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LUCIA J~ J+oq cg , Pt'0'/I~ Iq0~ :) ('(G( e;{ Ideological Groups ill the Australian Labor Party and rfheir Attitudes by TOM TRUMAN Price: £1 ($2) University of Queensland Papers Department of History and Political Science Volume I Number 2 UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND PRESS St. Lucia 5 November 1965 WHOLLY SET UP AND PRINTED IN AUSTRALIA BY WATSON FERGUSON AND COMPANY, BRISBANE, QUEENSLAND 1965 REGISTERED IN AUSTRALIA FOR TRANSMISSION BY pOST AS A BOOK CONTENTS Page THE SURVEY 45 The Questionnaire 47 The Sample 47 The Method of Correlating the Results 47 The Ideological Groups 50 ATTITUDES REFLECTED IN THE SURVEY TOPICS 52 Classes and Class War 52 Capitalism 53 Foreign Policy 55 The Soviet Union 58 America 59 Imperialism 62 Nationalism and Internationalism 65 War and Pacifism 68 Conscription 70 Immigration and Race 72 , Democracy 75 Trade Unionism 80 Industrial Disputes and Compulsory Arbitration 82 Full Employment Means 83 Inflation and Controls 84 Social Services 86 Tariffs 87 Banking and Finance 88 The Press 90 Conclusions 9l SOME EVIDENCE OF IDEOLOGICAL GROUPING EXISTING AT PRESENT TIME IN QUEENSLAND AND OTHER STATES 92 The Extreme Left 92 The Moderate Left 115 The Anti-Communist Moderate Left 123 The Moderate Right 125 The Extreme Right 137 THE REFUSAL OF IDEOLOGY TO DIE .. 153 IDEOLOGICAL GROUPS IN THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY AND THEIR ATTITUDES THE SURVEY This survey of attitudes of Labor Party activists was made just before the split in the Labor Party occurred in Queensland. l Its original purpose was to see whether the views I had attributed to party activists in my Master of Arts thesis 2 on the Australian Labor movement on the basis of statements of party spokesmen, party publications, and conversations over many years were as widely held as I imagined. Later, I wondered whether the survey might show the ideological aspect of the split by showing a definite pattern of "left" and "right" attitudes. After a preliminary examination of the results of the survey and noting that only forty-five of my sixty-nine respondents had sent in replies I put the material away, to disinter it some six years later. As I was very busy in 1957 collecting information about the split and preparing my book Catholic Action and Politics3 I ----- - - -------------------------------- 1 Premier Gait was expelled by the Central Executive on 24 Apri11957, and the Labor Party divided into those that followed him and those who remained loyal to the Central Executive. 2 "The Pressure Groups, Parties and Politics of the Australian Labor Movement" (Master of Arts thesis, University of Queensland, 1954). 3 Melbourne: Georgian House, 1959. 45 46 TOM TRUMAN had no time to give it my close attention then. In any case, publication at the time would have interfered with the collection of information about the split because it Was very likely that the factions would use the results as ammunition in the party battles. Newspaper reporters had got wind of my project and were trying to discover the results. All things considered it seemed best to lay the material aside for a while. Now that I have made a close examination of the results I think they are interest­ In&q.s indicating that there exist four distinct ideological groupings in the answers of niY respondents, and though the numbers involved are small there is reason to believe that these ideological groupings may exist in the Australian Labor Party at large. If this is tme then it would deny the opinion of some political scientists that there are no ideological patterns of attitudes in the Australian Labor Party but members of the A.L.P. are "aU over the place" in their views. It also tends to refine the simple distinc­ tion into "left" and "right" that is the commonplace of political commentaries and may also do something to clear up the confusion that exists over such questions as: "Is the Australian Labor Party a socialist party?" "How far is the A.L.P. sympathetic to communism?" "Is the A.L.P. still deeply committed to the White Australia policy?" and so on. I have shown the results to colleagues in the Government Department of the University of Queensland and discussed their implications with them. With their encouragement I have decided to publish them. They have agreed with me that though the numbers in my survey are small, the significant thing is the clear emergence of four distinct ideological groupings, that is to say, there is a fairly well-defined pattern ofviews which can be divided into four parts that I have labelled Extreme Left, Mod­ erate Left, Moderate Right, and Extreme Right. The improbability that the occurrence of this pattern is peculiar to the answers ofthe respondents to my 1957 survey leads to the assumption that the pattern probably exists today (some of my respondents, I am fairly sure from their published statements, still have much the same attitudes if about rather different events, and even if some of them might conceivably have changed their ideological positions those positions are represented in the party by others today), and the pattern probably, and more importantly, exists in the party at large. At the end of this paper I adduce some evidence for believing that this conclusion may be right. Only a tme random sampling of Labor Party activists throughout Australia could establish my assmnptions as being proven. But such a sample could only be obtail1ed by the official endorsement of the Federal Executive of the A.L.P., an endorsement that would not be given except to an official survey, and this is a survey that is most unlikely to be made; even if it were made the results of it would probably not be available to anyone outside the top group of the party's hierarchy. Even my small survey presented many difficulties which took a great deal of time and thought, as well as the co-operation of quite a few friends and well-disposed people, to surmount. Having regard to the absence of any other survey, the unsatisfactory features of this one should, my colleagues think, not prevent its publication. In order to allow the reader to judge the worth of the survey and the significance, if any, ofits results there follow some details about the questionnaire, the sample, and the correlating of the answers to produce the four ideological groups. I drew up a questionnaire with the intention of eliciting the more permanent and more typical attitudes. In listing the topics I was guided by a study of conference and executive reports and party platform in all states, by an examination of the party press in several states over a period of about ten years off and on, by the reading of articles and books on the history of the party and its more or less contemporary position, and by a personal knowledge of Labor men'S views gained in more than twenty years' association with members of the party in South Australia, Victoria, and Queensland. Even then I cannot be sure of course that my judgment is not at fault and there may well be important items that have been left out ofthe questionnaire. Another point ofcriticism may well be the form ofthe questions and the variety of the responses provided. IDEOLOGICAL GROUPS IN THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY 47 The questionnaire The questionnaire, as the reader may see from reading the form in which the results are published, is divided into a number of topics such as "Capitalism", "Foreign Policy", "Immigration and Race", "Democracy", and so on. Under each topic is listed a number of responses, for example, under "Classes and Class War" there are the following possible answers: 1. There are no classes in Australia. 2. The working class is exploited by the capitalists. 3. The workers and capitalists are engaged in a continual class war. 4. The workers have won the class struggle. 5. There are classes in Australia but there is no great class feeling or class war. 6. The workers cannot win the class war until socialism is introduced. The respondents were asked to put a tick alongside the answer/answers they considered most appropriate. A space was provided under each topic for an answer not catered for in the supplied responses. The sample I polled twelve federal Labor members of parliament with whom 1 had some acquaintance. They seemed to include a range of ideological opinion. The split in the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party had taken place in 1955, some eighteen months before, and I included one member of the Democratic Labor Party who had been a leading personality in the old Catholic Social Movement-Industrial Group faction. Five of the twelve did not complete the survey. Two of these, whom I judged to be sympathetic to the Industrial Groupers, were indignant at my presumption in asking them to answer my questionnaire, and their failure to respond could be attributed to the difficulties of their position as a minority likely to be persecuted or even ex­ pelled. I mention this incident to illustrate the difficulties inherent in the survey. The seven federal Labor parliamentarians who replied were all from states other than Queensland. All the rest of the forty-five respondents were from Queensland. r polled twelve members of the Queensland state parliament, again trying to get a range of ideological opinion. Only five replied. I polled two electorate branches of the A.L.P. One was the Jubilee branch which generally had the reputation of being an anti-Grouper branch.