SHORT HISTORY OF AUSTRALIAN LIBERALISM
by Gregory Melleuish
Centre for Independent Studies
Rec. price: $14.95
Fair goThe history of Australian liberalism is fraught with many ambiguities and complexities which sets it apart from liberalism in other countries. This complex history is admirably brought out in
A Short History of Australian Liberalism, by Gregory Melleuish, lecturer in Political Science at the University of Wollongong.
Unlike the liberalism of Europe which developed a deep seated antagonism towards the monarchical and clerical nature of the ancien regime, Australian liberalism developed within the context of British colonial culture, with respect shown towards the monarchy and the Mother Country in general.
This does not mean that liberalism in Australia did not develop in radical directions, but simply that mainstream liberal thought adopted a more moderate stance towards the old order of things.
While radical liberal republicans and free traders promoted their ideas in the mid to late 19th Century, by the time of Federation in 1901 liberalism had adapted itself to the mostly pro-British, pro-monarchist culture of the British Empire.
Thus the constitution of 1901 was mostly a secular liberal document, with little or no aristocratic or religious sentiments addressed. Republicanism was eschewed in favour of constitutional monarchism; and free trade was repudiated in favour of protection for Australian industries.
In order to deal with the rising influence of trade unionism and socialism in the form of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), the deal struck at the time of Federation also included centralised industrial arbitration. The concept of the Workers' Paradise was combined with more middle class Whiggish notions of individual liberty, to create the Federation settlement of 1901.
Liberals in colonial and early Federation Australia, however, feared the reactionary "mob rule" of democracy, preferring instead what they saw as the rule of enlightened liberal Žlites.
This was not to be the rule of an hereditary aristocracy, but what they called an "aristocracy of talent", meaning those whose education and achievements in business or acedemia had supposedly prepared them for government. This has remained one of the defining themes of modern Australian politics and society.
The man who most embodied this understanding of liberal democracy was Alfred Deakin. Deakin personified the liberal belief that enlightened élites could best rule society, by guiding the "ignorant" opinions of the masses in more "enlightened" directions.
This so-called "Deakinite liberalism," combined the liberal concern with the rights of individuals, with a commitment to protectionism in the economic sphere.
The strains of this liberalism can still be seen today in the New Class ideology of political correctness. Like the liberal élites of 1901, today's educated, affluent, urban élite favours undemocratic forums to pursue its goals, such as UN agencies or the various unelected human rights committees which have replaced Parliament as the means by which social change can be carried out.
These bodies allow the New Class to pursue its goals unmolested by elected governments and out of sight of the general public, who are considered too uneducated and prejudiced to interfere in the running of society.
There has been a backlash against this form of liberalism in recent years, in the form of the election of the Howard Government in 1996 on an explicitly anti-political correctness platform, and in the Pauline Hanson movement.
While John Howard has attacked political correctness amongst the élites, in the forms of bias at the ABC and within the public service, he has pursued a free trade form of liberalism, which harks back to the liberal free trade ideology of George Reid's government in NSW in the 1890s, rather than the élitist liberalism of Alfred Deakin.
The Pauline Hanson phenomenon, on the other hand, embodies that which Deakinite liberals have feared most since Federation: the rise of democratic populism.
Those in the Deakinite liberal stream of thought, such as former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, fear the reactionary, anti-liberal, rural conservatism of the One Nation Party, with its policies on immigrants and Aborigines, and its demands for a new egalitarian agenda for the country.
In this, One Nation is not unlike the early Labor Party of the 1890s, which was also egalitarian, protectionist and in favour of a White Australia.
The Labor Party was also feared and vilified by the liberal élites of the time, who saw in its radical, egalitarian demands a threat to their own interests and continued dominance in Australian politics.
Liberalism's fortunes declined after the Great War when nationalist and socialist forces came to the fore in Australian political life. The fusion between Deakin's protectionist Liberal Party and the Free Trade party of Reid, followed by the fusion with Billy Hughes' Labor break-away faction to form the Nationalist Party, saw the growth of strongly conservative tendencies on the non-Labor side.
The growth of socialist radicalism within Labor and the formation of the Communist Party in the 1920s, further pushed liberals to the Right. Robert Menzies' Liberal Party, formed in 1944, resurrected the liberal tradition as a progressive Whiggish ideology in Australian politics.
Menzies, like Deakin, eschewed radical free trade ideas in favour of protection and strategic Federal government intervention in the economy and the wider society.
Combined with an adherence to individual rights, the constitutional monarchy and a strongly anti-communist foreign policy, the Liberal Party became the main political opponent of Labor's socialism.
With the collapse of socialism as an alternative to liberal capitalism, liberalism has returned to the place it held in the late 19th Century as the dominant ideology of Australian public life. All the major parties represent some aspect of the liberal tradition: the Liberals and the Nationals, particularly after the New Right take over in the 1980s, represent the liberal free trade ideology of George Reid; Labor and the Democrats, the liberal elitism of Deakin.
Though free trade has become the dominant economic philosophy of both Liberal and Labor, the Labor Party holds within its ranks a predominance of Deakinites, whose philosophy of the guidance of public affairs by enlightened, educated élites embodied in the feminist, environmentalist, gay rights and multicultural lobbies.
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