Editing Australian Labor Party (section)

=== Early decades at the federal level ===
[[File:Labor 1901b.jpg|thumb|Group photograph of federal Labour Party MPs elected to the House of Representatives and Senate at the inaugural 1901 election]]
The [[1901 Australian federal election|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<!-- do not change spelling, it is correct in historical context --> Party (informally known as the [[caucus]]) on 8 May 1901 at [[Parliament House, Melbourne]], the meeting place of the first federal Parliament.{{sfn|Faulkner|Macintyre|2001|p=3}} The caucus decided to support the incumbent [[Protectionist Party]] in [[minority government]], while the [[Free Trade Party]] formed the [[Opposition (Australia)|opposition]]. It was some years before there was any significant structure or organisation at a national level. Labour <!-- Do not change spelling, is correct in historical context. -->under [[Chris Watson]] doubled its vote at the [[1903 Australian federal election|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<!-- Do not change spelling, is correct in historical context. --> [[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.<ref>{{Australian Dictionary of Biography |last= Nairn |first= Bede |year= 1990 |id= A120450b |title= Watson, John Christian (Chris) (1867–1941) |volume=12 | access-date =9 February 2010 }}</ref>

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 Australian federal election|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 system|Westminster tradition]] and regarded a [[two-party system]] as very much the norm.<ref>{{cite web|author=Charles Richardson |url=https://www.cis.org.au/app/uploads/2015/04/images/stories/policy-magazine/2009-autumn/25-1-09-charles-richardson.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://www.cis.org.au/app/uploads/2015/04/images/stories/policy-magazine/2009-autumn/25-1-09-charles-richardson.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |title=Fusion: The Party System We Had To Have? |date=25 January 2009 |access-date=19 September 2017}}</ref>

Although Watson led the party to a plurality victory (though not government, thanks to the [[Commonwealth Liberal|union of Free Traders and Protectionists]]) in [[1906 Australian federal election|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 Australian federal election|1910 federal election]], Fisher led Labor to victory, forming Australia's first elected federal [[majority government]], Australia's first elected [[Australian Senate|Senate]] majority, the world's first [[List of Labour parties|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.<ref>{{Cite Australian Dictionary of Biography |year=1981 |first=D. J. |last=Murphy |title=Andrew Fisher (1862–1928) |volume=8 |id2=fisher-andrew-378 |access-date =31 May 2007 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20070619030028/http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A080529b.htm |archive-date= 19 June 2007 |url-status= live}}</ref> The state branches were also successful, except in [[Victoria (Australia)|Victoria]], where the strength of [[Alfred Deakin|Deakinite]] liberalism inhibited the party's growth. The state branches formed their first majority governments in [[1910 New South Wales state election|New South Wales]] and [[1910 South Australian state election|South Australia]] in 1910, [[1911 Western Australian state election|Western Australia]] in 1911, [[1915 Queensland state election|Queensland]] in 1915 and [[1925 Tasmanian state election|Tasmania]] in 1925. Such success eluded the other Commonwealth Labour parties for another decade; the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party in Great Britain]] would not form even a minority government until [[1929 United Kingdom general election|1929]], and would have to wait another [[1945 United Kingdom general election|sixteen years]] to win a majority in its own right. Even in neighboring [[New Zealand]], Labour would not take power until [[1935 New Zealand general election|1935]]. In Canada, a [[Labour candidates and parties in Canada|national labour party]] was not even [[Co-operative Commonwealth Federation|formed until 1932]] and never formed government.

Analysis of the early NSW Labor caucus reveals "a band of unhappy amateurs",{{Quote without source|date=July 2024}} 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".{{Quote without source|date=July 2024}} The 1922 [[Australian Labor Party National Conference|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 [[Maurice Blackburn|Blackburn]] amendment, which said that "socialisation" was desirable only when was necessary to "eliminate exploitation and other anti-social features".{{sfn|McKinlay|1981|p=53}} 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 of Australia|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.{{Citation needed|date=July 2024}} [[Privatisation]] of state enterprises such as [[Qantas]] airways and the [[Commonwealth Bank]] was carried out by the [[Paul Keating]] government.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://jacobin.com/2021/03/australian-labor-party-paul-keating-privatization-neoliberalism |title=How the Labor Party Sold Australia's Public Assets for a Song |year=2021 |work=Max Chandler-Mather |publisher=Jacobin.com |access-date=6 January 2025 }}</ref>

The Labor Party is commonly described{{By whom|date=July 2024}} as a [[social democracy|social democratic]] party, and its constitution stipulates that it is a [[democratic socialism|democratic socialist]] party.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.alp.org.au/platform/chapter_12.php |title=National Constitution of the ALP |year=2009 |work=Official Website of the Australian Labor Party |publisher=Australian Labor Party |access-date=26 December 2009 |quote=The Australian Labor Party is a democratic socialist party and has the objective of the democratic socialisation of industry, production, distribution and exchange, to the extent necessary to eliminate exploitation and other anti-social features in these fields. |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091030014535/http://www.alp.org.au/platform/chapter_12.php |archive-date=30 October 2009 }}</ref> 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.{{sfn|McKinlay|1981|p=19}} Labor has at various times supported high [[tariff]]s 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.{{citation needed|date=October 2019}} 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]].