The Liberal Party of Australia has, throughout its history, been divisible into several informal but distinct factions. Unlike its major rival the Australian Labor Party, factional groups are generally informal and lack organized structure. Factional groupings were historically typically characterised as the more progressive "wets" and the more conservative "dries", and at different points additional groupings have been identified. However, a more distinct group of three factions has existed since at least the late 2000s. These factions exist to differing extents in each of the party's state branches.
Sources
editPower politics: Australia's party system / Dean Jaensch
The Australian party system / Dean Jaensch
Australia votes: the 1987 Federal election / edited by Ian McAllister and John Warhurst
Party politics, Australia 1966-1981 / James Jupp
Menzies' child: the Liberal Party of Australia, 1944-1994 / Gerard Henderson
Taylor, L. 1999. ‘Party Animals: Liberals Struggle to Reform.’ Australian Financial Review 23 November 1999: 1, 22.
"Some Liberal Party factions are nothing more than preselection cooperatives." Lazarus Rising
Four Corners episode https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DMSQLDMXvk
History of federal factions
editThe culture of the Liberal Party has been described as inhospitable to formal factions, as "the party's emphasis on leadership and loyalty and the resistance to groups that might form the nucleus for factions" had emerged as early as 1989.
1970s
editA Leader and a Philosophy (1973) David Kemp
1978: Tiver, Peter G. (1978), The Liberal Party: Principles and Performance. Milton, Queensland, Jacaranda.
1980s
editThe early 1980s did not see particularly clear factional alignments. 1982 research indicated that the party was divided amongst four groups.[1] On the left of the party were the neoliberalists, with the centre covered by the 'consensual conservatives' who oppose laissez-faire capitalism.[1] The right wing of the party was divided between conservatives who were either more concerned with the economy or with morality.[1] JUPP
In 1983, the groups could be simplified to a three faction system.[1] The right supported laissez-faire capitalism and non-interventionist government, while the centrist anti-socialist faction was more supportive of government intervention.[1] The left of the party were classified as the Deakinite liberals.[1] JAENSCH
The Deakinite liberals eventually became the Liberal Forum, a semi-organized faction that emerged after the Liberals lost power in the 1983 federal election.[1] The group worked to promote centre-left liberal policies.[1] ALSO JAENSCH 1983?
1985: O'Brien, Patrick (1985), The Liberals: Factions, Feuds and Fancies, Ringwood, Victoria, Penguin.
The candidates of the 1987 federal election were divisible into three camps.[2][3] There was both a progressive and conservative wing, with the economic rationalists positioned between them.[2] There was little ideological difference between the rationalists and the conservatives other than in their approach to corporatism: rationalists were suspicious of large corporations and believed them to be a barrier to the operation of the free market, while conservatives did not see an issue with corporatisation.[4] Other major points of difference were environmentalism (which rationalists were more likely to oppose) and women's advancement (which conservatives were more likely to oppose).[5] Both the rationalists and the conservatives were considered a part of the wider "dry" movement in the party.[4] The progressive faction differed from the other two to only a moderate degree on economic matters in that they were supportive of economic equality,[3] but was more liberal on all social issues.[3][4] Progressive candidates were also tended to be environmentalists.[3]
By the late 1980s, the two broad designations of the liberal "wets" and conservative "dries" was in use by party members and was beginning to be recognised by academics.[1]
1990s
editThe Lyons Forum was an informal faction formed in 1992. The faction was mostly made up of Christian conservatives and concerned itself primarily with social issues. It was defunct by the early 2000s.
2000s
editThe National Right was led by Eric Abetz and Nick Minchin in the 2000s, and for much of the decade published the conservative, a print journal and website.[6]
Malcolm Turnbull's loss of the opposition leadership to Tony Abbott in the 2009 leadership spill was partly attributed to the work of the National Right, under the influence of Nick Minchin.[7]
Political parties in transition? p.41 9781862875937
2010s
editBy 2011, the National Right faction was "nominally" lead by Abetz, but the role was "in practice" shared by Cory Bernardi and Mathias Cormann.[7]
https://insidestory.org.au/the-liberal-partys-faction-problem/
During the Turnbull government, the right was headed by now former prime minister Abbott, and the moderates by Turnbull and Christopher Pyne. The conflict between Abbott's right faction and Turnbull characterised much of the Turnbull government, and ultimately led to the 2018 leadership spills in which Turnbull was challenged by Peter Dutton, but eventually replaced by Morrison.[8]
https://www.afr.com/politics/a-brutal-political-massacre-20180824-h14f86
Following the 2019 federal election, the Australian Financial Review reported that MPs expected the Morrison government to lack a strong factional movement, and pointed to the existence of a cross-factional grouping of politicians who were first elected around the 2016 election. However, the report still noted that there were moderate, centre-right, and right-wing factions, with the right-wing headed by Cormann and Dutton. One MP noted that the right was divided between those who were economically dry but were not socially conservative and those who were both socially and economically conservative, with the former providing the bulk of the support for Scott Morrison. The centre-right coalesced around figures such as Morrison, Josh Frydenberg, and Alex Hawke. The moderate wing was led by Simon Birmingham, with other influential moderate figures including Paul Fletcher, Trent Zimmerman, and Marise Payne.[8]
2020s
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In 2021, a survey of the parliamentary party by The Sydney Morning Herald revealed there were three major factions. There were two factions on the right of the party: a socially conservative faction centred on Dutton known as the National Right, and a more moderate Centre Right that was led by Morrison. The former was primarily concerned with social issues such as religious freedoms and defence, and included a number of climate skeptics.[9] A third faction of Moderates sat to the left of the other two, favouring climate action and are socially progressive but economically liberal.[9] The survey also concluded that the wet and dry groupings were no longer active.[9] Several of the politicians interviewed who belonged to the Moderates or National Right claimed that the Centre Right would largely dissolve once Morrison lost power,[9] which eventually proved correct.[10]
In 2023, the same survey was re-run to reveal changes following the 2022 federal election. Morrison's election loss and factional infighting in New South Wales meant the Centre Right had collapsed, with only six politicians identifying with the group. Several politicians who had formerly identified with the Centre Right were now identifying themselves as Centrists, a group without formal organisation or leadership. Ideologically, the Centrists are very similar to the Centre Right, but deliberately avoid association with the Centre Right and its New South Wales-based leadership. The National Right is now the dominant faction in the party, with the Moderates a depleted force.[10]
State factions
editNew South Wales
editIn March 1989, the Centre Right was formed in the New South Wales branch, advocating for conservative views.[11] It was the first faction of the Liberal Party to have any formal organization,[11] keeping membership, having distinct policy goals, and receiving independent funding.[12] The Centre Right faction in the New South Wales Party still exists as an organised group in the 2020s, joined by Moderate and National Right factions equivalent to their federal counterparts.[9][13] This structure is more closely comparable to the factional mechanisms of the Labor Party.[9] Liberal Premiers Robert Askin, Nick Greiner, Barry O'Farrell, Mike Baird, and Gladys Berejiklian have all been identified as members of the moderate faction of the NSW Liberal Party,[14] while Dominic Perrottet was identified as a member of the hard right faction.[13] Gauja 2015 9781922235824
https://search.informit.org/doi/epdf/10.3316/ielapa.200601753
Queensland
editThe Ginger Group was an informal but organised progressive faction in the former Queensland Liberal Party that formed in the 1960s and came to have substantial influence in the 1980s. The group is generally considered responsible for the collapse of the Liberals at the 1983 state election.
Today the party exists in Queensland only as the Liberal National Party of Queensland (a division of the Liberal Party), formed by a merger of the Liberal Party Queensland Division and National Party's Queensland division. Candidates of the Liberal National Party elected to federal parliament choose to sit as either a Liberal or a National politician. In modern times, there is no substantial moderate presence amongst Queensland Liberals.[9]
South Australia
editThe South Australian branch also contains structured Moderate and National Right factions.[9]
Tasmania
editTasmania does not have a substantial moderate presence.[9]
Victoria
editVictorian Liberals are more likely to identify with party personalities than ideologies.[9][15]
Western Australia
editThe Western Australian branch is noted for containing The Clan, a factional group including both federal and state politicians that formed in the 2010s and was coordinated through a WhatsApp group chat. The group was led by federal politicians Cormann and Ian Goodenough and state politicians Peter Collier and Nick Goiran, and has attracted significant controversy for its coordinated branch stacking activities.[16][17] The group is generally considered a conservative Christian faction.[18] Western Australia does not have a substantial moderate presence.[9]
References
edit- ^ a b c d e f g h i Bean & McAllister, p. 80
- ^ a b Bean & McAllister, pp. 81–84
- ^ a b c d McAllister, p. 217
- ^ a b c Bean & McAllister, p. 84
- ^ McAllister, pp. 216–217
- ^ Kerr, Christian (9 September 2005). "The formalisation of factions in the Liberal Party". Crikey. Archived from the original on 29 June 2024. Retrieved 29 June 2024.
- ^ a b Packham, Ben; Kelly, Joe (5 August 2011). "Liberal row widens over Turnbull". The Australian. Sydney: News Corp Australia. ISSN 1038-8761. Archived from the original on 13 January 2023. Retrieved 13 January 2023.
- ^ a b Tillett, Andrew (23 August 2019). "The rise of the next generation of factional leaders". Australian Financial Review. Sydney: Nine Entertainment Co. ISSN 1444-9900. OCLC 1131035760. Archived from the original on 22 September 2022. Retrieved 13 January 2023.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Massola, James (20 March 2021). "Who's who in the Liberals' left, right and centre factions?". Sydney Morning Herald. Nine Entertainment Co. ISSN 0312-6315. OCLC 226369741. Archived from the original on 22 March 2021. Retrieved 27 April 2021.
- ^ a b Massola, James (8 April 2023). "How Morrison's shattering defeat gave Dutton a seismic shift in factional power". The Sydney Morning Herald. Nine Entertainment Co. ISSN 0312-6315. OCLC 226369741. Retrieved 22 July 2023.
- ^ a b Bean & McAllister, note 3
- ^ McAllister, p. 223
- ^ a b Davies, Anne (22 January 2022). "The Right stuff: why shellshocked NSW Liberal moderates are fearing factional fights". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 1 May 2023.
- ^ Abjorensen, Norman (6 July 2015). "The Liberal Party's faction problem". Inside Story. ISSN 1837-0497. Retrieved 27 April 2023.
- ^ Sakkal, Paul; Harris, Rob (28 August 2020). "How the Victorian Liberals' conservative warlords tore the party apart". The Age. Melbourne: Nine Entertainment Co. ISSN 0312-6307. Retrieved 30 April 2023.
- ^ Shine, Rhiannon; Borrello, Eliza (26 August 2021). "The WA Liberals' stunning implosion is about to be officially laid bare. Here's what we know so far". ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on 12 September 2021. Retrieved 5 February 2023.
- ^ Perpitch, Nicholas (30 January 2023). "'A line in the sand': New WA Liberal leader Libby Mettam declares war on factional powerbrokers". ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on 5 February 2023. Retrieved 5 February 2023.
- ^ Bennet, Michael (6 June 2022). "'The clan is still in full control': Why the Liberals lost WA". Australian Financial Review. Sydney: Nine Entertainment Co. ISSN 1444-9900. OCLC 1131035760. Archived from the original on 5 February 2023. Retrieved 5 February 2023.
Works cited
edit- Bean, Clive; McAllister, Ian (November 1989). Simms, Marian (ed.). "Factions and tendencies in the Australian political party system". Politics. 24 (2). Melbourne: Australian Political Studies Association: 79–99. doi:10.1080/00323268908402092. eISSN 1363-030X. ISSN 1036-1146. LCCN 91657734. OCLC 610420142.
- McAllister, Ian (February 1991). Rohde, David W. (ed.). "Party Adaptation and Factionalism within the Australian Party System". American Journal of Political Science. 35 (1). Bloomington, Indiana: Midwest Political Science Association: 206–227. doi:10.2307/2111444. eISSN 1540-5907. ISSN 0092-5853. JSTOR 2111444. LCCN 73647828. OCLC 884770809.