Category: David Kemp’s history of Australian liberalism

Liberal project successes, followed by stall and setback (on David Kemp’s Consent of the People, 1966-2022)

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The Consent of the People: Human dignity through freedom and equality 1966-2022 concludes David Kemp’s epic five volume 2,504 page political history of Australia with particular reference to liberalism.

The full set takes us from the pre-liberalism of the late 18th century, when ‘liberal’ ideas and institutions were yet to be linked into the ideology of liberalism; through liberalism’s highpoint in the 19th century (volumes one and two); the twentieth century’s dismal first half when racism, protectionism, war, economic depression and utopian socialism broke liberalism but not democracy (volumes three and four); to the defeat of socialism after World War II covered in the later parts of volume four; to the story of volume five, which covers the revival of the liberal project in the 20th century’s final decades followed by stall and setback in the early 21st century.

The 40 years after Sir Robert Menzies retired as prime minister in 1966, having been in office since 1949, saw a liberalisation in which liberals were one influence among many. Kemp’s idea of ‘liberal project’, a policy agenda, is useful in understanding how Australia became a more liberal society despite ideological liberals not being numerous or always highly influential. Many people had reasons for overturning the ‘Australian settlement’ of the 1900s: white Australia, high tariffs, and a highly-regulated labour market.

In Australia’s division of political labour for the most part the people outside government calling for more liberal social policies and more liberal economic policies were different.

Liberal social policies were often promoted by single issue movements, at their core people trying to improve their own lives and not advance general philosophical ideals, although sometimes attracting support by appealing to broader principles (see Jon Piccini’s book on human rights in Australia).

Liberal economic policies were promoted by a broad coalition of politicians, bureaucrats, economists, business interests and think-tanks. In the think-tanks especially classical liberal philosophy was explicit, but in the other groups support for market mechanisms owed more to utilitarianism than freedom. The aim was greater and more efficient economic growth.

As in the immediate post-World War II period the Liberal and Labor parties provided the alternative governments. But ideologically party competition changed in the 1960s. Declining support for socialism within Labor and its increasingly university-educated and socially-liberal MPs and voters meant that attitudes to ‘liberalism’ were less of a divide between the two main parties. The Liberal Party often struggled to find a clear direction. Labor governments took the lead in ‘liberal’ reforms.

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Socialism defeated but liberalism not triumphant (on David Kemp’s A Liberal State: How Australians Chose Liberalism over Socialism 1926–1966)

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The first three volumes of David Kemp’s Australian political history told the story of Australian liberalism’s rise and fall between 1788 and 1925. In a global comparative sense Australia remained a liberal democracy in 1925, but ‘policy change by erosion’ (to use a Kemp phrase from another context) was undermining its liberal characteristics.

From a contemporary liberal perspective, Kemp’s third volume showed that key policy erosions such as the White Australia policy, protectionism and industrial arbitration came from governments that were broadly on the liberal side of the then dominant ideological conflicts. The increasing influence of socialist ideas, the growth of trade unions, and Labor Party electoral successes all threatened a more radical abandonment of liberal ideas and institutions.

This fourth volume in Kemp’s series, covering the decades from 1926 to 1966, is sub-titled ‘How Australians chose liberalism over socialism’. By 1966 the socialist threat to Australian liberalism, which began in the late 19th century and peaked in the 1930s and 1940s, had been defeated. But this was not a foregone conclusion. A Liberal State tells the story of how the semi-liberal order of 1925 survived the challenges it faced over the next 40 years.

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The decline of liberalism in early 20th century Australia (a post on the third volume of David Kemp’s history of Australian liberalism)

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The first volume of David Kemp’s history of Australian liberalism told the surprising story of how, between 1788 and 1860, a penal colony became an early liberal democracy. In the second volume, covering 1861 to 1901, the new national constitution federating the six colonies gave Australian democracy deep legal foundations.

While democracy was strengthened, by 1901 liberalism was weakened. Liberal political movements were divided between protectionist and free trade versions. Both were challenged by utopian socialist ideas and a militant union movement. The unions acquired direct political influence as Labour MPs won seats in parliament (Labor does not drop the ‘u’ until 1912). Kemp’s third volume, A Democratic Nation: Identity, Freedom and Equality in Australia 1901-1925, chronicles further liberal troubles in the first quarter century of federation.

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Federation under a liberal-democratic constitution the last victory of 19th century Australian liberalism (a review of the second volume of David Kemp’s history of Australian liberalism)

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David Kemp’s The Land of Dreams: How Australians Won Their Freedom, 1788–1860, his first volume of an Australian political history seen from a liberal perspective, told a surprisingly positive story. The British settlers who arrived in 1788 established a penal colony; an inauspicious start for a liberal society. But by the book’s conclusion in 1860 Australia had, for its European residents, transformed itself into a largely free society. The Australian colonies were also early experiments in democracy. Self-described liberals, drawing on intellectual debates in England and elsewhere, played key roles in this transition.

In 1901, when this second volume in Kemp’s five-part series finishes, the liberals had enjoyed a recent triumph. The newly federated Commonwealth of Australia, which began that year, gave Australian democracy deep legal foundations. It was a limited government, with the national parliament restricted to legislating on a specific list of topics. Free trade between the states was guaranteed. Private property could be taken by government only on ‘just terms’. A national established church was a legal impossibility.

But in many other respects things had gone badly wrong. The new Constitution prohibited tariffs and other restrictions on interstate commerce, but protectionism lived on at the national level. The new Constitution included a power for the conciliation and arbitration of industrial disputes, the basis of non-market wage setting. The flow of people into Australia was more restricted, with racist ideas central to migration policy. Sectarian disputes within Australian society, especially between Catholics and Protestants, were entrenched. Class divisions, although less sharp than in Britain, were a serious problem.

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The rise of liberalism in colonial Australia (a review of the first volume of David Kemp’s history of Australian liberalism)

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(A shorter version of this review, omitting discussion of how the American experience influenced Australian politics to the mid-19th century, is cross-posted at Goodreads.)

This book is the first in David Kemp’s five-volume history of liberalism in Australia. The series, three volumes out to date, will cover 1788 to 2019. This first book takes us from European settlement in 1788 to 1860, when the colonies had achieved a substantial level of democratic self-government. It is principally a political history with special reference to liberalism; it focuses on major players and their involvement in big debates and events, not on the philosophical views of long-forgotten writers and activists.

To disclose my biases, I have known David Kemp for decades, including working for and with him, and share his interest in and concern for the Australian liberal tradition, with its ups and downs over 200 or so years in Australia. Some years ago I read a manuscript that turned into the first two volumes of this series.

In 1788, when British settlers arrived in the place that became Sydney, there was not yet such a thing as liberalism. The period covered by this first volume is the early decades of both Australia (that name is post-1788 too, but for convenience I’ll use it for the colonies collectively) and liberalism.

Although 1788 was before liberalism, many of the institutions and ideas that were later joined under the label ‘liberal’ were forming. Liberalism came in part from the creative linking between and expansion of existing ideas, institutions and issues.

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