Australian Labor Party

Australian Labor Party (ALP), one of the major Australian political parties. The first significant political representation of labour was achieved during the 1890s; in 1891, for example, candidates endorsed by the Sydney Trades and Labor Council gained 86 out of 141 seats in the New South Wales legislature. The entry of labour into national politics came with the first federal elections in 1901, when labour candidates associated in a loose federal organization gained 16 seats in the House of Representatives and 8 in the Senate, giving them considerable power.

The early labour parties were moderately socialist in their policies, which called for such reforms as removal of property qualifications for the franchise, removal of legal restrictions on union activity, establishment of employer liability for industrial accidents and diseases, and compulsory industrial arbitration. They were extremely disciplined, well organized, and militant, setting a pattern of party organization that other political groups were forced, to some extent, to imitate. The state organizations finally adopted the name Australian Labor Party in 1918.

The first majority federal Labor government was established in 1910, and by mid-1915 Labor also held power in all the states except Victoria. During World War I, however, the party split over the issue of conscription, the Labor Party proper going out of office until 1929. Many pro-conscription members remained in power for some years as members of the wartime Nationalist Party, formed from an alliance of pro-conscription Labor and the Liberal Party of Australia.

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Despite a sweeping electoral victory in 1929, Labor split over economic policy regarding the Great Depression and, following a general election of December 1931, again went out of office for 10 years. Between 1944 and 1949, however, the party was able to enact major welfare legislation.

From its defeat in 1949 until the election of Gough Whitlam as prime minister in 1972, the Labor Party remained out of office. Under Whitlam the Labor Party began a wide-ranging reform movement that touched upon Australia’s economy, foreign policy, and social structure. In December 1975, however, the party was voted out of office when the governor-general forced early elections by dismissing the government under highly controversial circumstances, touched off by the Senate’s opposition to the government’s reform program. Two years later Whitlam resigned as parliamentary leader of the party after a second electoral defeat and was replaced by a less reform-minded leadership.

In 1983 the Labor Party returned to power under Robert Hawke, whose government was reelected in 1984, 1987, and 1990, and the party remained in power when Hawke was forced to resign in 1991 after being defeated for the leadership of the party by Paul Keating. In 1993 Keating led the party to a fifth consecutive electoral victory, but the party’s 13 years in office ended in 1996 with the victory by the Liberal Party under John Howard. It was 11 years before Labor regained power.

In the November 2007 elections, ALP leader Kevin Rudd beat Howard and his Liberal-National coalition government by a significant margin, with a program that emphasized conservation of the environment, improvement of public services, establishment of equity in the workplace, and extrication of Australian troops from the U.S.-led Iraq War. Rudd failed to capitalize on his early momentum, however, and a series of legislative setbacks culminated in the shelving of a carbon emission trading scheme that was regarded as a central plank in Rudd’s platform. Clashes with the resource industry over a proposed tax on mining profits eroded Rudd’s support further, and he stepped down in response to a leadership challenge by deputy ALP leader Julia Gillard. She was elected party leader and sworn in as Australia’s first woman prime minister in June 2010.

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Gillard quickly called for a national election to be held August 21 (see Australian federal election of 2010), and it proved to be closer than the ALP had hoped, with neither the ALP nor the alliance of the Liberals and the Nationals immediately obtaining a majority of seats in parliament. In the days and weeks following, as the votes were still being counted, both the ALP and the Liberal-Nationals bloc negotiated with independent representatives and the lone Green member of parliament in the hope of forming a government. In early September, Labor received the backing of three independents and the Green MP, enabling it to form a minority government—Australia’s first since 1940.

Gillard presided over an economy that was surprisingly strong, given the overall global downturn, but much of that growth was concentrated in the mining industry. Gillard’s introduction of a carbon tax scheme—a reversal of a 2010 election promise—provided fodder for political opponents, and repeated leadership challenges by Rudd divided the party. In a June 2013 party leadership vote Rudd successfully ousted Gillard as ALP leader. Gillard resigned as prime minister, and Rudd was sworn in as prime minister the following day. He remained in office for just a matter of months, however; Labor suffered a decisive loss to the Liberal-National coalition in the scheduled September federal election, and Rudd announced that he would resign as party head. Bill Shorten led the party until 2019, when it lost to the coalition despite entering the federal election with a commanding lead in preference polling. However, Labor was returned to power by the 2022 federal election, which led to the premiership of Anthony Albanese.

In contrast to some social-democratic parties, however, the ALP has historically taken a pragmatic approach to appeal to a broad cross section of the Australian public. The ALP believes that government must play a vital role in ensuring the public welfare, and it has strongly supported gender and racial equality and Aboriginal rights. The party has also favoured a more independent foreign policy and endorsed the idea of Australia becoming a republic.