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  • 14 Dec, 1944

The Albury Conference and the Creation of the Liberal Party

The delegates from the Albury Conference, with Robert Menzies standing at the centre. Image from the National Archives of Australia.

On this day, 14 December 1944, delegates meet in Albury for a conference which will flesh out the direction and the organisational structure of the new ‘Liberal Party’, building on the achievements of the Non-Labor Unity Conference in Canberra two-months prior. The location is chosen because of its geographical centrality and also because the Liberals were keen to demonstrate that they would not be limited to being a ‘metropolitan’ entity. In the lead up, Robert Menzies had circulated draft proposals for a constitution and a platform, and he would dominate the meeting to be held over three days.

The pre-eminent historian of the Liberal Party’s organisation Ian Hancock describes that ‘the Liberals left Albury in December 1944 with a provisional federal executive, a draft constitution, a vague set of principles, and boundless vitality. Within nine months they managed to launch six state divisions, approve and implement a federal constitution, hold a federal council meeting and elect a federal executive, form 761 branches and enrol some 94,500 members (of whom probably a majority outside of South Australia had no previous party membership), establish and finance a federal secretariat and, in August 1945, formally launch the Liberal Party of Australia’.

The Albury Conference did not create the Liberal Party, which is constituted by the State Divisions, some of which were formed after the meeting, others which pre-existed and were essentially just re-named and affiliated with the new entity. What it did was to enunciate a clear vision of what the party would stand for – a positive vision of liberalism, and thrash out a superstructure for the party, one which was a great improvement from the UAP which had only existed as an extra-parliamentary organisation in Victoria and New South Wales, and even there it practically only functioned around election time.

One of the problems that liberal politics had experienced ever since the days of George Reid and Alfred Deakin was that Federal and State parties were often quite separate entities. On the surface there was little reason to have them overlap as the levels of government covered different issues and would often come into conflict with each other. However, over the years the organisational benefits of integration were clearly demonstrated by their Labor opponents, while non-Labor was racked by disunity.

Part of the problem was that by its very nature non-Labor was a group comprised of quite independent minds, who were determined to preserve their freedom of thought and action. They were explicitly not-collectivists and had a hard time sacrificing their individual interests for the sake of the broader cause. They were also ideologically attached to federalism and States’ rights, which meant they were loath to submit themselves to centralised dictation from Canberra.

The Liberal Party’s federal structure acknowledged these points, and tried to reach an accommodation between local autonomy and effective coordination. Certainly, the detailed rules of the party, such as preselection processes and the like, were to be determined at the State level. The logic of subsidiarity meant that only those issues which needed to be resolved at a Federal level were given over to the national body.

The structure which emerged from Albury involved each State organisation being under the control of an annually elected State Council. One representative of each would then form the Federal Council along with the Federal parliamentary leaders of the House and the Senate. Joint standing committees on policy were formed in each State and at the Federal level, with Menzies serving as Chairman of the latter, overcoming one of the criticisms of the UAP which was that policy was formulated in secret. The party was also put in charge of raising and controlling its own funds, based predominantly on a fee-paying grassroots membership, separating fundraising from the controlling interest of big business which had been prominent in both the Nationalists and the UAP.

The key to success was the level of enthusiasm the new party was able to garner, enthusiasm which filled branches and encouraged unity. Menzies was important in cultivating this enthusiasm, but it was also a product of the circumstances which were driving the liberal revival – there was a symbiotic relationship between the man and the hour. People could see that the War was in the process of being won, and there was a tremendous battle to be fought over what kind of Australia would emerge from it. The size and scope of the Federal Government had greatly enlarged, and Labor had made it clear that it intended to keep that power and use it for ‘socialistic’ ends.

There was consequently a great groundswell of support amongst the anti-socialists of Australia, but where Menzies came in was in directing that support into a positive case for individual enterprise and freedom which could avoid the negativity of ‘reaction’. In doing so he was tapping into a deep-rooted tradition of Australian liberalism, and adapting pre-existing ideas and language to the present circumstances, while also weaving in some of the new ideas of Keynes. The Liberal vision accepted a safety net and a limited but significant role for the state; however the individual was to be the key driver of prosperity and creative energy, whom the state would facilitate rather than direct.

Hancock argues that it is anachronistic and fallacious to insist that Menzies personally ‘created’ the Liberal Party; it was a national movement involving thousands of people and what was remarkable about it was how the non-Labor forces worked in tandem when this had often been so difficult for them. There were numerous other key figures, including a number of notable women, without whom Menzies’s efforts would not have come off, and it is somewhat unfair that they tend to be forgotten. Nevertheless, the party ultimately succeeded in its goal of dictating the future of post-war Australia and it did so with Menzies as its spearhead.

Further Reading:

Ian Hancock, National and Permanent? The Federal Organisation of the Liberal Party of Australia 1944-1965

Ian Hancock, ‘The Origins of the Modern Liberal Party’, Lecture held at the National Library of Australia, Canberra, 1994.

David Kemp, A Liberal State: How Australians chose Liberalism over Socialism, 1926-1966 (Melbourne University Press, 2021).

A.W. Martin, Robert Menzies, A Life Volume 2 1944-1978 (Melbourne University Press, 1999).

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