The Democratic Labour Party (DLP) stands for traditional values and a better deal for working families. The DLP is neither ‘Left’ nor ‘Right’ as people usually understand those words in Australian politics. Unlike the ALP, it is not dictated to by unions and unlike the Liberal Party, it does not seek to serve the interests of big business.
A basic element of our philosophy is that the interests of Australians may be best served by preserving, protecting and building on the family. It is a fundamental policy of the DLP to support a responsible elected government that will promote social and economic justice, a fair and decent society for families and a sense of national direction that will help to make Australia prosperous, self-reliant and secure.
We believe in the rights and responsibilities of individuals, families and local communities.
The DLP represents and upholds the traditional values and principles of the labour movement, which supports families, workers and communities as the foundations of our society and the basis of all sound economic principle.
“I try to think of the Labour movement, not as putting an extra sixpence into somebody’s pocket, or making somebody Prime Minister or Premier, but as a movement bringing something better to the people, better standards of living, greater happiness to the mass of the people. We have a great objective – the light on the hill – which we aim to reach by working the betterment of mankind not only here but anywhere we may give a helping hand. If it were not for that, the Labour movement would not be worth fighting for.
If the movement can make someone more comfortable, give to some father or mother a greater feeling of security for their children, a feeling that if a depression comes there will be work, that the government is striving its hardest to do its best, then the Labour movement will be completely justified.”
– Prime Minister Ben Chifley, 12 June 1949.
Articles 14 – 20 of the DLP Constitution
14. To establish, under Almighty God, the political, legal, social and economic foundations for a just, free and democratic society and for a self-reliant and secure Australia.
15. To decentralise, to the maximum extent practicable, the ownership, management and control of the means of production, distribution and exchange.
16. To protect the fundamental and inalienable rights of each person embodied in the common law, statute and tradition – to life, to the essential liberties of conscience, to equality and natural justice, to ownership of property and to a livelihood that enhances the dignity, status and security of the person.
17. To advance the rights, welfare and status of the natural family, founded in traditional marriage, as the primary provider in the nurturing, rearing and educating of the young and in the care of the infirm and the aged.
18. To assert the right of governments to supervise the nation’s economy, maintain the rule of law and protect the welfare of the less privileged.
19. To make a just contribution to the liberties and welfare of the peoples of other nations and to work for international understanding, regional stability and peace.
20. To promote the principles, objectives and policies of the Democratic Labor Party, through education, organisation and the selection of suitable men and women as candidates in federal, state and municipal elections.
5. The Democratic Labour Party shall promote the political, social and economic order of the decentralist nation-community as a preferred alternative to the authoritarian rigidities of socialist-centralist control and the libertarian extremes of the capitalist global market.
6. The Democratic Labour Party shall embrace principles which are distributist, or decentralist, in basic tenet and which call for practical social justice, the widest possible distribution of political, social and economic power and a decentralised society.
7. Democratic Labour Party policy shall be formulated to favour the smaller unit of responsibility and decision-making, rather than the larger, in government, business and community affairs.
8. In social policy the Democratic Labour Party shall recognise that rights and responsibilities that rest with individuals, families and the local community ought not to be relegated to larger social agencies or the state.
9. In economic policy the Democratic Labour Party shall acknowledge that the smaller unit in industry, commerce and the farming sector deserves protection from unfair competition or takeover by larger, more capitalised concerns.
10. The Democratic Labour Party shall insist that functions of federal government should be exercised without encroachment on the rightful responsibilities of state and local administrations, or the communities they serve.
11. The Democratic Labour Party shall uphold principles of democracy intended to maintain – a) responsible government, representative parliaments, the fundamental liberties of conscience, equality, justice and the rule of law; b) a decent and secure livelihood for all, through wage justice, fair rewards for enterprise, adequate social security and equity in the determination of prices, interest rates and the level of taxation; c) limits upon centralism in government and upon the concentrations of power in corporate business, financial institutions, trade unions and the communications media; d) protection of the constitutional sovereignty of the people of the Commonwealth, and of each State of the Commonwealth against outside political interference, economic coercion or external aggression; e) resistance to the spread of totalitarian, supranationalist and other anti-democratic ideologies, and cautious realism in dealings with the regimes, movements and fronts that derive from them.
12. The Democratic Labour Party shall uphold principles of liberty intended to affirm – a) orthodox values and traditions and the ethic of civic responsibility as the foundation for genuine human freedoms and the common good; b) the sacredness of human life, from conception until natural death, as the fundamental basis for all human rights; c) the historical indispensability of the family as the primary guardian of personal freedoms vis-a-vis the state; d) the authority of just law as paramount in the protection of community interests against exploitation, violence or threat from self-serving, coercive-ideological and lawless agents or groups; e) distributive democracy as the means to advance the welfare, status and development of the people and support basic freedoms and rights.
13. The Democratic Labour Party shall uphold principles of peace intended to promote – a) personal security, harmony and trust within families, mutual tolerance and respect among all peoples and communities and the right to lawful national self-determination; b) development of co-operative links between nations in matters of mutual interest, including foreign aid, migration and refugees, scientific and cultural exchanges, trade and essential defence alliances; c) preparedness for legitimate self-defence against external aggression or threat to the nation and its regional or global interests, through the maintenance of a flexible and effective deterrent capability; d) multilateral armaments reduction which is balanced, verifiable and progressive; e) vigilance against unilateralism, pacifism and appeasement and the strategic instabilities they abet.
The Democratic Labour Party (DLP) formally began in 1955 but was a part of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) before that date. We count the members of the ALP prior to 1955, including Prime Minister Ben Chifley, as part of our party’s history.
During 1941-49, the Communist Party almost subverted the Australian Labor Party by infiltrating ALP-affiliated unions. By 1945-48, rank-and-file “industrial groups” were organised and trained to defeat the communists in trade union elections.
While the industrial groups had almost completely curbed communist power in the unions, the success was reversed under the leadership of Herbert V. Evatt. Following his failed 1954 election campaign, he attacked the industrial groups. The ALP began supporting the communists, sponsoring “unity tickets” in trade union ballots.
Affiliated unions coming again under Communist Party control were then able to dictate ALP policy in critical areas, including foreign affairs and defence.
This led to the birth of the Democratic Labour Party.
The founders of the DLP were eminent parliamentarians, trade unionists, ALP officials and ordinary ALP members. They were unlawfully expelled from the ALP in the immediately-preceding crisis that became known as “the Split”. The majority of ALP members and ALP branches in Victoria, where the Split began, joined with the expelled anti-communists.
They knew what was at stake. Labour movement traditions of democracy, justice and fairness had been subverted. The rule book had effectively been torn up. The policies of the ALP – the alternative government – were beginning to reflect the views of the extremist union bosses with reckless economic agendas and allegiances to hostile communist regimes. Australian democracy was in danger. National security was threatened. Social justice priorities for the families of Australian workers were at risk.
The expelled anti-communists formed the Australian Labor Party (Anti-Communist). In 1957 it became the Australian Democratic Labor Party, then the Democratic Labor Party of Australia, and in 2013 it became the Democratic Labour Party.
No other political party in Australia can boast that its parliamentary founders (51 in total, including 14 ministers and a State Premier), were prepared to sacrifice promising political careers to uphold a principle: in their case, anti-communism.
All were to lose their seats in elections following the Split. This was the outcome of a media campaign orchestrated by the communists and the pro-communist left to undermine public sympathy and to impute a sectarian motivation for the DLP stand.
Between the ‘split’ of 1955 and 1974 the DLP held the balance of power in the Senate, scrutinising and approving vital legislation before it could be passed into law. The Democratic Labour Party offered a distinct alternative to the other political parties. It was an alternative based on two essential ends: bolstering the family and defending the nation.
The double dissolution election of 18 May 1974 polarised the electorate. As a result, all DLP Senators lost their seats.
Since 1974, the DLP contested every election but success did not come until 2006, when Peter Kavanagh was elected as a Member of the Legislative Council for Western Victoria. Since then, the DLP has grown and has been re-established in every State in the Commonwealth of Australia.
With the re-emergence of extremist political groups and the basic rights of Australian workers and families under threat, it is not surprising that the DLP has regained its popularity.
In 2011, in a result that no political pundit predicted, John Madigan was elected to represent Victoria in the Senate. A blacksmith and railway worker, like Ben Chifley and his family, John epitomised everything that the labour movement stood for and was determined to bring the voice of the average Australian back to the Senate.
In 2014, Dr Rachel Carling-Jenkins was elected to represent Western Metropolitan in the Victorian state upper house. Rachel was the 55th parliamentarian of the Democratic Labour Party (at state or federal level) and became the Party’s first female parliamentarian. Dr Carling-Jenkins has a PhD in Social Science and worked extensively as an academic and social worker.
Distributism is an economic and political philosophy that is an alternative to both capitalism and socialism.
Opposed to laissez-faire capitalism, which distributists argue leads to a concentration of ownership in the hands of a few, and to state-socialism, in which private ownership is denied altogether, distributism was conceived as a genuine Third Way, opposing both the tyranny of the marketplace and the tyranny of the state, by means of a society of owners.
Distributism is an economic system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by as many private owners as possible for the purpose of self-reliance for its citizens.
Distributism is concerned with improving the material lot of the poorest and most disadvantaged. However, unlike socialism, which advocates state ownership of property and the means of production, distributism seeks to devolve or widely distribute that control to individuals within society, rejecting what it saw as the twin evils of plutocracy and bureaucracy.
The ownership of the means of production should be spread as widely as possible among the general populace, rather than being centralised under the control of the state (state socialism) or a few large businesses or wealthy private individuals (laissez-faire capitalism). As Chesterton said, “Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists.”
Some have seen it more as an aspiration, which has been successfully realised in the short term by a commitment to the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity (these being built into financially independent local cooperatives and small family businesses).
Naturally, it follows that Distributism favours the principles of industrial democracy and the cooperative model of business.
Subsidiarity
Distributism puts great emphasis on the principle of subsidiarity. This principle holds that no larger unit (whether social, economic, or political) should perform a function which can be performed by a smaller unit. Thus, any activity of production (which distributism holds to be the most important part of any economy) ought to be performed by the smallest possible unit. This helps support distributism’s argument that smaller units, families if possible, ought to be in control of the means of production, rather than the large units typical of modern economies.
The essence of subsidiarity is concisely inherent in the Chinese maxim ‘Give someone a fish and you feed him for a day; teach the person to fish and you feed him for a lifetime’.
Private Property
Under such a system, most people would be able to earn a living without having to rely on the use of the property of others to do so. Examples of people earning a living in this way would be farmers who own their own land and related machinery, plumbers who own their own tools, software developers who own their own computer, etc. The “cooperative” approach advances beyond this perspective to recognise that such property and equipment may be “co-owned” by local communities larger than a family, e.g., partners in a business.
Society of Artisans
Distributism promotes a society of artisans and culture. This is influenced by an emphasis on small business, promotion of local culture, and favoring of small production over capitalistic mass production. A society of artisans promotes the distributist ideal of the unification of capital, ownership, and production rather than what distributism sees as an alienation of man from work.
This does not suggest that distributism favours a technological regression to a pre-Industrial Revolution lifestyle, but a more local ownership of factories and other industrial centers. Products such as food and clothing would be preferably returned to local producers and artisans instead of being mass produced overseas.
Guild System
The kind of economic order envisaged by the early distributist thinkers would involve the return to some sort of guild system. The present existence of labour unions does not constitute a realisation of this facet of distributist economic order, as labour unions are organized along class lines to promote class interests and frequently class struggle, whereas guilds are mixed class syndicates composed of both employers and employees cooperating for mutual benefit, thereby promoting class collaboration.
Banks
Distributism favors the dissolution of the current private bank system, or more specifically its profit-making basis in charging interest. Dorothy Day, for example, suggested abolishing legal enforcement of interest-rate contracts. It would not entail nationalisation but could involve government involvement of some sort. Distributists look favorably on credit unions as a preferable alternative to banks.
The Democratic Labour Party is the only political party in Australia that espouses Distributism.
The 2023 Federal Conference and Annual General Meeting of the Democratic Labour Party will be held on the 21st October 2023.
Delegates will be notified directly of the details.
Full members wishing to attend as observers, please contact the Federal Secretary at secretary@dlp.org.au.
Ends.
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