Name and spelling In standard
Australian English, the word
labour is spelt with a
u. However, the political party uses the spelling
Labor, without a
u. There was originally no standardised spelling of the party's name, with
Labor and
Labour both in common usage. According to
Ross McMullin, who wrote an official history of the Labor Party, the title page of the proceedings of the
Federal Conference used the spelling "Labor" in 1902, "Labour" in 1905 and 1908, and then "Labor" from 1912 onwards. In 1908,
James Catts put forward a motion at the Federal Conference that "the name of the party be the Australian Labour Party", which was carried by 22 votes to 2. A separate motion recommending state branches adopt the name was defeated. There was no uniformity of party names until 1918 when the Federal party resolved that state branches should adopt the name "Australian Labor Party", now spelt without a
u. Each state branch had previously used a different name, due to their different origins. Although the ALP officially adopted the spelling without a
u, it took decades for the official spelling to achieve widespread acceptance. According to McMullin, "the way the spelling of 'Labor Party' was consolidated had more to do with the chap who ended up being in charge of printing the federal conference report than any other reason". Some sources have attributed the official choice of
Labor to influence from
King O'Malley, who was born in the United States and was reputedly an advocate of
English-language spelling reform; the spelling without a
u is the standard form in
American English. Andrew Scott, who wrote "Running on Empty: 'Modernising' the British and Australian Labour Parties", suggests that the adoption of the spelling without a
u "signified one of the ALP's earliest attempts at modernisation", and served the purpose of differentiating the party from the
Australian labour movement as a whole and distinguishing it from other British Empire labour parties. The decision to include the word "Australian" in the party's name, rather than just "
Labour Party" as in the United Kingdom, Scott attributes to "the greater importance of nationalism for the founders of the colonial parties".
Origins 's ministry leaving
Parliament House, Brisbane, after being sworn in on 1 December 1899. His was the first government formed by a Labour party in the world. The Australian Labor Party has its origins in the Labour parties founded in the 1890s in the Australian colonies prior to federation. Labor tradition ascribes the founding of Queensland Labour to a meeting of striking pastoral workers under a ghost gum tree (the
Tree of Knowledge) in
Barcaldine, Queensland in 1891. The
1891 shearers' strike is credited as being one of the factors for the formation of the Australian Labor Party. On 9 September 1892 the
Manifesto of the Queensland Labour Party was read out under the well known
Tree of Knowledge at Barcaldine following the Great Shearers' Strike. The
State Library of Queensland now holds the manifesto; in 2008 the historic document was added to UNESCO's Memory of the World Australian Register and, in 2009, the document was added to UNESCO's Memory of the World International Register. The
Balmain, New South Wales branch of the party claims to be the oldest in Australia. However, the Scone Branch has a receipt for membership fees for the Labour Electoral League dated April 1891. This predates the Balmain claim. This can be attested in the Centenary of the ALP book. Labour as a parliamentary party dates from 1891 in
New South Wales and
South Australia, 1893 in Queensland, and later in the other colonies. The first election contested by Labour candidates was the
1891 New South Wales election, when Labour candidates (then called the Labor Electoral League of New South Wales) won 35 of 141 seats. The major parties were the
Protectionist and
Free Trade parties and Labour held the
balance of power. It offered parliamentary support in exchange for policy concessions. The
United Labor Party (ULP) of South Australia was founded in 1891, and three candidates were that year elected to the
South Australian Legislative Council. The first successful
South Australian House of Assembly candidate was
John McPherson at the
1892 East Adelaide by-election.
Richard Hooper however was elected as an Independent Labor candidate at the
1891 Wallaroo by-election, while he was the first labor member of the House of Assembly he was not a member of the newly formed ULP. At the
1893 South Australian elections, the ULP was immediately elevated to balance of power status with 10 of 54 lower house seats. The liberal government of
Charles Kingston was formed with the support of the ULP, ousting the conservative government of
John Downer. So successful, less than a decade later at the
1905 state election,
Thomas Price formed the world's first stable Labor government.
John Verran led Labor to form the state's first of many
majority governments at the
1910 state election. In 1899,
Anderson Dawson formed a minority Labour government in
Queensland, the first in the world, which lasted one week while the
conservatives regrouped after a split. The colonial Labour parties and the trade unions were mixed in their support for the
Federation of Australia. Some Labour representatives argued against the proposed constitution, claiming that the Senate as proposed was too powerful, similar to the anti-reformist colonial upper houses and the
British House of Lords. They feared that federation would further entrench the power of the conservative forces. However, the first Labour leader and Prime Minister
Chris Watson was a supporter of federation. Historian Celia Hamilton, examining New South Wales, argues for the central role of Irish Catholics. Before 1890, they opposed Henry Parkes, the main Liberal leader, and of free trade, seeing them both as the ideals of Protestant Englishmen who represented landholding and large business interests. In the strike of 1890 the leading Catholic, Sydney's Archbishop
Francis Moran was sympathetic toward unions, but Catholic newspapers were negative. After 1900, says Hamilton, Irish Catholics were drawn to the Labour Party because its stress on equality and social welfare fitted with their status as manual labourers and small farmers. In the 1910 elections Labour gained in the more Catholic areas and the representation of Catholics increased in Labour's parliamentary ranks.
Early decades at the federal level The
federal parliament in 1901 was contested by each state Labour Party. In total, they won 15 of the 75 seats in the House of Representatives, collectively holding the balance of power, and the Labour members now met as the Federal Parliamentary Labour Party (informally known as the
caucus) on 8 May 1901 at
Parliament House, Melbourne, the meeting place of the first federal Parliament. The caucus decided to support the incumbent
Protectionist Party in
minority government, while the
Free Trade Party formed the
opposition. It was some years before there was any significant structure or organisation at a national level. Labour under
Chris Watson doubled its vote at the
1903 federal election and continued to hold the balance of power. In April 1904, however, Watson and
Alfred Deakin fell out over the issue of extending the scope of industrial relations laws concerning the
Conciliation and
Arbitration bill to cover state public servants, the fallout causing Deakin to resign. Free Trade leader
George Reid declined to take office, which saw Watson become the first Labour
Prime Minister of Australia, and the world's first Labour head of government at a national level (
Anderson Dawson had led a short-lived Labour government in Queensland in December 1899), though his was a
minority government that lasted only four months. He was aged only 37, and is still the youngest prime minister in Australia's history. George Reid of the
Free Trade Party adopted a strategy of trying to reorient the party system along Labour vs. non-Labour lines prior to the
1906 federal election and renamed his Free Trade Party to the Anti-Socialist Party. Reid envisaged a spectrum running from socialist to anti-socialist, with the
Protectionist Party in the middle. This attempt struck a chord with politicians who were steeped in the
Westminster tradition and regarded a
two-party system as very much the norm. Although Watson led the party to a plurality victory (though not government, thanks to the
union of Free Traders and Protectionists) in
1906, he stepped down from the leadership the following year, to be succeeded by
Andrew Fisher's minority government for seven months until it fell in June 1909. At the
1910 federal election, Fisher led Labor to victory, forming Australia's first elected federal
majority government, Australia's first elected
Senate majority, the world's first
Labour Party majority government at a national level, and after the 1904
Chris Watson minority government the world's second Labour Party government at a national level. It was the first time a Labour Party had controlled any house of a legislature, and the first time the party controlled both houses of a bicameral legislature. The state branches were also successful, except in
Victoria, where the strength of
Deakinite liberalism inhibited the party's growth. The state branches formed their first majority governments in
New South Wales and
South Australia in 1910,
Western Australia in 1911,
Queensland in 1915 and
Tasmania in 1925. Such success eluded the other Commonwealth Labour parties for another decade; the
Labour Party in Great Britain would not form even a minority government until
1924, and would have to wait another
twenty-one years to win a majority in its own right. Even in neighbouring
New Zealand, Labour would not take power until
1935. In Canada, a
national labour party was not even
formed until 1932 and never formed government. Analysis of the early NSW Labor caucus reveals "a band of unhappy amateurs", made up of blue collar workers, a squatter, a doctor, and even a mine owner, indicating that the idea that only the socialist working class formed Labor is untrue. In addition, many members from the working class supported the liberal notion of free trade between the colonies; in the first grouping of state MPs, 17 of the 35 were free-traders. In the aftermath of
World War I and the
Russian Revolution of 1917, support for socialism grew in trade union ranks, and at the 1921 All-Australian Trades Union Congress a resolution was passed calling for "the socialisation of industry, production, distribution and exchange". The 1922
Labor Party National Conference adopted a similarly worded socialist objective which remained official policy for many years. The resolution was immediately qualified, however, by the
Blackburn amendment, which said that "socialisation" was desirable only when was necessary to "eliminate exploitation and other anti-social features". Only once has a federal Labor government attempted to nationalise any industry (
Ben Chifley's bank nationalisation of 1947), and that was held by the
High Court to be unconstitutional. The commitment to nationalisation was dropped by
Gough Whitlam, and
Bob Hawke's government carried out the floating of the dollar.
Privatisation of state enterprises such as
Qantas airways and the
Commonwealth Bank was carried out by the
Paul Keating government. The Labor Party is commonly described as a
social democratic party, and its constitution stipulates that it is a
democratic socialist party. The party was created by, and has always been influenced by, the trade unions, and in practice its policy at any given time has usually been the policy of the broader labour movement. Thus at the first federal election 1901 Labor's platform called for a
White Australia policy, a citizen army and compulsory arbitration of industrial disputes. Labor has at various times supported high
tariffs and low tariffs,
conscription and
pacifism, White Australia and
multiculturalism,
nationalisation and
privatisation,
isolationism and internationalism. From 1900 to 1940, Labor and its affiliated unions were strong defenders of the
White Australia policy, which banned all non-European migration to Australia. This policy was motivated by fears of economic competition from low-wage overseas workers which was shared by the vast majority of Australians and all major political parties. In practice the Labor party opposed all migration, on the grounds that immigrants competed with Australian workers and drove down wages, until after
World War II, when the
Chifley government launched a major immigration program. The party's opposition to non-European immigration did not change until after the retirement of
Arthur Calwell as leader in 1967. Subsequently, Labor has become an advocate of
multiculturalism.
World War II and beyond The
Curtin and
Chifley governments governed Australia through the latter half of the
Second World War and initial stages of transition to peace. Labor leader
John Curtin became prime minister in October 1941 when two independents crossed the floor of Parliament. Labor, led by Curtin, then led Australia through the years of the
Pacific War. In December 1941, Curtin announced that "Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom", thus helping to establish the Australian-American alliance (later formalised as
ANZUS by the
Menzies government). Remembered as a strong war time leader and for a landslide win at the
1943 federal election, Curtin died in office just prior to the end of the war and was succeeded by
Ben Chifley. Chifley Labor won the
1946 federal election and oversaw Australia's initial transition to a peacetime economy. At the conference of the New South Wales Labor Party in June 1949, Chifley sought to define the labour movement as follows: "We have a great objective –
the light on the hill – which we aim to reach by working for the betterment of mankind.... [Labor would] bring something better to the people, better standards of living, greater happiness to the mass of the people." To a large extent, Chifley saw centralisation of the economy as the means to achieve such ambitions. With an increasingly uncertain economic outlook, after his attempt to nationalise the banks and a strike by the Communist-dominated
Miners' Federation, Chifley lost office at the
1949 federal election to
Robert Menzies' Liberal-National Coalition. Labor commenced a 23-year period in opposition. The party was primarily led during this time by
H. V. Evatt and
Arthur Calwell. In 1955, the Australian Labor Party split, and the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) was formed. The preferences of the DLP were used to keep the ALP in Opposition until the election of Gough Whitlam in 1972. on 24 November 1975 Various ideological beliefs were factionalised under reforms to the ALP under
Gough Whitlam, resulting in what is now known as the
Socialist Left who tend to favour a more interventionist economic policy and more
socially progressive ideals, and
Labor Right, the now dominant faction that tends to be more
economically liberal and focus to a lesser extent on social issues. The Whitlam Labor government, marking a break with Labor's socialist tradition, pursued
social democratic policies rather than
democratic socialist policies. In contrast to earlier Labor leaders, Whitlam also cut
tariffs by 25 percent. Whitlam led the Federal Labor Party back to office at the
1972 and
1974 federal elections, and passed a large amount of legislation. The
Whitlam government lost office following the
1975 Australian constitutional crisis and dismissal by
Governor-General John Kerr after the Coalition blocked
supply in the Senate after a series of political scandals, and was defeated at the
1975 federal election in the largest landslide of Australian federal history. Whitlam remains the only Prime Minister to have his commission terminated in that manner. Whitlam also lost the
1977 federal election and subsequently resigned as leader.
Bill Hayden succeeded Whitlam as leader. At the
1980 federal election, the party achieved a big swing, though the unevenness of the swing around the nation prevented an ALP victory. In 1983,
Bob Hawke became leader of the party after Hayden resigned to avoid a leadership spill.
Bob Hawke led Labor back to office at the
1983 federal election and the party won four consecutive elections under Hawke. In December 1991
Paul Keating defeated Bob Hawke in a leadership spill. The ALP then won the
1993 federal election. It was in power for five terms over 13 years, until severely defeated by
John Howard at the
1996 federal election. This was the longest period the party has ever been in government at the national level.
Kim Beazley led the party to the
1998 federal election, winning 51 percent of the
two-party-preferred vote but falling short on seats, and the ALP lost ground at the
2001 federal election. After a brief period when
Simon Crean served as ALP leader,
Mark Latham led Labor to the
2004 federal election but lost further ground. Beazley replaced Latham in 2005; not long afterwards he in turn was forced out of the leadership by
Kevin Rudd. Rudd went on to defeat John Howard at the
2007 federal election with 52.7 percent of the two-party vote (Howard became the first prime minister since
Stanley Bruce to lose not just the election but his own parliamentary seat). The
Rudd government ended prior to the
2010 federal election with the overthrow of Rudd as leader of the party by deputy leader
Julia Gillard. Gillard, who was also the first woman to serve as prime minister of Australia, remained prime minister in a
hung parliament following the election. Her government lasted until 2013, when Gillard lost a leadership spill, with Rudd becoming leader once again. Later that year the ALP lost the
2013 federal election. Between the 2007 federal election and the
2008 Western Australian state election, Labor was in government nationally and in all eight state and territory parliaments. This was the first time any single party or any coalition had achieved this since the ACT and the NT gained self-government. Labor narrowly lost government in Western Australia at the 2008 state election and Victoria at the
2010 state election. These losses were further compounded by landslide defeats in New South Wales in
2011, Queensland in
2012, the Northern Territory in
2012, Federally in
2013 and Tasmania in
2014. Labor retained government in the Australian Capital Territory in
2012 and, despite losing its majority, the party retained government in South Australia in
2014. However, most of these reversals proved only temporary with Labor returning to government in Victoria in
2014 and in Queensland in
2015 after spending only one term in opposition in both states. Furthermore, after winning the
2014 Fisher by-election by nine votes from a 7.3 percent swing, the Labor government in South Australia went from minority to majority government. Labor won landslide victories in the
2016 Northern Territory election, the
2017 Western Australian election and the
2018 Victorian state election. However, Labor lost the
2018 South Australian state election after 16 years in government. After Labor's 2013 federal election defeat,
Bill Shorten became leader of the party. The party narrowly lost the
2016 election, yet gained 14 seats. Despite favourable polling, the party also did not return to government in the
2019 New South Wales state election or the
2019 federal election. The latter has been considered a historic upset due to Labor's consistent and significant polling lead; the result has been likened to the Coalition's loss in the 1993 federal election, with 2019 retrospectively referred to in the media as the "unloseable election". After the 2019 defeat, Shorten resigned from the leadership, though he remained in parliament.
Anthony Albanese was elected as leader unopposed. In March 2022, Labor returned to government in South Australia after defeating the Liberal Party in the
2022 South Australian state election.
Anthony Albanese led the party into the
2022 Australian federal election, in which the party returned to power with a majority government. Despite its win, Labor nevertheless recorded its lowest primary vote since either
1903 or
1934, depending on whether the
Lang Labor vote is included. Albanese later led the party into the
2025 Australian federal election, in which the party once again won a majority government in a historical landslide. In 2023, Labor won the March
2023 New South Wales state election returning to government for the first time since 2011. This victory marked the first time in 15 years that Labor were in government in all mainland states. In 2024, Labor lost in a landslide in the
2024 Northern Territory election, losing its first mainland state or territory since the
2018 South Australian election. Labor would also lose in the
2024 Queensland state election. == Party structure ==