Liberal Movement (Australia) - Formation

Formation

Hall initially sought to appeal to the State Council of the LCL. Although the body had no binding authority over the parliamentary caucus, who chose the leader, Hall and his followers saw it as an opportunity for a media victory. The motion went narrowly against Hall, but it generated much attention and potential embarrassment for the conservatives.

After this, he thought of establishing his own separate party, citing small opinion polls that supported this action, but Ian Wilson, the former member for the federal Division of Sturt, convinced him to stay within the LCL and bring about internal change. Strong support emerged from within the party for Hall's stand, particularly from its youth wing, the Young Liberals. On 21 March 1972, a faction, but closer to a "party within a party" was formed: the New Liberals. On 28 March it was renamed the Liberal Movement. The conservatives strongly criticised Hall and his new movement, accusing them of undermining Eastick, disrupting the party and being disloyal.

It quickly gained support within the LCL's membership, capturing a number of party branches and began preselecting its own members. Robin Millhouse was a member of the faction, and served as both the deputy leader of the LCL and the LM. Thanks to the electoral reform that had occurred, with more urban electoral districts to contest, the urban-based LM greatly increased its parliamentary representation, with seven members in the House of Assembly (including Hall, Millhouse and future Premiers David Tonkin and Dean Brown), three in the Legislative Council, and one in the Australian House of Representatives (Ian Wilson). Soon there were factional clashes during parliamentary debate, combative television debates, and some LCL members began campaigning anonymously against the LCL. One LCL branch president publicly called Hall a "traitor". The LM managed to worry the conservatives by managing to seize control of some rural branches within electorates held by strongly anti-LM representatives, including that of De Garis. The conservatives tried to remove Hall's endorsement for his seat, but failed. Several bitterly fought pre-selection battles followed. As a former premier, Hall was much more proficient than Eastick at dealing with the press, and used his skills to generate more media publicity, prompting Eastick to claim bias.

The LM sought to seize control of the LCL agenda by winning key positions on the state executive at the annual general meeting in September, but this was difficult as the malapportionment towards rural groups was entrenched at party level, and because the conservatives had anticipated the LM's plans. The LM President Alex Perryman challenged McLachlan for the party presidency and in a high-profile contest received 47% of the vote in a narrow defeat. He received around 90% among urban delegates and around 33% of the rural votes, the latter figure shocking the conservatives. The LM later generated more publicity by inquiring about alleged impropriety in the balloting process.

The LM's policies were generally progressive, and Hall himself stated that "we had no major differences with the written philosophies of the LCL". The LM's colour, purple, was described by observers as "LCL blue with a dash of Labor red", signifying the faction's location on the political spectrum. The LM was less concerned with creating differing policy as it was taking over and reforming the LCL; however, on the electoral reform front, the LM started by calling for the Legislative Council to be devoid of ministers. Worried by the LM, conservatives in the LCL tried to change the party rules to prevent members from criticising the organisation in public, and enforce discipline. This backfired as the LM exploited it to portray the conservatives as repressive, and the media also viewed it negatively, and the move was put on hold. The non-Labor forces, in their disunity, were in a poor position to challenge the dominance of charismatic Premier Dunstan. The LM itself contained two poorly defined internal groups: moderates, concerned with the inequalities of the electoral systems and the LCL's aging image; and radicals, who espoused the aforementioned in addition to the desire for wide-ranging social reform. Some of the latter felt Hall was the most progressive option available, but not progressive enough. Nevertheless, the LM had generated a large amount of campaign funds and had great name recognition; Hall was also favoured in opinions as a better leader than Eastick by a threefold factor. They cited such figures to portray themselves as the main threat to Labor and justify why they were the direction the LCL needed to take. Late in the year the LM received another boost when Wilson regained the seat of Sturt for the Liberal Party in the federal election, making much of his LM membership.

In the 1973 state election, the LM largely ran a separate campaign from the LCL as a whole. The majority of the LCL's metropolitan candidates were also within the LM, and it was hoped that enough seats would be gained so that not only would the LCL return to power, but that the LM would be able to overpower the conservative faction in the House of Assembly and re-elect Hall as leader. To do this, they needed to capture at least three marginal Labor seats in Adelaide. This also meant the conservatives in the LCL would be better off losing to Labor if they wanted to maintain their hold on the party, as Labor's vulnerable seats were in all in the city, and a Labor loss meant a LM gain. The LCL campaign chairperson explicitly said that she would prefer losing if it meant keeping control of the party. While the LM ran an innovative campaign, the LCL itself faltered, losing support in the country to the Country Party and to Labor in metropolitan Adelaide. One LM seat held by a rural member was lost to the Country Party. Labor won its first-ever successive state election victory, and the LM were branded by the LCL conservatives as being the reason behind the LCL's defeat. The LM saw itself as a more modern and appropriate alternative to the LCL, more in tune with urban mainsteam, but there was no evidence that urban LM candidates were more popular than conservative LCL candidates in Adelaide. LM members made up the majority of urban LCL candidates, but were unable to wrest any Labor seats in Adelaide.

Labor's convincing win was not unexpected, particularly as infighting in the LCL had been ongoing for over a year. Friction was present throughout the campaign as well as before it, particularly as much of the donations were given directly to the LM. In the months before the election that LCL members had thrown punches in corridors of Parliament House. Internal battles between conservatives and LM members for party pre-selection were keenly contested. Around half of the LCL candidates were LM supporters and avoided mention of the LCL and its conservative leader Bruce Eastick in their pamphlets. Some of the LM faction candidates instead trumpeted Hall as their leader and printed books detailing their policies. There was also an incident where a LM function celebrating Wilson's win in the 1972 federal election clashed with Eastick's main policy speech. Eastick and his conservatives arrived at Wilson's dinner after they finished campaigning for the night, but then walked out when Wilson was delivering a speech calling for the LCL to be more tolerant of the diverse opinions within the party. Labor ran a sedate campaign, but made much of the internal LCL divisions.