Talk:Democratic Labour Party (Australia)

Untitled

I reverted the edit to my added section on seceding ALP parliamentarians in April, 1955 (not 1954). See www.aph.gov.au/library/parl/hist/histinfo.htm. Please ensure you double check your facts before making corrections in the future. Mrodowicz 15:39, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Previous edit

Please cease changing article without cites, such as "catholic extremist". Timeshift (talk) 21:48, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

7 lower house MPs in 1955

Shows none were elected in 1955. Were they all former Labor MPs who defected in 1955 after the election? Timeshift (talk) 00:47, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Good catch! The article states At the ALP national conference in Hobart, 1955, Santamaria's parliamentary supporters in the federal and Victorian parliaments were expelled from the ALP, against that party's constitutional rules. They then formed a group called the ALP (Anti-Communist), which in 1957 became the DLP. Therefore we cannot possibly list the 7 under the heading 'DLP and ALP (Anti-Communist) Parliamentarians'. The DLP did not contest until 1958 (winning no seats then). I've taken the liberty of resectioning with altered headings to make more sense of it, at least until we have a more consistent and properly referenced explanation in the article. Cheers Bjenks (talk) 07:01, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

One does not have to be elected under a party's banner to be a parliamentary member of that party. Julian McGauran (elected as a National, then became a Liberal between elections) is a more recent example. Meg Lees was another (left the Dems to sit for her own party). So other than the year, there was nothing wrong with the addition. It was cited as well as the other members listed (ie not at all).118.209.213.168 (talk) 11:59, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I think you've misunderstood the point. The point was that they were never DLP MPs, they were ALP (Anti-Communist) MPs because they were all defeated before the ALPAC became the DLP. Frickeg (talk) 22:03, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Gair Affair

My memory is consistent with the edit that was just reverted, even if the style read as POV. That is, the object of the appointment was to create a vacancy that would be filled at the next election, which would have given Labor a better chance of winning (can't recall the exact mechanics). Whitlam was outmanoeuvred by Joh Bjelke-Petersen (again, can't recall the exact mechanics) but everything was rendered moot by the decision of the Opposition to block Supply. Whitlam then called, and won, a double dissolution election. JQ (talk) 10:10, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

As I understand it, the way the rules worked was that if a Senate seat fell vacant mid term the state parliament would nominate a replacement but they would only sit until the next Senate elections. The vacant seat would then be filled in the elections - if it was a seat from the other cycle then an additional Senator would be elected and some mechanism worked out which one Senator got a three year + term and which five got six year terms. Timrollpickering (talk) 19:23, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

The Australian Consititution was amended in 1977 to provide that Senate vacancies had to be filled by a Senator of the same political party as the departing Senator, and that the Senator appointed to fill the vacancy would hold office for the remainder of the Senator's unexpired term. This is an important point. Before 1977 Senators were appointed only until the next election of Senators, or the next election for the House of Representatives if the two houses were out of sync.

This happened in Victoria in 1966 at the Reps only election, when a Senate vacancy was filled in Victoria. This caused problems with proportional representation, for with six Senators to be elected rather than five the quota was lower. In Queensland had Bjelke Petersen not been successful in preventing Whitlam from enabling an election of six rather than five Senators from Queensland the ALP would have benefited from the election of a sixth Senator and a lower quota.

In NSW in 1970 the election of six Senators rather than five enabled the election of Jack Kane from the DLP. In Victoria in 1958 Jack Little of the DLP lost because the lower quota enabled Senator Sandford to be re-elected by about a thousand votes, defeating Little. Had there been five Senators to be elected in that year from Victoria rather than six Little would have won, for he would have benefited from Liberal preferences after the elimination of the third Liberal candidate. Paradoxically Little would also have been successful if the ALP had been eliminated, for the ALP in that year directed preferences to Little rather than the Coalition. Pestbuda (talk) 12:51, 16 January 2011 (UTC) 16 January 2011

Hope this explains the situation adequately.

Whitlam's motivations

In 1974, Whitlam appointed Gair Ambassador to Ireland in a bid to split the DLP and remove its influence.

I'd have to check the biographies again but my recollection of them is that Whitlam was primarily focused on finding an extra winnable Senate seat rather than specifically trying to bring down the DLP. He alighted on Gair because Queensland was the best hope for this strategy and because Gair was disillusioned with his party after they deposed him and willing to accept a diplomatic post. Timrollpickering (talk) 18:17, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Queensland Labor Party absorbed into the DLP

The Queensland Labor Party article says the QLP was absorbed into the DLP in 1962, but then goes on to discuss the QLP's electoral success in 1963 and 1966. Can anyone clarify if/when/how the QLP was absorbed into the DLP? Kerry (talk) 09:31, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

It was in 1962. The QLP article tells the story of the party in Queensland, including after the name change. Timrollpickering 22:11, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

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Why is this a separate article?

Why is this a separate article to Democratic Labour Party (Australia)? That articles states "The Australian Electoral Commission considers the current DLP to be legally the same as the earlier DLP". If I remember correctly John Madigan and Rachel Carling-Jenkins were both widely reported as "the first DLP member in XX years" ... I don't really understand why we're claiming there are two separate parties when no one else is. Ivar the Boneful (talk) 09:08, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

There was a discussion about it many, many years ago - so long ago I have no clue where. I feel like there are two pretty much equally valid arguments: that the party did vote to disband in 1978 (with actual consequences, e.g. with the affiliated unions). On the other hand, the tiny group who wanted to continue did keep contesting elections, and the AEC decision could well be seen as decisive. (Would be useful to have their rationale for that decision). I don't have strong opinions either way. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:25, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Article title, better to call it Democratic Labor Party (1955-1978) ?

"historical" is a bit vague and also dependent on your age (I don't tend to think of things from my own lifetime as "historic") so my assumption was this was an earlier incarnation of the DLP. I think the years are unambiguous in terms of the reader "yes, that's the article I want". Kerry (talk) 04:50, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

I think that's probably a better title than this one, but we never did resolve the issue in the section above about whether they should even be separate articles. The Drover's Wife (talk) 04:53, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Merger discussion

I propose that the two Democratic Labor Party pages get merged. The current DLP isn't a different organisation, it's a continuation of the Victorian branch that voted against merging.[1] We should just give substantial weight on the page that most branches rejoined the Labor Party. Catiline52 (talk) 05:27, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

• Support. The decision to split was made so long ago that I don't think any of the original participants are still around, and both APH (in Catiline52's link) and the AEC consider them the same. As Catiline says, substantial weight should be given to the groups that disbanded in the 1970s. Frickeg (talk) 07:40, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

• Support as it seems to be the same entity and we can expand on the events around 1978 as suggested. Marcnut1996 (talk) 09:51, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
• Comment: I think the split discussion was Talk:Democratic Labour Party (Australia)#Two articles?, proposed by Adam Carr in 2006 after the DLP won an upper house seat in Victoria. Carr isn't around any more but looks like the other two participants have edited recently. --Canley (talk) 03:32, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for that. The precedent given in the argument for the two pages was the two Communist Parties, however, the 'new' Communist Party was never the same organisation. It split over a few decades beforehand forming an entirely different party (Socialist Party of Australia), with an entirely different structure. They even ran against each other in elections on separate tickets. There doesn't seem to be much evidence that the DLP are different organisations, the AEC/Parliament house considers them as the Victorian branch that decided not to dissolve. Catiline52 (talk) 04:05, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

• Support. I think I have raised this elsewhere previously. I've never seen another source that claims there are two different DLPs, it seems like it's something Wikipedia invented way back when. Ivar the Boneful (talk) 10:20, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
• Note on the different colour templates, which I would be inclined to keep as they are. Figuring out historical party colours is a bit of a nightmare, but the DLP's current wheat colour seems to have been adopted fairly recently (around 2010-ish). There is also more potential for clashes/implications of connection with the Democrats who rose about the same time the DLP fell. Frickeg (talk) 05:52, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

I'd like to agree with this sentiment. I have no problem with the merging of the party articles, but in my view, the teal colouring of the old party helps reflect that it was a major player (at least in preferences) to the conservative side of Australian politics from 1955-1972. Kirsdarke01 (talk) 04:30, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Is there any reason the teal colour can't be used across the board? It's not uncommon for other sources to use colours that are different from the party's logo/branding to represent them in election diagrams etc, especially if there's a colour conflict. Ivar the Boneful (talk) 13:44, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

There has been a recent trend of changing party colours to the exact shade used on their current website/branding. I am on the record opposing this, as it often leads to clashes and parties with very similar colours. I would have no objection to the DLP being teal across the board. Frickeg (talk) 20:16, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

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