Robert Menzies - Formation of Liberal Party and Return To Power

Formation of Liberal Party and Return To Power

Extract; The Forgotten People, Robert Menzies, 22 May 1942;

'I do not believe that the real life of this nation is to be found either in great luxury hotels and the petty gossip of so-called fashionable suburbs, or in the officialdom of the organised masses. It is to be found in the homes of people who are nameless and unadvertised, and who, whatever their individual religious conviction or dogma, see in their children their greatest contribution to the immortality of their race. The home is the foundation of sanity and sobriety; it is the indispensable condition of continuity; its health determines the health of society as a whole.'

Fadden's government was defeated in Parliament later in 1941 after the two independent MPs crossed the floor, allowing Curtin to form a Labor minority government. Fadden was named as Leader of the Opposition, and Menzies moved to the backbench.

Labor won the 1943 election with 49 of 74 seats and 58.2 percent of the two-party-preferred vote as well as a Senate majority. Hughes resigned as UAP leader, and Menzies returned to the leadership. Fadden yielded the post of Opposition Leader back to Menzies as well. Menzies held a series of meetings during 1944 to discuss forming a new anti-Labor party to replace the moribund UAP. This was the Liberal Party of Australia, which was launched in early 1945 with Menzies as leader. Curtin died in office in 1945 and was succeeded by Ben Chifley. Labor won the 1946 election with 43 of 74 seats and 54.1 percent of the two-party vote, and retained their Senate majority.

Comments that "we can't win with Menzies" began to circulate in the conservative press. Over the next few years, however, the anti-communist atmosphere of the early Cold War began to erode Labor's support. In 1947, Chifley announced that he intended to nationalise Australia's private banks, arousing intense middle-class opposition which Menzies successfully exploited. The 1949 coal strike, engineered by the Communist Party, also played into Menzies' hands. With the lower house enlarged from 74 to 121 seats, the Menzies Liberal/Country Coalition won the 1949 election with 74 of 121 seats and 51.0 percent of the two-party vote but remained in minority in the Senate.