and defeated Churchill on a platform of extensive nationalisation and social welfare set out in their manifesto Let Us Face the Future.⁸⁰ Between 1946 and 1951, the Bank of England, the coal industry, Cable and Wireless, the railways, electricity, gas, road transport and iron and steel were taken into state hands. In 1948 the National Health Service (NHS) came into operation and improvements made in social security through the National Assistance Act. Not all these measures passed through smoothly. For example, there was considerable negotiation between government and the medical profession over the nature of the NHS and attitudes towards the nationalisation of steel was mixed within both the party and the unions.⁸¹

The measures reported here were not intrinsically part of a wider strategy of radical social change. Non-socialist governments were easily able to live with most of them, which addressed needs in the economy not taken up by private enterprise, or provided competition and the opportunity to influence labour market trends. This was clearly evident in the post-war consensus, which prevailed in Britain until the 1970s, and Australia until the 1980s.

As a result of the ambiguity inherent in the 'labourist' attitude towards socialisation/nationalisation and its commitment to gradualist reform, it has had its opponents on the Left. In Australia, the opponents of 'labourism' in the syndicalist One Big Union Movement (OBU) after World War I and Communist Party of Australia (CPA) in the 1930s to 1940s looked like successfully challenging the Labourist hegemony in the labour movement.⁸² The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was never in the position to surpass the BLP, but both Labo(u)r parties banned Communist members from standing as Labo(u)r candidates in the 1920s. In neither country did Communists effectively challenge the Labo(u)r parties' electoral strategy, but instead worked principally through influence in the unions. However, 'labourism' has proved remarkably resilient over time. In this sense we may talk about a 'labourist' hegemony for much of the twentieth century in both countries.

Despite this hegemony, 'labourism' has been a contested concept in both parties. During the early 1930s, for example, the NSW branch of the party split from the federal ALP over policy responses to the depression, with the NSW ALP State government adopting a more radical labourist response than the federal ALP government's adoption of the principles of 'sound finance', which involved major reductions in government expenditure.⁸³ The ALP split of 1955 threatened its institutional and electoral viability.⁸⁴ Its origins lay in the formation of Industrial Groups within the ALP and unions from 1945 to fight the influence of communism. The Groups became dominated by the Catholic Social Studies Movement, whose implacable opposition to communism increasingly meant a total alignment with US foreign policy, and opposition to ALP leftists who allied with Communists in the unions. From the late 1940s to 1952 the 'Groupers' succeeded in completely replacing CPA or left leaderships in some key unions, but a number of ALP politicians and union officials, including some from the right, felt threatened by the ambition of the Groups. In October 1954 the ALP's federal leader, H.V. Evatt, called for the Groups' dissolution. The subsequent convulsions led to the split of 1955, when the Groups were officially disbanded, the major 'Groupers' were expelled from the federal and State parliamentary parties, and the rightist Democratic Labor Party (DLP) was formed. The impact of the split had a debilitating effect on the ALP in two States. It lost state governments in Victoria (1955) and Queensland (1957) as a result of expulsions of Parliamentary Labor Party members. At the federal level, and in the State of Victoria, the existence of the DLP was a major factor preventing the election of ALP governments for 23 and 27 years respectively.

The BLP also suffered internal divisions from the 1950s, but without the same dramatic results. Following the nationalisation programme of the late 1940s, many in the party wondered in what direction it should now move. Tony Crosland argued that, since the hold of monopoly capitalism had been broken by public ownership, class conflict had lost its immediacy, and Labour should, therefore, address social and cultural issues.⁸⁵ Hugh Gaitskell's unsuccessful attempt to abandon Clause IV in the 1950s was symptomatic of these efforts to provide the BLP with a new direction. However, the revisionists faced strong opposition from the Left, led by Aneurin Bevan.⁸⁶ Generally these conflicts, unlike the Australian split, ended in reconciliation, or at least an uneasy truce. During the 1970s, however, the post-war consensus began to break down.

Both Paul Whiteley and Eric Shaw depict a BLP faced with a triple crisis in 1979: an ideological decomposition as revisionist labourism or social democracy was undermined by stagflation; an emergent gap between the membership and leader; and the dissolution of the BLP's traditional electoral base as society changed.⁸⁷ Although the Left had been weak in the 1960s, as a result of these difficulties it was able to gain the ascendancy. Its influence was bolstered by the influx of radicalised, highly-educated activists, and trade unionists determined to defend their standards of living.⁸⁸ It also was better prepared intellectually following the publication of Stuart Holland's The Socialist Challenge,⁸⁹ which advocated the abandonment of gradualist social-democracy/labourism in favour of selective nationalisation and extending industrial democracy as a counterweight to the growing power of multinationals.⁹⁰ The Left successfully orchestrated the mandatory re-selection of Labour MPs and the introduction of an electoral college for the election of the party leader.⁹¹ The activities of the entrist Trotskyist group, Militant Tendency, generated further tensions,⁹² reaching a highpoint in 1981 with the secession of the 'Gang of Four' and the formation of the Social Democratic Party.⁹³ Mrs Thatcher's victory in 1979 initially served to reinforce the Left's dominance. During the 1983 election the party fought on a platform of extended nationalisation and unilateral disarmament. The disastrous result, and repeated defeats at the polls for the next 14 years, wrenched control of the party from the Left and ushered in a long period of, often painful, reform.

During the last quarter of the twentieth century the traditional policy basis of 'labourist' thinking in both countries came under attack and both parties effectively abandoned the commitment to public ownership. In the early 1970s the Whitlam ALP government abandoned the 'white Australia' policy, one of the key planks of the labourist consensus of the early 1900s. By the late 1970s many from the right of the ALP questioned the continuing relevance of a socialist objective, seeing it as an electoral liability. In Australia, a 1981 special national conference revised the socialist objective in the most substantial way since 1921 to read: 'the democratic socialisation of industry, production, distribution and exchange, to the extent necessary to eliminate exploitation and other anti-social features in these fields'.⁹⁴ From 1983 to 1996 ALP governments adopted the mantras of economic rationalism in engineering economic restructuring, within a corporatist framework of the Prices and Incomes Accord with the Australian Council of Trade Unions. ALP governments deregulated much of the economy and at federal and State levels privatised a number of statutory corporations and authorities. Ironically, the ALP itself took the major role in dismantling the 'labourist' consensus of the beginning of the century by abandoning protection for Australian industry and weakening the system of compulsory state arbitration in favour of enterprise bargaining.⁹⁵

In Britain, a third successive electoral defeat in 1987 motivated the leader, Neil Kinnock, to introduce a policy review. The results abandoned plans for renationalisation and unilateral disarmament. Much of the Conservative legislation on trade unions was also retained.⁹⁶ Symbolically, Clause IV was revised in 1995 with references to 'common ownership of the means of production' bring replaced with a vaguer promise of common endeavour. The BLP under Tony Blair has accepted privatisation and the rhetoric of economic globalisation, much to the chagrin of some commentators.⁹⁷

However, as the 'labourist' hegemony of earlier decades has been abandoned both parties seem uncertain about what to replace it with. This is reflected in a lack of clear policy priorities and a focus on polls and leadership image. Paul Keating's push for a republic in the dying days of the ALP government in the early 1990s in part represented an attempt to fill this policy vacuum.⁹⁸ Similarly, Blair has adopted a presidential-style of leadership and sought to play up his image as the broker between America and Europe. If the period of the 'labourist' hegemony could be characterised as a period of commitment to a corporatist strategy and public ownership, the parties seemed to be shifting towards more of a social liberalism in the 1990s. They accepted the strictures of the market to a greater extent than previously, but sought to protect those who were disadvantaged by it. Yet, the content of this social liberalism has still not been clearly delineated by either party.

Conclusions and Comparative Perspectives

Their relationship with the working class has been a focal point for both the BLP and ALP. Their founders sought to establish political organisations representative of the working class. In doing so they extended democratic theory and practice, with new forms of political organisation such that parliamentary representatives were delegates of a working class organisation and movement. In the undertaking of this project, Marxist theory, which was so important in the development of European SPDs, played a tangential role. The BLP and ALP were formed by unions and largely built on their organisational experience.

However, the development and maintenance of a working-class organisation has been subject to significant tensions. The parliamentary parties in both cases have contested control by a wider organisation and movement, at frequent intervals from the earliest days to modern times. This has occurred partly because of the contradictions between the imperatives of parliamentary political practice and working class representation. The nature of the electorate to which parliamentary-based parties have appealed also has shifted over time. Indeed, the nature of the class structure and the working class itself has continued to change dramatically since the formation of the Labo(u)r Parties, particularly with the shift from blue to white-collar employment. At the same time, the social and political definition of the working class has shifted, to give greater recognition to women and racial and ethnic groups which make up the working class. Since the definition of class in itself is a politically and ideologically contested notion, it is hardly surprising that the Labo(u)r Parties' relationship with the working class that they sought to represent has generated complex and divisive political issues and problems.

Broadly, these cycles of historical experience and interpretation have been shared by the BLP and ALP. Indeed, regular interaction and influence has been notable form early days in the relationship between the two parties. Workers in both countries had shared experiences of union organisation and political institutions. The ideology of labourism also informed a shared pragmatic parliamentary political practice and similar programs.

Some important differences between the parties can be noted. Differing class structures meant that the ALP was influenced by agrarian elements in its early years. The ALP's nationalism and commitment to the racial policy of 'white Australia' also set it apart from the BLP, for environmental reasons not examined in this essay.⁹⁹ In addition, the Cold War had a greater impact on the ALP, leading to its split, based largely on ethnic and religious lines (Irish Catholic). Most importantly, the structure of the state itself differed in ways between Australia and Britain which offered different opportunities to the parties, mainly because Australia has a federal political system, with State as well as federal governments, compared with Britain's central system (until recently).

Nevertheless, the shared experience of both parties is remarkable, although the variety of experiences based on gender, race and ethnicity will continue to make the story of political labour more complex. At the same time, this raises the issue of 'wither Labo(u)r?'. The history of both parties suggests that it may only have been a relatively brief historical window of opportunity for these parties to be 'working class': from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. Before that time, and since, the notion of 'a working class' has been far more contested. This suggests the likelihood of greater change yet in these parties if they are to survive politically.

Leighton James is a post-doctoral researcher at the Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies, University of York. His research interests include European labour and social history and he is currently working on a monograph dealing with miners' trade unionism and party political development in the Ruhr and south Wales in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
<lsj500@york.ac.uk>

Raymond Markey is Professor of Employment Relations at Auckland University of Technology. His main research interests are in employee participation, regional employment relations, comparative employment relations and labour history. He has published extensively and is chair of the International Industrial Relations Association Study Group on Workers' Participation, and joint editor of the International Employment Relations Review.
<Ray.Markey@aut.ac.nz>

Endnotes

^* The authors wish to thank the two anonymous referees for Labour History. Leighton James would also like to thank Stefan Berger for reading an early draft and commenting on the British section.

^1. Quoted in C. Tsuzuki, Tom Mann, 1856–1941: The Challenges of Labour, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1991, p. 130.

^2.Ibid.

^3. There is, however, more contemporary work comparing the BLP and ALP. See, for example, Chris Pierson and Francis G. Castles, 'Australian Antecedents on the Third Way', Political Studies, vol. 50, no. 4, pp. 683–702. More historically orientated is Neville Kirk's, Change, Continuity and Class: Labour in British Society, 1850–1920, Manchester University Press, Manchester; New York, 1998; and Neville Kirk, Comrades and Cousins: Globalization, Workers and Labour Movements in Britain, the USA and Australia from the 1880s to 1914, Merlin Press, London, 2003.

^4. See W. Kendall, The Labour Movement in Europe, Allen Lane, London, 1975, p. 180.

^5. R. Markey, 'Social Democracy and the Agrarian Issue, 1870–1914: Introduction', in A. Blok, K. Hitchins, R. Markey and B. Simonson (eds), Urban Radicals, Rural Allies: Social Democracy and the Agrarian Issue, 1870–1914, Peter Lang, Bern, 2002, pp. 9–15.

^6. V. Burgmann, 'Premature Labour: the Maritime Strike and the Parliamentary Strategy', in J. Hagan and A. Wells (eds), The Maritime Strike: A Centennial Retrospective, Five Islands Press, Wollongong, 1992, p. 91; R. Markey, 'Australia', in M. van der Linden and J. Rojahn (eds), The Formation of Labour Movements 1870–1914: An International Perspective, Brill, Leiden, 1990, vol. 2, pp. 585–86; Markey, 'Social Democracy and the Agrarian Issue', pp. 12–15.

^7. For the debate see H.C.G. Matthew, R.I. McKibbin and J.A. Kay, 'The franchise factor in the rise of the Labour party', English Historical Review, vol. 91, no. 361, 1976, pp. 723–52; Ross McKibbin, 'The franchise factor in the rise of the Labour party' in Ross McKibbin, Ideologies of Class, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1991, pp. 66–100; Duncan Tanner, 'Election Statistics and the Rise of the Labour Party, 1906–1931', The Historical Journal, vol. 34, no. 4, 1991, pp. 893–90, Duncan Tanner, 'The Parliamentary Electoral System, the "Fourth" Reform Act and the Rise of Labour', Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, no. 56, 1983, pp. 205–19. For a summary of the debate see Keith Laybourn, 'The Rise of Labour and the Decline of Liberalism: The State of the Debate', History, no. 80, 1995, pp. 206–26.

^8. G.D.H. Cole and R. Postgate, The Common People, 1746–1946, Methuen, London, 1966 edn, pp. 412, 467, 535.

^9. S. Brooke, Labour's War: The Labour Party During the Second World War, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1992.

^10. On the adoption of Liberal rhetoric of progressivism see the essays in E. and F. Biagini and A.J. Reid (eds), Currents of Radicalism: Popular Radicalism, Organised Labour and Party Politics in Britain, 1850–1914, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991.

^11. F. Hammill, The Claims and Progress of Labour Representation, North of England Labour Literary Society, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1894, p. 11.

^12.Report of the Fifth Annual Conference of the Labour Representation Committee, 26–28 January 1905, London, 1905, p. 40.

^13. K. Morgan, Keir Hardie: Radical and Socialist, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1975, p. 196; F. Reid, Keir Hardie: The Making of a Socialist, Croom Helm, London, 1978, p. 52; D. Marquand, Ramsay MacDonald, Cape, London, 1977, p. 100. See also Asa Briggs, 'The Welfare State in Historical Perspectivce', in Archives Europeénes de Sociologie, vol. 2, 1961, pp. 221–58.

^14. J. Tampke, '"Pace Setter or Quiet Backwater?" German literature on Australia's labour movement and social policies 1890–1914', Labour History, no. 36, 1979, pp. 3–17; A. Métin, Socialism Without Doctrine, (Paris 1901) first English translation by R. Ward, Alternative Publishing, Sydney, 1977.

^15. J. Bennett, Rats and Revolutionaries: The Labour Movement in Australia and New Zealand, 1890–1940, University of Otago Press, Dunedin, 2004, pp. 59–60, 111–12, 121–22; T. Mann, From Single Tax to Syndicalism, London, 1913, p. 51.

^16. For Australia, see especially articles by G. Patmore, L. Taksa, B. Bowden, E. Eklund, B. Ellem and J. Shields, W. Eather, and E. Faue in special 'Labour History and Local History' thematic of Labour History, no. 78, May 2000; L. Taksa, 'Workplace, Community, Mobilisation and Labour Politics at the Eveleigh Railway Workshops', in R. Markey (ed.), Labour and Community: Historical Essays, University of Wollongong Press, Wollongong, 2001, pp. 51–79.

^17. See for example, C. Williams, Democratic Rhondda: Politics and Society, 1885–1951, University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1996; J. Parry, 'Labour Leaders and Local Politics 1888–1902: The Example of Aberdare', Welsh History Review, vol. 14, no. 3, 1989, pp. 399–416; P. Thane, 'Labour and Local Politics: Radicalism, Democracy and Social Reform, 1880–1914', in E. and F. Biagini and Reid (eds), Currents of Radicalism, pp. 244–70. For an analysis of the different forms of British working-class politics at local level see M. Savage, The Dynamics of Working-Class Politics: The Labour Movement in Preston, 1880–1940, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987.

^18. For an examples of Labour activity at a local level see Chris Williams, Democratic Rhondda: Politics and Society, 1885–1881, Cardiff University Press, Cardiff, 1996, pp. 63–80; and Savage, Dynamics of Working-Class Politics.

^19. See various contributions in thematic on 'Labour History and Local History', Labour History, no. 78, May 2000.

^20. R. Gregory, The Miners and British Politics, 1906–1914, Oxford University Press, London, 1968, p. 129; C. Howard, 'Reactionary Radicalism: The Mid-Glamorgan By-Election, March 1910', Glamorgan Historian, no. 9, 1973, pp. 29–41; R. Markey, The Making of the Labor Party in New South Wales, NSW University Press, Kensington, 1988, pp. 191, 232, 255; R. Markey, 'The Emergence of the Labour Party at the Municipal Level in NSW, 1891–1900', Australian Journal of Politics and History, vol. 31, no. 3, 1985, pp. 408–17; F. Bongiorno, The People's Party: Victorian Labor and the Radical Tradition, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1996, pp. 10–50; J. Hagan and K. Turner, A History of the Labor Party in NSW, 1891–1991, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1991, pp. 15–58.

^21. S. Deery and D. Plowman, Australian Industrial Relations, 2^nd edn, McGraw-Hill, Sydney, 1980, pp. 150–52; R. Markey, 'The Industrial and Political Significance of the Labor Council of NSW', Labour and Industry, vol. 7, no. 3, April 1997, pp. 54–5; A. Morehead, M. Steele, M. Alexander, K. Stephen and L. Duffin, Changes at Work: The 1995 Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey, Longman, Melbourne, 1997, pp. 208–9.

^22. For Wales see Duncan Tanner, Chris Williams and Deian Hopkins (eds), The Labour Party in Wales, 1900–2000, Cardiff University Press, Cardiff, 2000. For Scotland see Gary Hassan, The Scottish Labour Party: History, Institutions and Ideas, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2004. For northern England see Savage, Dynamics.

^23. L.J. Sharpe, 'The Labour Party and the Geography of Inequality: A Puzzle' in D. Kavanagh (ed.), The Politics of the Labour Party, George Allen and Unwin, London, 1982, pp. 135–70.

^24. Markey, Making of the Labor Party, pp. 158–64.

^25. G. Phillips, The Rise of the Labour Party, 1893–1931, Routledge, London and New York, 1992, p. 12; K. Laybourn and J. Reynolds, Liberalism and the Rise of Labour 1890–1918, Croom Helm, London and Sydney, 1984, p. 135; E. and F. Biagini and A.J. Reid, 'Currents of Radicalism, 1850–1914', in E. and F. Biagini and Reid (eds), Currents of Radicalism, p. 16.

^26. John Shepherd, 'Labour and Parliament: The Lib-Labs as the first working-class MPs, 1885–1906', in E. and F. Biagini and Reid (eds), Currents of Radicalism, pp. 187–213

^27. David Howell, British Workers and the Independent Labour Party, 1886–1906, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1983.

^28. See Frank Bealey, 'The electoral arrangement between the Labour Representation Committee and the Liberal Party', Journal of Modern History, vol. 28, no. 4, 1956, pp. 353–73.

^29. R. Gregory, The Miners in British Politics, 1906–1914, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1968, pp. 36–50.

^30. R. McKibbin, The Evolution of the Labour Party, 1910–1924, Oxford University Press, London, 1974, pp. 49–51; K. Laybourn and J. Reynolds, Liberalism and the Rise of Labour 1890–1918, Croom Helm, London, 1984, p. 144.

^31. Bongiorno, The People's Party.

^32. McKibbin, Evolution, pp. 7–10 and pp. 139–40.

^33. Markey, 'Social Democracy and the Agrarian Issue', pp. 14–15.

^34. Markey, Making of the Labor Party, pp. 58–61, 67–8, 176–8, 188–91; R. Markey, 'Social Democracy and the Agrarian Issue: Australia 1870–1914', in Blok et al, Urban Radicals, Rural Allies, pp. 119–23, 128–9, 130–32.

^35. Markey, Making of the Labor Party, pp. 176–9, 184–92; C.A. Hughes, 'Labor in the Electorates', in D. Murphy, R. Joyce and C. Hughes (eds), Prelude to Power: The Rise of the Labour Party in Queensland, 1885–1915, Jacaranda Press, Milton, 1970, pp. 74–88 and in D. Murphy, R. Joyce and C. Hughes (eds), Labor in Power: The Labor Party and Governments in Queensland, 1915–57, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1980, pp. 61–72; D. Murphy, 'Queensland', in D. Murphy (ed.), Labor in Politics: The State Labor Parties in Australia, 1880–1920, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1975, pp. 127–215; Bongiorno, The People's Party, ch. 3. T. Roydhouse and H. Taperell, The Labour Party in NSW: A History of Its Formation and Legislative Career, Dunlop, Sydney, 1892, pp. 22–51, provides biographies for the early members. Also, the various State contributions each provide short biographies of early Labor members in Murphy, Labor in Politics.

^36. J. Hallam, The Untold Story: Labor in Rural NSW, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1983; Hughes, Labour in the Electorates', pp. 61–72; Markey, 'Social Democracy and the Agrarian Issue: Australia', pp. 142–3.

^37. E.J. Hobsbawm, 'The Making of the Working Class, 1870–1914', in Worlds of Labour: Further Studies in the History of Labour, Weidenfeld and Nicol, London, 1984, pp. 194–213. On identities, see A Davies and S Fielding (eds), Workers' World: Cultures and Communities in Manchester and Salford, 1880–1939, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1992. On the party's ethos and how it recast its past in that light, see H.M. Drucker, Doctrine and Ethos in the Labour Party, George Allen and Unwin, London, 1979, p. 25.

^38. D. Tanner, 'The Pattern of Labour Politics, 1918–1939', in Tanner et al, Labour Party in Wales, pp. 114–35.

^39. Stefan Berger, The British Labour Party and the German Social Democrats, 1900–1931, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1994; D. Tanner, 'Labour and its Membership', in P. Thane, N. Tiratsoo and D. Tanner (eds), Labour's First Century, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000, pp. 252–8.

^40. D. Kavanagh, 'Still the Workers' Party? Changing Social Trends in Elite Recruitment and Electoral Support', in Kavanagh, The Politics of the Labour Party, pp. 95–110.

^41. J. Goldthrope, D. Lockwood, F. Bschhofer, and J. Platt, The Affluent Worker: Political Attitudes and Behaviour, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1971.

^42. A. Scott, Fading Loyalties: The Australian Labor Party and the Working Class, Pluto Press, Sydney, 1991, p. 28.

^43. Tanner, 'Labour and Its Membership', p. 249.

^44. Tanner, 'Labour and Its Membership', p. 257. See also P. Whiteley, 'The Decline of Labour's Local Party Membership and Electoral Base, 1945–79', in Kavanagh, Politics of the Labour Party, pp. 111–34.

^45. A. Scott, Running on Empty: 'Modernising' the British and Australian Labour Parties, Pluto Press, Sydney, 2000; C. Pierson, '"Social Democracy on the Back Foot": The ALP and the "New" Australian Model', New Political Economy, vol. 7, no. 2, July 2002, pp. 179–97.

^46. P. Seyd and P. Whiteley, 'Labour's Renewal Strategy', in M.J. Smith and J. Spear (eds), The Changing Labour Party, Routledge, London, 1992, pp. 29–43.

^47. P. Seyd and P. Whiteley, New Labour's Grassroots: The Transformation of the Labour Party Membership, Palgrave Macmillan, Hampshire, 2002, p. 37.

^48. Seyd and Whiteley, New Labour's Grassroots, pp. 143–50.

^49.Guardian, 6 February and 7 July 2004.

^50. Recent analyses include J. Singleton, P. Martyn and I. Ward, 'Did the 1996 Federal Election see a Blue-Collar Revolt Against Labor? A Queensland case-study', Australian Journal of Political Science, vol. 33, no. 1, March 1998, pp. 117–30; D. Charnock, 'Spatial Variations, Contextual and Social Structural Influences on Voting for the ALP at the 1996 Federal Election: Conclusions from multilevel analyses', Australian Journal of Political Science, vol. 32, no. 2, July 1997, pp. 234–54.

^51. Seyd and Whiteley, New Labour's Grassroots, p. 178.

^52. N. Tiratsoo, 'Labour and the Electorate', in Thane et al., Labour's First Century, pp. 281–308; R. Markey, 'Women and Labor, 1880–1900, in E. Windschuttle, Women, Class and History: Feminist Perspectives on Australia, 1788–1978, Collins, Melbourne, 1980, pp. 83–111.

^53. See K. Deverall, R. Huntley, P. Sharpe and J. Tilly (eds), Party Girls: Labor Women Now, Pluto Press, Sydney, 2000.

^54. Preamble to Intercolonial Trades Union Congress Official Report, Worker Print, Ballarat 1891; Murphy, Labor in Politics, various contributions; Markey, Making of the Labor Party, pp. 174–6; McKibbin, Evolution of the Labour Party; Hobsbawm, 'The Making of the Working Class 1870–1914', pp. 208–12.

^55. R. Gollan, 'The Ideology of the Labour Movement', in E.L. Wheelwright and K. Buckley, Essays in the Political Economy of Australian Capitalism, vol. 1, ANZ Book Co., Sydney, pp. 206–7.

^56. J. Saville, 'The Ideology of Labourism', in R. Benewick, R. Berkhi and B. Parekh (eds), Knowledge and Belief in Politics, Allen and Unwin, London, 1973, pp. 213–26; S. Macintyre, 'Early Socialism and Labor', Intervention, no. 8, March 1977, pp. 81–87; Burgmann, 'Premature Labour'.

^57. J. Hagan, The History of the ACTU, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1981, p. 45.

^58. W. Thompson, The Long Death of British Labourism: Interpreting a Political Culture, Pluto Press, London, 1993, p. 17.

^59. Métin, Socialism without Doctrine; R. Miliband, Parliamentary Socialism: A Study in the Politics of Labour, Allen and Unwin, London, 1961, p. 61.

^60. T. Irving, 'The Roots of Parliamentary Socialism in Australia, 1850–1920', Labour History, no. 67, November 1994, pp. 97–109.

^61. N. Thompson, Political Economy and the Labour Party: The Economics of Democratic Socialism, 1884–1995, UCL, London, 1996, pp. 15–22.

^62. Markey, Making of the Labor Party, pp. 312–4; R. Gollan, Radical and Working Class Politics: A Study of Eastern Australia, 1850–1910, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1976 edn (originally published 1960), ch. 10; J. Rickard, Class and Politics: NSW, Victoria and the Early Commonwealth, 1890–1910, ANU Press, Canberra, 1976, ch. 7; M. Hearn and H. Knowles, One Big Union: A History of the Australian Workers' Union, 1886–1994, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1996, pp. 12–13.

^63. P. Kelly, The End of Certainty: The Story of the 1980s, Allen and Unwin, 1992, pp. 1–19.

^64. See Gollan, Radical and Working Class Politics, chs 7 and 11; H. McQueen, A New Britannia: An Argument Concerning the Social Origins of Australian Radicalism and Nationalism, Penguin, Ringwood, 1970, pp. 21–41; J. Warhurst, 'Nationalism and Republicanism in Australia: The Evolution of Institutions, Citizenship and Symbols', Australian Journal of Political Science, vol. 28, 1993, pp. 100–20.

^65. Markey, Making of the Labor Party, pp. 297–304; B. Scates, A New Australia: Citizenship, Radicalism and the First Republic, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1997, pp. 12–18, 106–10.

^66. Thompson, Political Economy and the Labour Party, p. 25–34.

^67. R. McKibbin, Evolution of the Labour Party, p. 91.

^68. A. Thorpe, A History of the British Labour Party, Macmillan, London, 1997, pp. 44–52.

^69. L.S. James, 'War and Industry: A Study of Industrial Relations in the Mining Industries of South Wales and the Ruhr during the Great War', Labour History Review, vol. 68, no. 2, 2003, pp. 195–215.

^70. Details of respective State platforms in Murphy, Labor in Politics; N.B. Nairn, Civilising Capitalism: The Labor Movement in NSW, 1870–1900, ANU Press, Canberra, 1973, provides a running commentary for the 1890s in NSW. See also Gollan, Radical and Working Class Politics, ch. 10; Markey, Making of the Labor Party, chs 7–9. For early socialist influence on Labor Parties, V. Burgmann, In Our Time. Socialism and the Rise of Labor, 1885–1905, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1985.

^71. For history of the socialist objective: L.F. Crisp, The Australian Federal Labour Party, 1905–51, Longmans, Melbourne, 1955, ch. 14 (quotation p. 277); B. O'Meagher (ed.), The Socialist Objective: Labor and Socialism, Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1983, p. 7.

^72. Crisp, Australian Federal Labour Party, p. 278; O'Meagher (ed.), Socialist Objective, p. 8.

^73. Crisp, Australian Federal Labour Party, p. 281; O'Meagher (ed.), Socialist Objective, p. 9.

^74. O'Meagher (ed.), Socialist Objective, p. 9.

^75. Murphy, Labor in Politics, passim; D. Murphy, 'State Enterprises', in Murphy et al, Labor in Power, pp. 138–56; R. Markey, In Case of Oppression: The Life and Times of the Labor Council of NSW, Pluto Press, Sydney, 1994, pp. 116, 160, 227.

^76. R. Gollan, The Commonwealth Bank of Australia: Origins and Early History, ANU Press, Canberra, 1968.

^77. Miliband, Parliamentary Socialism, pp. 272–3; Robert Skidelsky, Politicians and the Slump: The Labour Governments of 1929–1931, Macmillan, London, 1967.

^78. Thompson, Political Economy, pp. 111–9.

^79. P. Love, Labour and the Money Power: Australian Labour Populism, 1890–1950, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1984, pp. 165–80; A.L. May, The Battle for the Banks, Sydney University Press, Sydney, 1968; T. Sheridan, Division of Labour: Industrial Relations in the Chifley Years, 1945–49, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1989, pp. 27–29.

^80. See R. Eatwell, The 1945–1951 Labour Governments, Bateford Academic, London, 1979, pp. 54–66.

^81. Thompson, History, pp. 118–23; K.O. Morgan, Labour in Power, 1945–1951, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1984.

^82. See F. Farrell, International Socialism and Australian Labour: The Left in Australia, Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1981; I. Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics: The Dynamics of the Labour Movement in Eastern Australia, 1900–21, ANU Press, Canberra, 1965; V. Burgmann, Revolutionary Industrial Unionism: The Industrial Workers of the World, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1995; S. Macintyre, The Reds: The Communist Party of Australia from Origins to Illegality, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1998.

^83. Markey, In Case of Oppression, pp. 256–60; Hagan and Turner, History of the Labor Party in NSW, pp. 85–8; G. Robinson, How Labor Governed: Social Structures and the Formation of Public Policy During the New South Wales Lang Government of May 1930 to May 1932, unpublished PhD thesis, Monash University, 2001, Part 2.

^84. This account is based upon R. Murray, The Split: Australian Labor in the 1950s, Cheshire, Melbourne, 1970; McMullin, Light on the Hill, ch. 11; Markey, In Case of Oppression, pp. 299–309, 331–34.

^85. A. Crosland, The Future of Socialism, Cape, London, 1956.

^86. K. Laybourn, A Century of Labour: A History of the Labour Party 1900–2000, Sutton Publishing Ltd, Stroud, 2000, pp. 90–7; J. Schneer, Labour's Conscience: The Labour Left 1945–51, Unwin and Hyman, Boston, 1988, pp. 60–5.

^87. See P. Whiteley, The Labour Party in Crisis, Methuen, London, 1993, p. 1, and E. Shaw, The Labour Party since 1979: Crisis and Transformation, Routledge, London, 1994, pp. 6–24

^88. P. Seyd, The Rise and Fall of the Labour Left, Macmillan, London, 1987, p. 74.

^89.Ibid., p. 25.

^90. Thompson, Political Economy, pp. 201–4.

^91. Seyd, Rise and Fall of the Labour Left, pp. 116–21.

^92. On Militant Tendency see Michael Crick, Militant, Faber, London, 1984 and Michael Crick, The March of Militant, Faber, London, 1986.

^93. G. and A. Lee Williams, Labour's Decline and the Social Democrats' Fall, Macmillan, London, 1989, pp. 156–7. The 'Gang of Four; were made up of Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, David Owen and William Rogers.

^94. O'Meagher, The Socialist Objective, p. ix, and C. Lloyd, 'The Federal ALP: Supreme or Secondary?', in O'Meagher, The Socialist Objective, pp. 244–5.

^95. Kelly, End of Certainty; G. Maddox, The Hawke Government and Labor Tradition, Penguin, Ringwood, 1989; G. Singleton, The Accord and the Australian Labour Movement, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1990; S. Carney, Australia in Accord: Politics and Industrial Relations Under the Hawke Government, Macmillan, Melbourne, 1988; K. Wilson, J. Bradford and M. Fitzpatrick, Australia in Accord: An Evaluation of the Prices and Incomes Accord in the Hawke-Keating Years, South Pacific, Melbourne, 2000; P. Ewer, I. Hampson, C. Lloyd, J. Rainford, S. Rix and M. Smith, Politics and the Accord, Pluto Press, Sydney, 1991; G. Mahony (ed.), The Australian Economy Under Labor, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1993.

^96. Laybourn, Century of Labour, pp. 124–5; M.J. Smith, 'A Return to Revisionism? The Labour Party's Policy Review', in Smith and Spear, The Changing Labour Party, pp. 13–28; and L. Panitch and C. Leys, The End of Parliamentary Socialism; From New Left to New Labour, 2^nd edn, Verso, London, 1997, p. 222.

^97. Panitch and Leys, End of Parliamentary Socialism, pp. 250–4.

^98. See W. Hudson and D. Carter, The Republicanism Debate, NSW University Press, Kensington, 1992, including a Foreword to Part Two by then Prime Minister, Paul Keating, pp. 210–11.

^99. See R. Markey, 'Race and Labour in Australia', The Historian, vol. 58, no. 2, Winter 1996, pp. 343–60.

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Class and Labour: The British Labour Party and the Australian Labor Party Compared