Will a preoccupation with party unity destroy the Liberal Party?
The original Liberal Party was created from a fusion of the Protectionist and Free Trade parties in 1910.
- The original Liberal Party was created from a fusion of the Protectionist and Free Trade parties in 1910.
- It was officially named the Liberal Party, with Alfred Deakin as its leader, in 1913.
- Lyons “knew how to win elections” said former National Party prime minister, Stanley Bruce, but was bereft of policy initiative and struggled to maintain party discipline.
- It would take wholesale party reform and a revitalisation of the liberal message, led by Robert Menzies, for it to re-emerge as the Liberal Party that won government in 1949 and held office for 23 years.
- Is current intra-party contention of a scale that saw the implosion of the UAP and the creation of the modern Liberal Party?
- The republic issue, championed by Labor prime minister Paul Keating in the 1990s, looked likely to cause division with the Liberal Party.
- Indeed, Howard used the occasion to underline, as he often did, that the Liberal Party was a “broad church”.