F
Flopfoot
Guest
For people like me who were born after Reagan took office in 1981, it can sometimes seem like voting patterns are static and have always been the way they are now. That’s why I wanted to look into the reasons for changes over the last century or so. (It would be similarly interesting to hear from an American how the originally pro-slavery Democrat party turned into the black lives matter party of today.)
The left wing party in Australia is called Labor and the right wing party is called Liberal (this name is a bit weird - think of “classical liberal” if it helps. These days, especially at the state rather than federal level, they’re the “no fun” conservative party).
Skipping over 50,000 years of Aboriginal history, when the First Fleet arrived in 1788, there were many English Protestants among the soldiers and free settlers and many Irish Catholics among the convicts. This pattern didn’t change much - even up until 1960 it was legal and common to see “Catholics need not apply” in job advertisements. So after Federation of states in 1901, Catholics were mainly Labor voters who were for the workers, while Protestants were mainly Liberal voters.
A split began in the Labor party in the 40s and 50s because there was a growing influence of communism. Anti-communist Labor politician B A Santamaria ended up starting his own party (this guy is seen as a hero by Catholics today but overall is considered a pretty controversial figure). Labor didn’t win any elections from 1949 to 1972.
In the 60s anti discrimination laws were passed which allowed Catholics to start getting better jobs and becoming richer. Previously their best option was government jobs. Also in the 60s the government tried to shut down a Catholic school in Goulburn and the parents of students there successfully protested and got it reopened. Seeing that Catholics could be politically active, the Liberal prime minister tried to win some of them over by promising funding to Catholic schools.
In the 80s after Roe v Wade in the USA, Australia copied the USA’s example (we tend to copy either them or England in most things) and formed the moral majority where Christians would vote for right wing parties to try and bring an end to abortion. Note that these days the Labor party is actively pro choice, but the Liberal party is pretty neutral on the abortion issue. This hasn’t stopped Labor from arming themselves for an invisible war - more and more pro choice women are being chosen to be Labor candidates across the country.
continued in second post
The left wing party in Australia is called Labor and the right wing party is called Liberal (this name is a bit weird - think of “classical liberal” if it helps. These days, especially at the state rather than federal level, they’re the “no fun” conservative party).
Skipping over 50,000 years of Aboriginal history, when the First Fleet arrived in 1788, there were many English Protestants among the soldiers and free settlers and many Irish Catholics among the convicts. This pattern didn’t change much - even up until 1960 it was legal and common to see “Catholics need not apply” in job advertisements. So after Federation of states in 1901, Catholics were mainly Labor voters who were for the workers, while Protestants were mainly Liberal voters.
A split began in the Labor party in the 40s and 50s because there was a growing influence of communism. Anti-communist Labor politician B A Santamaria ended up starting his own party (this guy is seen as a hero by Catholics today but overall is considered a pretty controversial figure). Labor didn’t win any elections from 1949 to 1972.
In the 60s anti discrimination laws were passed which allowed Catholics to start getting better jobs and becoming richer. Previously their best option was government jobs. Also in the 60s the government tried to shut down a Catholic school in Goulburn and the parents of students there successfully protested and got it reopened. Seeing that Catholics could be politically active, the Liberal prime minister tried to win some of them over by promising funding to Catholic schools.
In the 80s after Roe v Wade in the USA, Australia copied the USA’s example (we tend to copy either them or England in most things) and formed the moral majority where Christians would vote for right wing parties to try and bring an end to abortion. Note that these days the Labor party is actively pro choice, but the Liberal party is pretty neutral on the abortion issue. This hasn’t stopped Labor from arming themselves for an invisible war - more and more pro choice women are being chosen to be Labor candidates across the country.
continued in second post