Australia/Politics/Liberal Party

Australia/Politics/Liberal Party   (Political party)
Formation	1944
Founder	Robert Menzies
Sees itself as state-bearing party

The Liberal Party of Australia (LP) is a major centre-right political party in Australia, one of the two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-left Australian Labor Party. It was founded in 1944 as the successor to the United Australia Party.

The Liberal Party is the larger and dominant party in the Coalition with the countryside-based National Party of Australia. Except for a few short periods, the Liberal Party and its predecessors have operated in similar coalitions at federal level since the 1920s.

Menzies Era

After an initial loss to Labor at the 1946 election, Menzies led the Liberals to victory at the 1949 election, and the party stayed in office for a record 23 years— the longest unbroken run ever in government at the federal level. Australia experienced prolonged economic growth during the post-war boom period of the Menzies Government (1949–1966) and Menzies fulfilled his promises at the 1949 election to end rationing of butter, tea and petrol and provided a five-shilling endowment for first-born children, as well as for others.

While himself an unashamed anglophile, allowing British testing of nuclear weapons in Australia, Menzies' government concluded a number of major defence and trade treaties that set Australia on its post-war trajectory out of Britain's orbit and tied it to the United States; including the wars in Korea and Vietnam, and the highly strategic spy base in Pine Gap.

 

Related Quotation

Page	Quote	Author	Date
AIJAC/Rambam Program	“The hold of the Israel lobby over Australian politicians is based on two facts: first, donations to the political parties from the Jewish community leadership; second, paid trips to Israel extended to every member of parliament and journalists. From the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) over 700 trips alone. This political influence is particularly noticeable with the Victorian ALP Right and deserves some examination by journalistic sleuths, who seem reluctant to touch the subject. No other community, in my experience, treats politicians as their poodles, even when making a political case...”	Bob Carr	2018

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