The split in the Australian Labor Party (ALP) of the mid-1950s had long lasting consequences for both the political and industrial wings of the labour movement. In electoral terms the creation of the Democratic Labor Party (DLP), and the DLP's second preference strategy in particular, had adverse consequences for the ALP. This paper re-examines the DLP both in terms as a political party and as a social movement. The paper argues that as a party the DLP was a failure largely due to its narrow focus on anti-communist defence and foreign policies. But as a social movement it was far more successful and its legacy is still evident in 2007, and can be found in the non-labourist social conservatism of the Howard government.

The foreign and defence policies of the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) had a notable influence on Australian politics in the 1960s. Initially, this influence was not predicted, for as one Liberal Party member of federal parliament commented in 1963, the DLP was 'an enigma' and 'it is probable that it will decline in significance'. Analysing the DLP is not without difficulty, for according to Rawson 'What ever one's political prejudices, hopes, fears, theories and expectations, one will find something in the history of the DLP to confirm them and something else to refute them'. The analysis is also complicated by the DLP's relationship with the B.A. Santamaria dominated 'Movement' organisation. To a large degree the DLP and the Movement acted like conjoined twins, thus making the identification of separate DLP policies problematic. In order to overcome this problem, only policies and statements that can be directly attributed to the DLP, principally parliamentary debates and the party's national journal, are referred to. The analysis shows that the DLP's overwhelming focus on foreign and defence policies played a large part in its failure as a political party, for their strident anti-communism was by the early 1970s incompatible with mainstream community opinion. Yet, if the DLP phenomenon is examined, not as a political party, but as a social movement an alternative conclusion is possible. Continuity with the DLP's social conservatism can be found in the right wing of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and some trade unions.^[1] However, the non-labourism element of the DLP's social conservatism ­ social conservatives with no affinity towards trade unions ­ has found a comfortable home in the Liberal Party.

     The catalyst for the formation this breakaway 'anti-communist' labour party was the March 1955 federal conference of the ALP in Hobart, with its foreign policy resolutions being prominent. Several months before the Hobart conference the leader of the federal parliamentary ALP, Dr H. V. Evatt, publicly alleged 'a small minority group' of ALP members 'located particularly in the State of Victoria' of being 'increasingly disloyal to the Labour Movement', who were 'directed from outside the Labour Movement' using the 'Melbourne News Weekly.as their organ'.^[2] This 'outside' influence was the (then) Catholic Social Studies Movement, and by 1957 the National Civic Council (NCC), or more simply 'the Movement'. Duffy suggested the relationship between the DLP and the NCC was similar to the relationship between the ALP and the trade union movement, in that they shared many personnel and policies. Indeed, Reynolds suggested 'most if not all NCC members belong to the DLP'. A former DLP senator, Jack Kane, even suggested something akin to a 'holding company' existed, consisting of the federal parliamentary and party organisation leader of the DLP and the national president, vice president and secretary of the NCC. The dominant influence in 'the Movement' was its national president Bartholomew Augustine Michael Santamaria.^[3] Santamaria was never a member of the ALP, nor ­ surprisingly ­ the DLP. Santamaria described the NCC as 'a political organisation, but not a political party'. Nevertheless, Santamaria's influence on the DLP was an issue of concern for party members. In 1959, for example, one former ALP federal member of parliament who sacrificed a career with the ALP because of 'outside' domination of the party ­ in this instance the Communist Party ­ stated at the DLP Victorian state conference 'if Mr Santamaria gets control of this party I am certainly going to get out of it', and the assistant Victorian state secretary resigned his position because of the 'Santamaria element in the party'. This influence was more than a mere faction; as one DLP member noted, the party 'draws its stimulus from an outside body headed by Mr Santamaria. This party has got Mr Santamaria's foreign policy for a start'.^[4]

     According to Santamaria, the DLP leadership was 'desperately engaged in maintaining its organizational [sic] and financial framework', which left the NCC the role of the party's 'think-tank' with the DLP accepting '90%' of the NCC 'product'.^[5] Yet in 1984 Santamaria conceded the NCC 'sustained the DLP for two full decades, until the Whitlam period. Thereafter, the DLP effort could be sustained no longer, at least with any possibility of achieving the original objective'. What the objective(s) was or were complex, and at times contradictory: opposing 'Communists'; opposing those that helped communists; opposing those who helped 'destroy' the ALP Industrial Group organisation; and opposing even anti-communists who controlled trade unions with methods 'no less corrupt than those of some of the Communists'. An example of the fourth objective can be seen in the 1966 attempt by DLP/NCC members from Victoria to gain control of the New South Wales (NSW) branch of the (then) Federated Clerks' Union, with a NSW branch official describing the attempt as a simple 'power grab' and an effort to covert the NSW branch into an 'NCC organisation'.^[6] In 1969 an internal DLP document clarified the objectives of the party: 'To create a public awareness of the communist threat to Australia and to win support for policies essential to our survival as a free and independent nation; To erect a road block of DLP votes across the ALP's path and so deny it the fruits of office; [and] To wage a war of attrition against the ALP and so compel it to break its communist connections and again become the acceptable alternative Australian Government it once was, or to force it to make way for a Party fulfilling this requirement'.^[7]

DLP foreign and defence policies

According to Santamaria the DLP 'had its own raison d'être, its own policy . and objectives distinct from those of the NCC', yet the party's strategy of attrition to eradicate left wing or 'pro-Communist' influences from the ALP and policies on foreign affairs and defence were 'similar to those of the NCC'. The emphasis the DLP placed on foreign and defence policy was, according the Sydney Morning Herald, unmatched by other parties including the Coalition. The prominence given to foreign and defence policy by the party, over social and domestic policies, was based on the conviction that other policies 'were not worth the paper they are written on unless Australia [has] adequate defences and [is] guided by a realistic foreign policy'. However, in the period between 1956 and 1960 neither of the DLP's two senators, G.R Cole and F.V.P. McManus, made any notable contribution to the debates on international affairs in the Senate.^[8] The only noteworthy contribution made by the DLP parliamentary leader, Cole, was at the party's 1958 federal election campaign launch where he attacked the ALP's foreign policy for having 'tried to drive a wedge forged in Moscow between Australia and the British'.^[9] In short, the DLP adopted something of a reactionary attitude to international affairs in the last five years of the 1950s, by supporting the status quo that had existed at the time of ALP/DLP split in 1955.

     The Laos 'crisis' of 1960-1961 focused the DLP's attention towards the Menzies government's defence alliance, or 'great and powerful friends', policy. The SEATO (South East Asia Treaty Organisation) initiated Laotian settlement was criticised by both Cole and McManus, with SEATO being described by Cole as 'a tissue paper tiger'. In order to protect Australia from the threat of a communist Asia ­ described by Cole as 'a pistol with the barrel pointing to Australia' ­ the party and its senators supported the establishment of the United States' naval communications facility at North-West Cape, and even suggested that there 'should be nuclear zones ­ not nuclear-free zones ­ in Australia'. Two years later the DLP defence policy specifically called for Australia to develop 'its own nuclear deterrent' to counter the Peoples' Republic of China's (PRC), or 'Red China', nuclear capacity.^[10] Not unexpectedly, Senator Cole welcomed the Menzies government's commitment of combat troops to South Vietnam in 1965, though the party questioned if the troop commitment would ensure military assistance from the United States and therefore called for an increase in Australia's own defence capability to be 'like Israel to deter attack'. In sum, the DLP's policies during the 1960s were inspired by its anti-communist dogma. The ALP's 'pro-communist' stance and the Coalition's pragmatism meant neither could be trusted with the defence of Australia, as shown when Senator Cole poetically expressed the anti-communist virtues of the DLP:^[11]

I would hate a sunburned country, where Commos fly the planes,

Nikita Khrushchev's conquests, a land of grief and pains,

Liquidations by the thousands, indoctrinations by the score,

If you have realized [sic] it already, I hope it strikes you more,

Core of my heart, my country, farewell to the fair and free,

With the raids from Moscow coming, your answer is the DLP,

The foolish ones who protest to keep us nuclear free,

Will be the first to run for cover when Nikita troops we see,

Yes, I love a sunburned country, not under commo rule,

But never do I wish to attend an indoctrination school.

While the criticism of ALP policy is consistent with the party's objectives, the DLP's criticism of the Coalition government's policies was a significant aspect of the prominence given to foreign affairs and defence. The Coalition's defence policy of reliance on collective security alliances, such as SEATO and ANZUS, resulted in an undeveloped defence capability and provided little incentive to examine Australia's defence needs. The DLP considered the defence alliance policy of the Coalition to be 'a short cut to [national] suicide', the Menzies government's defence expenditure to be 'stodgy', and repeatedly remarked that the Coalition's defence budgets were derisory. Overall, the DLP regarded Prime Minister Menzies' performance in defence and security matters as inadequate. The DLP senators even disapproved of the government's conduct of the Vietnam war. The Gorton government's policies were criticised in 1968 for leading towards the 'Evatt-Calwell-Cairns polices of isolation and national weakness', and the new DLP parliamentary leader, Senator V. Gair, claimed in 1969 Gorton's policies were 'indistinguishable from that propounded by Dr Cairns and the leaders of the left wing of the Australian Labor Party'. Indeed, all the Coalition government's defence policies were viewed disapprovingly: 'The DLP believes that the Gorton defence policy is just as inadequate for Australia's needs as was Sir Robert Menzies' and Mr Holt's policies'. The Gorton government's foreign polices were, according to the DLP, equally inadequate. And the policies of the McMahon government faired no better than its Coalition predecessors in attracting criticism from the DLP. ^[12]

     The DLP's condemnation of the Coalition governments was not limited to foreign and defence policy, for it was fervently opposed to trade with the PRC. The opposition to trade with the PRC was based on the conviction that Australian goods, particularly wheat and wool, would be used for military purposes, and it was de facto recognition of the communist regime. In addition to the conviction that Australian wheat and wool was being used to feed and clothe the PRC military, a more simple reason for the trade opposition was proposed by Senator Cole in 1965: 'One does not trade with one's enemy'. Even as late as 1971 the party accused the Coalition of subjugating 'its foreign policy to trade'.^[13]

Political party or social movement?

About 80 per cent of DLP second preference votes went to the Coalition parties. This disciplined second preference tactic was the underpinning of the strategy of attrition to deny the ALP government until it was 'forced into an agreement with the DLP to re-create one anti-Marxist Labor Party'. In the light of the DLP's electoral strategy (i.e. it was largely a 'spoiler' or 'veto' party), together with the public denouncements of the Coalition's and ALP's foreign and defence policies during the 1960s, it is worth asking the question was the DLP actually a political party? What constitutes a political party and what constitutes a social movement ­ and any difference between the two ­ is not straightforward. Schumpeter, for instance, defines a political party as 'a group of people who propose to act in concert in the competitive struggle for political power'. Tilly suggests a party is simply a 'tamed' social movement, and a social movement has a unifying value system. Arendt suggests the difference between the two is the 'absoluteness' in beliefs of social movements in contrast to more moderate beliefs of parties. In other words, social movements have a 'definitive ideology'. A generalised characteristic of social movements is their negativity towards the established political institutions and practices and tend to articulate more about what they are against rather than possible strategies for policy change.^[14]

     Social movements are more than a collective ideology or value system; they are also engaged in political conflict. The ideology a social movement advocates, as opposed to what they oppose ­ such as 'anti-communism' in the case of the DLP, can attract community endorsement if the ideology only requires a re-prioritising of political issues rather than radical adjustments. A 'functionalist' understanding of social movements views them as 'short-term responses to social change that are likely to dissipate as new equilibria develop', largely due to their single-issue ideological value system. Support for a movement's ideology can also be dissipated by the call for the community to make 'sacrifices' in order for the movement's objective to be achieved.^[15] There is a danger for social movements if they become involved directly in electoral party politics, as the failure to gain representation of their candidates can lead to opponents arguing the values of the movement have little traction with the community. However, an electoral system based on proportional representation, such as the Australian Senate, makes it easier for a single-issue 'party' to gain representation in parliament. Political representation does not automatically transform a 'movement' into a 'party', particularly in Australia for as Jupp notes compulsory voting makes it difficult to assess the extent to which the movement has mobilised community support.^[16]

     With the possible exception of the DLP's engagement in competitive party politics, it is argued here the party demonstrated the characteristics the literature visits on social movements. Moreover, there is one further aspect of social movement activity that may act to tip the scales and firmly place the DLP into the category of a social movement because it was the main tactic of the DLP: the threat to withdraw its followers' 'support from the existing power structure.and support some alternative'. The fact that the party was involved in electoral politics, and put forward candidates at federal and State elections, does not exclude it from the domain of being a social movement rather than a political party in the traditional sense as its objective was not to become a 'third party' and seek to gain government. Its objective was to convert the ALP into a party of 'Labor men who will have no truck with Communism'. To be sure, if it was a political party it was nothing more than a 'responsive' party, by which it only responded to the policies of the two mainstream 'expressive' or 'spectrum' parties. If the DLP is best understood as a social movement and not a party, it was a movement of the 'moral crusade' type and attracted support from people who were convinced that the 'crusade' against communism and 'pro-communists' was not given sufficient priority by the two major parties. This crusade would have appeal for both traditional Labor voters and conservatives who saw domestic and international communism as a threat.^[17]

A failed party?

Despite opportunities to end the schism with the ALP the DLP never realistically pursued these opportunities. In the early 1960s a reconciliation offer was declined by the DLP, in the mid 1960s Santamaria was put forward as the party's emissary ­ who had stated previously 'many DLP sympathisers today wonder whether it is worth worrying about the ALP at all', and in the late 1960s the party hesitated.^[18] Notwithstanding the DLP's criticism of the policies of the Gorton government, the option of changing the party's second preference strategy was not considered, as Senator Gair informed the ALP in the Senate: 'One thing is for certain. You will never get them. You have no chance in the world of getting them'. Overall, the DLP senators supported the Coalition government when voting in the Senate despite holding the balance of power from 1967.^[19] This support for the Coalition, according to Miller made the DLP 'largely redundant' in parliamentary terms. To that end, Mayer, writing in the mid-1960s, remarked that if the threat of international communism was as great as the DLP claimed it to be, then why did it not use is parliamentary and electoral leverage to 'reform' the Coalition to the same extent that it did with the ALP? In answering this question Reynolds suggests punishing the ALP was the overriding factor in shaping DLP conduct. The defeat of the Gorton government's minister for foreign affairs, G. Freeth, in the Western Australian seat of Forrest at the 1969 federal election has been ­ at least indirectly ­ attributed to the DLP,^[20] even though Forrest was not one of the seats 'targeted' by the DLP. This contention, however, fails to appreciate the strong electoral performance of the ALP in WA generally, were its primary vote increased from 42.81 per cent in 1966 to 50.04 per cent in 1969, and the decline of both Liberal Party and DLP votes. Indeed, Howson's quotidian reflections attributed Freeth's defeat solely to the ALP.^[21] It was ironic that the DLP was totally reliant on the ALP for it to achieve its primary objective. The party could criticise the ALP and deny it government with its second preference strategy, but it could do nothing to reform the ALP or its policies. The party never offered any real incentive to those ALP members of parliament who held analogous anti-communist opinions (e.g. Beazley, Fraser, Benson etc ­ see CPD from 1966) to bring the ALP's policy into conformity with the DLP's by directing the party's second preferences to such ALP candidates. The election of the ALP Whitlam government in 1972 essentially disestablished the DLP as a party, as Kane reflected the 1972 result was 'disastrous' for the DLP and its strategy of denying an 'unreformed' ALP government had 'collapsed'.^[22]

     Moreover, the party had an unrealistic conception of its electoral support. As Table 1 shows, in every House of Representatives election from 1958 its proportion of the national vote progressively declined. Despite the party reaching the peak of parliamentary representation with five senators in 1970, it was clearly in decline. The party was under the delusion that its Senate vote was the true indicator of its popular support; the result of Senate election votes being reliant on the transfer of surplus votes from the major parties notwithstanding. The DLP's core vote consisted of 'lower-middle-class' voters on moderate incomes and to some degree upwardly mobile educated voters ­ with half of its electoral support concentrated in Victoria, a constituency that did not naturally conform with the support base of the ALP or the Liberal Party. The party's Senate vote, in contrast, was partly based on protest voters from the Coalition who could vote DLP without directly challenging the Coalition government. The party's 1970 Senate election result was, therefore, very much 'ephemeral'.^[23]

Table 1: DLP votes, federal elections, 1958-1972 (%)

Year		House of Representatives		Senate
1958		9.4		8.4
1961		8.7		9.8
1963		7.4		n/a
1964		n/a		8.4
1966		7.3		n/a
1967		n/a		9.8
1969		6.0		n/a
1970		n/a		11.1
1972		5.3		n/a

Source: Henderson (1975), p. 78.

The DLP's heavy emphasis on foreign and defence policy had, by the 1970s, become increasingly irrelevant, and an anti-communist mantra was increasingly 'out of touch'. The Nixon administration's Guam doctrine, and the admission of the PRC to the United Nations, had effectively 'de-authorised' the DLP's foreign policy principles. By the 1972 federal election even the party itself had recognised this as it opted to focus its campaign on the traditional conservative issues of 'law and order' and 'permissiveness'. The progressive demise of the DLP as a party can be traced to its principal objective. It was not a party that represented specific sectional interests and sought to deliver benefits for that sectional interest (state aid to non-government schools might be the sole exception).^[24] Generally, voters will support a party if they believe its priorities are consistent with their own, an 'ideological proximity' in other words, and not necessarily due to specific policies.^[25] The partially alienated segment of the electorate that voted DLP as an expression of an anti-communist ideology could just as easily drift back to the ALP as it modified its policies under Whitlam's leadership and as the domestic and international communist threat receded, or drift to the Coalition. That is, once the partial alienation abated there was no necessity to vote DLP. The fact that the party was not designed for, nor sought, to be part of the government restricted its longer term appeal as it could not implement its polices. The reluctance to be a contender for governmental power meant it could not realise its policies, resulting in disillusionment from party supporters. Moreover, the high priority the DLP gave to defence policy ­ 'you could never spend enough on defence' ­ may have been more of a disadvantage to the party rather than an advantage. The party's policies called for, over time, an 'Israel-like' defence capability, more troop commitments to south-east Asia, universal national service, an Australian nuclear deterrent, and an indigenous military aircraft production industry. As Griffin has noted, these policies paid no regard to the limits of public finance.^[26]

     Henderson has argued the 'DLP helped to destroy itself ­ in a real sense it was its own worst enemy'. By the late 1960s and early 1970s its polices became more strident and fanciful; the leasing of British military and naval equipment and personnel for example, and even questioned the value of the US alliance. This outcome is not all that surprising, for as Wilkinson notes: '.the more any protest group, organisation or campaign appears to be under pressure, or in danger of collapse, the more it hankers for the reassurance of its rhetoric.They are, of course, simply whistling in the dark, and what they are afraid of is that if they were to stop whistling nothing would be heard of them.' For the party to achieve its objectives it was dependant on others: the ALP to expunge its 'pro-communist' influence and the Coalition for its foreign and defence policies. Arguably, the DLP 'session' from the ALP allowed for more, and not less, left wing influence in the ALP. ^[27] And the Coalition could largely take the DLP's second preference support for granted; for if the party was to maintain its raison d'être it 'had nowhere else to go but to support the Liberals'. It was, therefore, not necessarily the case that the DLP stopped 'whistling in the dark', but rather others stopping listening to them. In short, the DLP as a party failed because it was, to paraphrase Menzies, a little man waving a big stick who lost his balance because of its ideologically inspired polices. The reason for the failure of the DLP was expressed more bluntly by Henderson: 'You cannot build a party on hate'.^[28]

A failed movement?

While the DLP as a political party was a failure, the DLP as a 'movement' was more of a success. According to Costar and Strangio, the DLP senators were 'men of traditional laborist [sic] values' who shared many anti-communist views with the right wing of the ALP, and especially the NSW branch, including 'aggressive' foreign and defence policies. Further, Santamaria has conceded that even in the late 1960s two thirds of DLP voters were 'Labor people' who could easily return to the ALP fold. The drift back to the ALP after the election of Whitlam government in 1972 has been summarised by Reynolds: ^[29]

While the DLP had been able to carve out a constituency and a role in the Senate.and had managed to keep Labor from office federally and in two states, when the electorate became polarised in the tumultuous politics of the 1970s the DLP was swept away.The DLP had become a prisoner of its past. By 1974 it was no longer needed by Santamaria for the anticommunist crusade — such as it was by then — and, more importantly for the DLP, the majority of Australian Roman Catholics never wanted the party in the first place and shed no tears at its demise. There was not even an Irish wake.

So the 'laborist' elements of the DLP's support base could shift back to the ALP, and the more conservative elements ­ particularly those without any affinity with trade unionism ­ could find a comfortable home in the Liberal Party. There is considerable evidence that the legacy of the DLP is the social conservatism of the Liberal Party, and perhaps the Coalition parties generally, and not the ongoing social conservatism and Catholic philosophy of the right wing of the ALP. The establishment of the 'Lyons Forum' by John Howard in the early 1990s as a social conservative faction in the federal Coalition is an obvious example of this continuity.^[30] The labourism of the DLP would not be comfortable in the Liberal Party as illustrated by comments by a former DLP Victorian vice president: 'The DLP senators would have vehemently opposed both lots of the Howard Government's industrial relations legislation as attacks on the union movement'. However, the decline of trade union density in Australia over the last few decades has suggested a decline of 'labourist' identification by Australian voters, as shown in Figure 1.^[31]

(Source: Meagher and Wilson, 2006)

Prominent members of the Liberal Party have been influenced by the philosophy of the DLP, including leaders of the party. According to Santamaria, Menzies told him the DLP was '"the kind of party I founded" or "I though I founded"', and Menzies admitted voting DLP and not for the Liberal Party in his retirement. Malcolm Fraser, when minister for defence in the Gorton government, had closer relationships with the DLP senators than his Liberal colleagues and his appointment as minister was warmly embraced by the DLP. In 1975 Fraser consulted with Santamaria about the merits of deferring the Whitlam government's budget legislation in the Senate.^[32] Both Fraser and John Howard attended the NCC's 'fortieth anniversary' celebrations in 1981. When in opposition in the mid-1980s Howard, first as deputy leader and then as leader of the federal Liberal Party, appointed a former NCC employee with non-labourist views as his chief of staff. As prime minister Howard granted Santamaria a state funeral that cost taxpayers $25,497.90. Notable attendees at the funeral were former federal and State leaders of the Liberal Party ­ including John Howard, five Howard government ministers, and eight federal Coalition parliamentarians. At the time of Santamaria's passing, many Howard government members praised his contribution to Australian political and social life, with comments such as 'The baton of Bob Santamaria must be passed on. The fight must continue', 'I and so many others attended today's funeral to pay respects to our hero', and 'he built a bridge enabling Catholics to break out of the Labor political ghetto that they had been locked into for too long'.^[33] These comments are not all that surprising for as late as 2006 John Howard expressed sympathy with the philosophies of the DLP:

I've always had something of a respect for the DLP. I thought what they did all those years ago in standing up for good principle inside the labour movement, more broadly defined, was impressive. And whilst, I guess, on economic policy I wouldn't have agreed with some of the views of the DLP [their] social policies are very close to mine.We have to be honest if we reflect on the history of politics in Victoria that if it hadn't been for the DLP, Bob Menzies probably would've lost office in 1961, so we ought to be mindful of the history and the contribution that the party made to keeping the Labor Party out of office all of those years and I don't think we should forget that.^[34]

In sum, the evidence suggests that as a social movement the DLP was not a failure, as the recent remarks of the Federal Minister for Health acknowledged: 'the Democratic Labor Party is alive and well, after all, and living inside the Howard Government'.^[35]