J.R. Nethercote, ed. - Liberalism and the Australian Federation

J.R. Nethercote, ed.,

Liberalism and the Australian Federation

Annandale, NSW: The Federation Press

xx + 380pp. Hardback 1 86287 402 6

This well-presented collection of eighteen essays is the outcome of a project by the Liberal Party to mark the centenary of federation, an initiative that everyone should applaud, irrespective of political allegiance. Ten of the contributions form a kind of relay-race coverage of the achievements of the Liberal Party and its forerunners in shaping the constitution and governing the Commonwealth. Of particular interest is Ian Hancock’s contribution dealing with the post-Menzies governments from 1966 to 1972. He does not dispute that they were ineptly led, but argues a persuasive case that they initiated an important phase of change, credit for which is too often casually allocated to the Whitlam era. It is the sort of short but challenging historical writing that deserves a place on undergraduate reading lists. Four essays survey the handling by Liberal governments of major issues, including an economical survey of one hundred years of external policy by Carl Bridge. It is the remaining four theoretical discussions that capture the book’s central and intriguing opacity. As Gregory Melleuish points out, there is a scholarly consensus (chiming with Liberal hagiography) which traces the party’s origins back to Alfred Deakin and hence to Victorian protectionism, transmuted during the first decade of the twentieth century into an interventionist commitment to social justice and economic security. As a result, the enthusiasm for free markets shown by recent Liberal leaders John Hewson and John Howard is regarded as a historical aberration, despite its respectable ancestry in the New South Wales free trade tradition. Some contributors tag such attitudes as ‘conservative’. One, Greg Craven, confesses himself ‘cheerfully unequal’ to defining these two interwoven elements in the Liberal Party. He then suggests that the federation settlement represented, simultaneously, a victory for free trade within Australia, which he likens to the modern discourse of recent economic deregulation, confusingly coupled with a dirigiste approach to external protection through a high tariff. Complicating the perennial philosophical cross-over has been the federal alliance with the Country Party, whose idea of being liberal was to spend lavish amounts of public money in rural areas. One can only conclude that an element of ideological ambiguity does not seem to have harmed the Liberals at the polls. The book is a fine monument to a worthy project.