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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 (the "Tree of Knowledge") 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 election contested by Labour candidates was the 1891 New South Wales election, when Labour candidates (then called the Labor Electoral League of New South Wales) 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 concessions.〔''So Monstrous a Travesty'', Ross McMullen. Scribe Publications 2004. p.4.〕 Also in 1891, 3 United Labor Party candidates were elected to the South Australian Legislative Council.〔(Professional Historians Association (South Australia) )〕 At the 1893 South Australian election the United Labor Party won 10 of the 54 seats in the House of Assembly, and went into coalition with liberals headed by Charles Kingston, defeating the conservatives headed by John Downer. By the 1905 South Australian election Thomas Price became the first Labor Premier of South Australia. Re-elected at the 1906 double dissolution election serving until his death in 1909, it was the world's first stable Labor government. So successful, John Verran led Labor to form the state's first of many majority governments at the 1910 South Australian election. In 1899, Anderson Dawson formed a minority Labour government in Queensland, the first in the world, which lasted one week while the conservatives regrouped after a split. The colonial Labour parties and the trade unions were mixed in their support for the Federation of Australia. Some Labour representatives argued against the proposed constitution, claiming the Senate as proposed was too powerful, similar to the anti-reformist colonial upper houses and the British House of Lords. They feared federation would further entrench the power of the conservative forces. The first Labour leader and Prime Minister, Chris Watson, however, was a supporter of federation. ==Overview== The Labor Party is commonly described as a social democratic party, and its constitution stipulates that it is a democratic socialist party.〔 〕 The party was created by, and has always been influenced by, the trade unions, and in practice Labor politicians regard themselves as part of the broader labour movement and tradition. At the first federal election in 1901 Labor's platform called for a White Australia Policy, a citizen army and compulsory arbitration of industrial disputes.〔McKinlay (1981) p. 19〕 Labor has historically been a pragmatic party, and has at various times supported high tariffs and low tariffs, conscription and pacifism, White Australia and multiculturalism, nationalisation and privatisation, isolationism and internationalism. Historically, Labor and its affiliated unions were strong opponents of non-British immigration, expressed as the White Australia policy which barred all non-European migration to Australia. Besides the 19th century pseudo-scientific theories about "racial purity", the main labour concern was the fear of economic competition from immigrants prepared to accept low-wage, views which were shared by the vast majority of Australians and all major political parties. In practice the labour movement opposed all migration, on the grounds that immigrants competed with Australian workers and drove down wages. This objection continued until after World War II, when the Labor Chifley Government launched a major immigration program. The party's opposition to non-European immigration did not change until after the retirement of Arthur Calwell as leader in 1967. Subsequently Labor has become an advocate of multiculturalism, although some of its trade union base and some of its members continued to oppose high immigration levels. Analysis of the early NSW Labor caucus reveals "a band of unhappy amateurs", made up of blue collar workers, a squatter, a doctor, and even a mine owner, indicating that the idea that only the socialist working class formed Labor is untrue. In addition, many members from the working class supported the liberal notion of free trade between the colonies – in the first grouping of state MPs, 17 of the 35 were free-traders. In the aftermath of World War I and the Russian Revolution of 1917, support for socialism grew in trade union ranks, and at the 1921 All-Australian Trades Union Congress a resolution was passed calling for "the socialisation of industry, production, distribution and exchange." As a result, Labor's Federal Conference in 1922 adopted a similarly worded "socialist objective," which remained official policy for many years. The resolution was immediately qualified, however, by the "Blackburn amendment," which said that "socialisation" was desirable only when was necessary to "eliminate exploitation and other anti-social features."〔McKinlay (1981) p. 53〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「History of the Australian Labor Party」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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