A road to nowhere: faith-based political parties

A road to nowhere: faith-based political parties

Jul 17, 2024

Concept of where Religion and Politics intersect.

In recent weeks there has been talk of the prospect of a Muslim party being formed to contest the next federal election. The prime minister has responded by saying he did not want Australia to go down the road of faith-based political parties.

Since then, several commentators have mentioned that Australia has been down that road before, with some pointing to the Democratic Labor Party formed in the 1950s. But as others have rightly pointed out the DLP despite the support of many Catholics was never a faith-based party.

Another party some commentators have mentioned is the Protestant Independent Labor Party of the 1920s and 1930s. It was more a protest against perceived Catholic influence in the Australian Labor Party than a party to advance the sectarian interests of Protestants.

Yet no one seems to have cited the Democratic Party, formed in 1919 to advance the sectarian interests of Catholics, which contested the New South Wales state elections in 1920 and 1922.

The emergence of the Democratic Party followed the enactment of legislation in December 1918 providing for an electoral system of proportional representation with five-member constituencies for metropolitan electorates and three-member constituencies for non-metropolitan electorates.

In 1912, the Catholic bishops of New South Wales had established the Catholic Federation to promote Catholic interests, especially state aid for Catholic schools. At that time the non-Labor parties opposed state aid, while Labor recognised it would be electoral suicide to support it when 75 per cent of the electorate was Protestant.

Under the existing electoral system, a Catholic party could never win a single-member constituency because Catholics were a minority dispersed throughout the state. Proportional representation changed the calculus. The Catholic Press estimated that with proportional representation Catholics, who made up almost a quarter of the electorate, could return 18 to 20 members in a house of 90 members, giving them the balance of power and a lever to achieve state aid.

With the new electoral system in place for the elections due in 1920, the Catholic Federation in April 1919 submitted to the New South Wales Catholic bishops a “Social Program” with a draft format for a political party. In October 1919 the federation’s annual conference resolved to establish the Democratic Party.

It would be a Catholic party in all but name. There was to be no separate party organisation with its own structures or office holders. Instead, the party’s Foundation Rules stated, “The State Council of the Catholic Federation shall be the governing body of the Democratic Party.” The rules also provided that “Candidates must be practical Catholics and members of the Catholic Federation.”

When the elections were called for February 1920, the Democratic Party nominated candidates in seven of the eight metropolitan electorates and in two non-metropolitan electorates.

Catholic Federation president and candidate for the electorate of Sydney, P.S. Cleary delivered the party’s policy speech, much of which was devoted to recounting the perceived injustices inflicted upon Catholics over the previous 40 years.

The party’s electoral material included letters of approval from the Catholic archbishop of Sydney, Michael Kelly, and from the former Apostolic Delegate (the pope’s representative in Australia) Archbishop Bonaventura Cerretti, who in his letter used the phrase “Catholic party”.

For the Democratic Party the result of the elections was disappointing with none of its candidates being elected. The earlier estimate of 18 to 20 seats had been based on a Catholic party receiving the votes of all Catholic voters. At the 1920 elections, the Democratic Party received only one in seven of potential Catholic votes. The remainder did what they had done before – vote overwhelmingly for the Labor Party.

Ironically, the 1920 elections, saw Catholics under the Labor banner enter parliament in record numbers. Of the 43 members of the Labor caucus, 25 were Catholics, and in the new Labor government, five of the 13 ministers were Catholics. Nevertheless, the party continued to reject state aid.

The Democratic Party also contested the 1922 elections, nominating candidates in four metropolitan electorates. It succeeded in the Eastern Suburbs with Dr C.J. Fallon taking the fifth seat after receiving 10.9 per cent of the primary vote.

At that election, Labor was defeated. The number of seats it held fell from 43 to 36. Some commentators contended that the Democratic Party cost the Labor Party government by splitting the Catholic vote. But that was not the case. If all votes won by the Democratic Party were transferred to Labor, Labor’s proportion of the vote would not have been enough to win.

The Nationalist-Progressive coalition that formed government was dominated by ultra-Protestants, who attempted to have legislation passed that would have outlawed Catholic marriage laws. Unlike the militant Catholics who opted for a separate party, the militant Protestants had worked within the existing party structure.

Archbishop Kelly now realised that it had been a mistake for the church to align itself closely to a Catholic political party. In January 1924 Kelly told a meeting of Catholics that the Catholic Federation’s idea of putting a few Catholic members in parliament to advance Catholic interests had not worked. The Democratic Party did not survive to fight the next election.

The Catholic newspaper the Freeman’s Journal explained the failure of the Democratic Party to attract significant Catholic support in these terms:

“The Catholic farmer votes Progressive; the Catholic landlord throws in his lot with the Nationalist; the Catholic toiler plumps for Labor. Only a small band of ‘intellectuals’ are behind the movement to obtain Catholic Parliamentary representation on a sound Catholic platform.”

No doubt it was the experience of the Democratic Party that persuaded the Catholic bishops of New South Wales in the 1950s to urge Catholics to remain in the Australian Labor Party rather than follow their Victorian counterparts in joining the break-away Democratic Labor Party.

I doubt whether Senator Fatima Payman is aware of the Democratic Party. But she clearly understands the lessons of its inglorious history, recently advising Muslims not to establish their own political party: “Think about the bigger picture. Think about Australia as a whole”.