page_title: History of the Australian Labor Party
section_title: Labor out of the wilderness
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Australian Labor Party / Labor out of the wilderness
caption_attribution_description: Bob Hawke, 23rd Prime Minister of Australia.
context_page_description: The history of 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 in Barcaldine, Queensland in 1891. The Balmain, New South Wales branch of the party claims to be the oldest in Australia. 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 general election contested by Labour candidates was the 1891 New South Wales election, where Labour candidates 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 enactment. Also in 1891, three United Labor Party of South Australia candidates were elected to the South Australian Legislative Council.
context_section_description: The DLP was effective in keeping Labor out of government at the federal level until 1972, enabling the Coalition to hold on to government in 1961 and 1969 on DLP preferences, though Labor won a majority of the two-party vote. The DLP was also effective in its strategy in Victoria and Queensland. In 1960, Evatt was succeeded as party leader by Arthur Calwell. Calwell was close to toppling Menzies at the 1961 election, but failed because of DLP preferences. He also was unsuccessful at the 1963 and 1966 elections. He resigned leadership in 1967 and was succeeded by Gough Whitlam. Under Whitlam, the ALP factionalised ideological viewpoints, 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. Whitlam and the ALP almost won government in the 1969 election, but again missed out because of DLP preferences and the electoral district bias in favour of rural electorates which favoured the Country Party. Whitlam won the 1972 election, bringing the DLP's strategy of keeping the ALP out of power undone. At the election Labor's primary vote was just under 50%, while the DLP's slipped to 5%.
  The Whitlam Labor government, marking a break with Labor's socialist tradition, pursued social-democratic policies rather than democratic socialist ones. The Whitlam Government passed a large amount of legislation, and saw a massive expansion of the federal budget to implement an extensive number of new programs and policy changes, including fee-free tertiary education, the formal removal of the White Australia Policy, the implementation of legal aid programs, the elimination of military conscription and criminal execution, health care in Australia became universal with the creation of Medibank, and tariffs were cut across the board by 25 percent. In 1974, Whitlam split the DLP by appointing Gair as ambassador to Ireland. Whitlam led federal Labor to another win at the double dissolution 1974 election, which was followed by the only joint sitting of Parliament. (The DLP in 1974 polled only 1% of the vote and lost all its Senate seats. The party formally wound up in 1978.)
  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 election. Whitlam remained leader of the party until the loss at the 1977 election, when he was succeeded by Bill Hayden. Whitlam retired from parliament in 1978.
  Hayden increased the Labor vote at the 1980 election. He was replaced by Bob Hawke in 1983, who led Labor back to office at the 1983 election. Hawke was defeated as Labor leader in a 1991 spill by Paul Keating, who had been Treasurer of Australia since 1983. Hawke is Labor's longest-serving Prime Minister and Australia's third-longest-serving Prime Minister. Hawke retired from parliament in 1992. Hawke and Keating led Labor to victory at five consecutive federal elections: 1983, 1984, 1987, 1990 and 1993. The Hawke and Keating Labor governments radically transformed the Australian economy, departing from a historical bipartisan Keynesian approach to the Australian economy, with the change of the Australian dollar from a government-fixed exchange rate to a floating exchange rate. Extensive deregulation of financial and banking systems occurred, both of which made Australia significantly more integrated with the global economy. Privatisation of state sector industries occurred, including Qantas and Commonwealth Bank. The tariff system was dismantled, and the subsidisation of some loss-making industries ended. Low-income centralised wage fixing was introduced through the Prices and Incomes Accord, and enterprise bargaining was introduced. The tax system was changed, including the introduction of fringe benefits tax and a capital gains tax. Superannuation in 
caption: Bob Hawke, Prime Minister 1983–91
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