
Issue No 86		02 March 2001

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History

The Spoilers and the Split

By Neale Towart

The Movement, Groupers, the DLP and The Doc. All have been blamed in various ways for the ALP split in the 1950s, ensuring the ALP was kept out of federal government until 1972. Can One Nation return the favour?

"The DLP founders did not believe they would win political power or seats in Parliament. Theirs was a tactical ploy to deny the ALP political power. This it did for two decades. The DLP was to have an important impact. It is a great pity that it makes no input into the political process today."

So said Kevin Davis, NSW Director of the Movement from 1951 to 1954, member of the DLP from 1956 to 1974 and press secretary to DLP senators from 1971 to 1974.

As Rod Cavalier said at the same conference as Davis, "traumatic disturbances occur when the adherents of the old order cannot accept the new." He is commenting on the ALP having avoided splitting on so many occasions throughout the past 50 years, given the many policy turnarounds in that time, showing acceptance of the new, and a loyalty to the collective will. Cavalier went on to say "the capacity of individuals and factions to adapt to the torrents of change has characterised the resilience of the party. Never has this been more true than in the 1990s."

Bob Gould also at this conference, points out the difference between the people involved in the factional and ideological battles of that time. His summing up "By and large the participants on both sides were the best and the most serious elements of working class Australia, generally self educated people, with a real interest in ideas and with strongly held beliefs".

No-one could accuse the current Liberal-National Party Coalition, or One Nation, of the latter failings.

Gould also points to the DLP's fatal flaws, chiefly the Santamaria groups giving preferences to the Libs. This kept the ALP out of power, but also ensured the DLP's own support withered on the vine throughout the 1960s, as the children of the Catholic working class enjoyed the greater opportunities available at the time, and the greater wealth of their depression generation parents, and were thus exposed to the ideas of the 1960s. "Many a pro-Viet Cong, hippie, dope-smoking student at Monash University in the late 60s was the child of a working class Catholic supporter of the Victorian DLP."

Many Catholics did not support the Movement, Groupers or the DLP. Cardnal Clancy was perhaps the most prominent of the Catholics against the DLP. In NSW the ALP not splitting as it did elsewhere was due in part to Clancy.

Pamphleteering was a major way of getting your message out at the time and the Freedom Series , no.1 pamphlet edited and published by A.W. Sheppard put the case for Evatt. "Catholic Action and Australian Labor: A frank commentary on some of the methods by which Catholic Action is subverting the true cause of Labor." was the title. The split was still to come but the passions that it aroused were all there.

Bishop Burgmann in an introductory message asserts the need for a path distinct from the Kremlin or the Vatican. "While the theme of this work is 'neither Rome nor Moscow', or words to that effect, it recognises that there is no hope for political sanity in the world unless the best men in opposing camps can get to know each other and learn of one another."

"Both Rome and Moscow have got something which we have to get anaother way. They inspire great devotion to the causes they represent, and their followers accept a strict discipline in the service of those causes [parallels with the ALP and its solidarity through trying times]. We must do better than they can do and at the same time preserve the larger freedom. The cynics think it can't be done, and that we are fools to think it can. We shall see."

Sounds reasonable. Readers of Manning Clark will find this familiar. He hoped for the best parts of Rome and Moscow; a theme that runs through his work.

A.W. Sheppard in his foreword to the pamphlet makes the point:

"while the evils and methods of Communism fill pages of the Press, and are the subject of constant attack in Parliament and from the pulpit, little, if anything, is ever mentioned of the menacing political programme of Rome. Politicians are bluffed into silence by threats of retaliation by Roman pressure bloc if they as much as whisper a question on Romish purposes in politics. Newspaper editorials, which whip themselves into a frenzy of words in dealing with Communists and striking trade unionists, are discreetly dumb on the incessant intrigues of Catholic Action."

Many claim the split was due to Evatt's paranoia, power hunger or just plain madness.

However, Evatt's motivation in attacking the groupers was his strong concern about the intergrity of the ALP, according to Buckley, Dale and Reynolds. He felt the ALP was threatened by groups from within who aimed to "deflect the Labour Movement from the pursuit of established Labor objectives and ideals', a concern he would have been wary of given his history in the party, his fights with the Langites and the CPA before and after the war.

The price of unity for the ALP during the referendum campaign on banning the CPA was great for Evatt. After two Victoria MPs publically went against ALP policy and campaigned for the Yes vote, Evatt stopped the Federal Executive from expelling them from the ALP. He had earlier written about the expulsion from the ALP of Holman (and Hughes) that was part of the earlier tragic split of the party (a split that Archibishop Mannix was also involved with):

"In 1916, when the Labor executive expelled Holman and Hughes, it entered upon a long era of powerlessness and futile opposition. It should have foreseen some of the disastrous consequences of life-long expulsion. But the two leaders should also have foreseen the consequences to Labor and to Australia. In truth there was an intermingling of passion and sentiment, of jealousy and resentment."

The anti-Catholic Action pamphleteer seems to realise what is coming:

"Sometimes the price of unity can be too great. Has Dr Evatt paid for unity at a rate which is beyond the capacity of the Australian Labour Movement to sustain?"

[The question was later answered with a Yes.]

"The task for all Australians who refuse to accept the domination of Catholic Action in our public life is to reject the subtle piece of Romish reasoning, often accepted in fear, viz., "the enemy (Rome) of your enemy (Communism) is your friend."

Conservatives within the ALP claim the split "could have been averted but for Evatt's stance, and that the party would not have remained so long out of power. This may be true, yet it begs the question concerninmg the essential nature of the party."

Evatt tends to be omitted from the pantheon of Labor Heroes, being seen as a loser, compared to Curtin and Chifley, lacking the heroic myth making qualities. However Buckley, Dale and Reynolds argue that Labor's right wing is "wary of what Evatt represented in terms of ideals and enthusiasm. Fortunately, not all has been lost in this respect. The ...move by the Keating government towards justice for Aborigines, following the High Court's Mabo judgement, would have been applauded by Evatt - it was he who, in the referendum of 1944, sought unsuccessfully to seucre constitutional power for the Commonwealth government to legislate concerning Aborigines".

A split over expulsion, and later a split when Evatt sought unity and the avoidance of expulsion. Evatt's reasoning was sound but the anti communists would not let up. Murray uses Evatt's own words about Holman and Hughes in his judgement against Evatt, but his actions seem to me entirely consistent with the course of his political life. His concept of the ideals and strengths of the ALP were his beacon.

References

For lots of differing views on these issues see (amongst many other things):

Doc Evatt by Ken Buckley, Barbara Dale and Wayne Reynolds; (Longman Cheshire, 1994)

The Split: Australian Labor in the fifties by Robert Murray; (Hale and Iremonger, 1984 first published by F.W. Cheshire, 1970)

The Democratic Labor Party by P.l. Reynolds (Jacaranda Press 1974)

Catholic Action and Australian Labor: a frank commentary on some of the methods by which Catholic Action is subverting the true cause of Labor edited by A.W. Sheppard. M.C. (Freedom Series no. 1)

The Great Labour Movement Split in NSW: inside stories edited by Bradon Ellem (Sydney Branch of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, 1998)

View entire issue - print all of the articles!

Issue 86 contents

Interview: Master of Opposition
Over the past five years, John Faulkner has turned the Senates Estimates structure into his own House of Pain. He explains the art of Opposition.

Politics: Beazley the Bridge Builder?
As the Howard Government flounders, Brett Evans looks at the challenges Kim Beazley faces as his hour of destiny approaches.

Unions: Lashing & Loathing at Patricks
Three years since one of the Howard Government�s most infamous episodes, the Waterfront War, Zoe Reynolds discovers how casuals are now doing the doing the dirty work on the docks.

Legal: Workers Without Rights
Mark Morey outlines the legal status and (lack of) rights for foreigners in Australia on working visas.

International: Dispatch from the Dispossessed
Mahendra Chaudhry, Leader of the People's Coalition and the Fiji Labour Party comments on this week�s court decision.

Economics: Business Power and Mobility
The US election season makes it patently clear how Big Business is able to transform its financial resources into political power via campaigncontributions.

History: The Spoilers and the Split
The Movement, Groupers, the DLP and The Doc. All have been blamed in various ways for the ALP split in the 1950s, ensuring the ALP was kept out of federal government until 1972. Can One Nation return the favour?

Review: The New Hard Politics
Dennis Glover argues that policy has taken over from spin as the political battleground of the new century.

Satire: Bradman Latest: Family In Dramatic Court Action
The family of the late Sir Donald Bradman yesterday sought a restraining order against Prime Minister John Howard after it became apparent that he wants to be involved in every single detail of the The Don's funeral.

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