{"id":1113,"date":"2021-06-20T15:19:02","date_gmt":"2021-06-20T04:19:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/?p=1113"},"modified":"2026-04-07T22:22:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T12:22:19","slug":"the-myth-of-a-liberal-australian-way-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/the-myth-of-a-liberal-australian-way-of-life\/","title":{"rendered":"The Myth of a liberal \u201cAustralian Way of Life\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Note<\/strong>: This post is part of a series<\/a> on the History of the Classical Liberal Tradition]<\/p>\n

Some conservative\/liberal groups in Australia have adopted a slogan first used in the US, namely the \u201cAustralian Way of Life\u201d modeled on the notion of the \u201cAmerican Way of Life\u201d. It implies that such an \u201cAustralian\u201d way of life was and possibly still is a \u201cliberal\u201d one, when in fact, if there is anything such as \u201cthe\u201d Australian way of life (which I doubt) it is more likely to be a socialist, statist, or paternalistic one. Or \u201cprogressive\u201d in modern parlance.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The idea of an implied \u201cliberal\u201d \u201cAustralian way of life\u201d has become part of the Institute of Public Affairs\u2019s mission and sense of itself<\/a>, and hinted at most recently in the party platform of the newest Australian political party with the very awkward and oddly name of \u201cAustralia\u2019s Representatives\u201d (or \u201cAusReps\u201d). I think this is unfortunate and misleading because it fudges over significant issues of Australia\u2019s very un-liberal heritage and history, especially its founding as a penal colony in 1788 and its national founding as a \u201cprogressive\u201d and socially \u201cadvanced\u201d state in 1901. (In addition, we should mention the founding of an explicitly \u201cLiberal Party\u201d in 1944 by Robert Menzies et al. which I would describe as \u201cLINO\u201d or \u201cliberal in name only\u201d rather than a \u201ctrue\u201d classical liberal party (free trade anyone?), but this is the topic for another post.)<\/p>\n

The \u201cAmerican\u201d Way of Life<\/h3>\n

The adoption of such a statement, \u201cto maintain and enhance the Australian Way of Life\u201d, with the implication that Australia\u2019s \u201cway of life\u201d was then and is now (or should be now) a \u201cliberal\u201d one, might have made some sense in America where the founding of the American nation state was a product of a war of liberation against the British Empire, a successful act of secession from an irresponsible tax regime, and the writing of a new constitution based upon ideas of natural rights to life, liberty, and property (with the obvious very un-liberal proviso that it did not apply to black slaves). Even in America, there were some \u201coriginal sins\u201d against liberal principles committed by the \u201cfounding fathers\u201d, such as the attempt to dismantle the truly decentralized and \u201ccon-federative\u201d nature of the Articles of Confederation and impose a much more centralized national state with a president with powers more like an elected monarch, with growing powers of taxation, the creation of a National Bank and a \u201cnational debt\u201d, and economic policies which necessitated considerable state intervention (the so-called \u201cAmerican System\u201d of Hamilton and Clay), and then the high tariffs of the late 19th century.<\/p>\n

But the unravelling of the \u201cliberal\u201d (in the \u201cclassical\u201d not the modern American sense) \u201cAmerican way of life\u201d accelerated in the 20th century with the creation of the Empire (after the Spanish-American War), the creation of the foundations of a welfare state under FDR in the 1930s and Johnson in 1964, and a massive \u201cnational security state\u201d during and after WW2. Now, what remains is what I call a kind of \u201cfolk libertarianism\u201d where the rhetoric of individual liberty is still part of public discourse but it has been largely emptied of much content and meaning under these very changed circumstances.<\/p>\n

The Manifold \u201cOriginal Sins\u201d of the Founding of \u201cLiberal\u201d Australia<\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

In my opinion Australia, by contrast, was founded in a state of \u201corigin sin\u201d against liberal principles, or rather several waves of \u201coriginal sin\u201d, in spite of the claims to the contrary by David Kemp in his multi-volume history of \u201cA Liberal Nation\u201d. [On the rather jarring juxtaposition of statist and liberal images on the cover of this volume, see below.] \u201cAustralia, or rather \u201cNew South Wales,\u201d began as a military penal colony based upon the principles of a labour camp, with minimal voluntary labour or exchange relations between individuals which were limited to the small but growing number of \u201cfree\u201d settlers and not the convict \u201cforced laborers\u201d, a form of military socialism where the governor and military officers controlled the store of provisions with all the problems of a \u201ccommand economy\u201d or what Mises called a \u201cZwangswirtschaft\u201d, and a system of land ownership where the entire continent had been claimed as \u201cthe property\u201d of the crown, or what I would call a kind of \u201cmonarchical or crown communism.\u201d This control of land by \u201cthe crown\u201d resulted in the legal and practical dispossession of the native inhabitants and the creation of a system of \u201ccrony\u201d land ownership by means of land grants, sales, long-term leasing, and so on. There was the practice of \u201csquatting\u201d on tracts of land, or what the Americans termed \u201chomesteading\u201d which was the established liberal \u201cLockean\u201d way in which unowned land was converted by use and occupation (\u201cmixing one\u2019s labour\u201d with the soil) into justly owned and legitimate private property. However freehold title was not the most common form of land ownership and the system of \u201ccrown land communism\u201d especially in mining leases is still the common practice in Australia.<\/p>\n

By the mid-19th century the colonies began to get some tokens of self-governance (what I would call some aspects of \u201cpolitical liberalism\u201d with the development of colonial legislatures) but this was limited throughout the rest of the century and well into the 20th after so-called \u201cindependence\u201d by Imperial control of foreign and military policy which meant that Australia never became a truly independent country or nation like the US until after WW2. This very limited form of liberalism in Australia was based upon the \u201cnew\u201d liberalism which had emerged in Britain (Hobhouse and Green) which had dramatically revised the more \u201cradical\u201d kind of liberalism which was the foundation of the actions of reformers like Richard Cobden in the 1830s and 1840s. The \u201cantipodean\u201d form of liberalism which was prevalent in Australia in the late 19th century was defined by extensive government involvement in the ownership and supply of key infrastructure activities like ports, railways, and other public transport (trams), as well as grain storage and delivery. This was described at the time quite correctly as \u201ccolonial socialism\u201d and to this was added from \u201cthe left\u201d the very unliberal views of the \u201clabour movement\u201d which resulted in the formation of the Labor Party in the last decade of the 19th century.<\/p>\n

One should also mention the great split which had emerged as industrialization took place between the supporters of liberal free trade (concentrated in Sydney) and un-liberal protectionism (concentrated in Melbourne). The success of the protectionists in getting their policy adopted as a cornerstone of the economic policy of the new \u201cCommonwealth of Australia\u201d in 1901 added to the growing list of \u201coriginal sins\u201d against liberal principles which lay at the very heart of the \u201cnew nation\u201d: this included compulsory wage arbitration, the exclusion of certain races from immigrating (the \u201cWhite Australia Policy\u201d), continued government ownership and control of significant infrastructure, and soon after Federation the adoption of a country-wide land tax which evolved into an income tax. Given these activities, it is not surprising that Australia at the beginning of the 20th century had one of the highest levels of government spending and taxation as a percentage of GDP of the more advanced economies in the world, possibly twice that of the US. For this and other reasons Australia was commonly regarded as an advanced \u201cprogressive\u201d country where the practicality and desirability of many socialist principles were being showcased as an example for the rest of the world, which would follow in due course.<\/p>\n

One might also add to this toxic brew of government interventions that of the willingness of many Australians to get involved in foreign wars which posed no direct threat to Australia but were directly connected to maintaining the power and prestige of the British Empire. I have in mind the Boer War in South Africa (another war of independence the British opposed) and the First World War which one might describe as a brawl between European Empires which Australia would have been well advised to avoid. To the \u201cmyth of a liberal Australian way of life\u201d might be added that of \u201cthe myth of ANZAC\u201d which was the way many Australian\u2019s judged themselves as \u201cfit\u201d to be a (semi-)independent nation by their prowess to wage war and kill other people, admittedly as stoically as possible under considerable hardship.<\/p>\n

The 20th Century: LINO (liberal in name only)<\/h3>\n

The history of the growth of the state and its increasing intervention in the economy and over people\u2019s individual lives throughout the course of the 20th century is only another long and very sad chapter in the history of liberal Australia which I cannot go into here in any detail. I have limited my remarks in this post to the \u201coriginal sins\u201d of Australia\u2019s foundation and not their subsequent development and expansion. But one could conclude from this brief history that contemporary classical liberals\/libertarians cannot get any solace in talking about \u201cthe Australian way of life\u201d if by this they mean a \u201cliberal\u201d way of life. To paraphrase Robert Menzies and John Howard, the truly \u201cforgotten people\u201d of Australia are not the ordinary taxpayers and \u201cbattlers\u201d, but the small handful of true or radical liberals who have popped up from time to time in Australia\u2019s history, disappeared, and then promptly forgotten. [See my collection of some of these \u201cforgotten\u201d true Australian classical liberals and libertarians here<\/a>. I have also put online Menzies\u2019 radio \u201cfire-side chats\u201d, including \u201cThe Forgotten People\u201d<\/a> talk of May, 1942.]<\/p>\n

Note on the \u201csocialist\u201d Sydney Habour Bridge vs. the \u201cliberal\u201d Surf Life Saving Association<\/h2>\n

The front cover of David Kemp\u2019s third volume of his history of liberalism in Australia – A Liberal State: 1926-1966. How Australians chose Liberalism over Socialism<\/em> (Melbourne University Press) – has a jarring juxtaposition of images which goes some way in explaining the strange and conflicted nature of \u201cantipodean liberalism\u201d. In the background there is the iconic image of the Sydney Harbour Bridge (completed 1932) which is statist and illiberal in its funding and its construction; and an equally iconic image (in the foreground) of a member of the Surf Life Saving Association which is a private and volunteer association and hence very liberal in its significance.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Bridge in Curve<\/em> (1926) painting by Grace Cossington Smith<\/a><\/p>\n

The Sydney Harbour Bridge was built by a government body (the NSW Dept. of Public Works) and funded by taxpayers (and tolls) rather than by a private firm using its own funds. It cost A\u00a36.25 million and required the coercive confiscation of over 400 private homes and commercial buildings without adequate compensation. It then took 56 years to pay off the loans incurred to build it (1932-88). It thus is a symbol of the worst features of government intervention in the economy (also broadly known as \u201csocialism\u201d). See Sydney Harbour Bridge – Wikipedia<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In the foreground we see figures dressed in the distinctive clothing of the privately funded and voluntarily organized Surf Life Saving Association. In \u201cliberal Australia\u201d in 1902 it was illegal for anybody to go into the ocean during daylight hours! Only after this illiberal and prudish law was challenged in the courts that surfing and surf swimming became popular and the need for surf life saving clubs appeared. The Surf Bathing Association of New South Wales was formed on 18 October 1907. I would argue that the SLSA is thus a symbol of the best features of a voluntary, free market society (also known broadly as \u201cliberalism\u201d) and that the image sits rather jarringly in font of the Sydney Harbour Bridge on the cover of the book. See Surf Life Saving Australia – Wikipedia<\/a><\/p>\n

However, I\u2019m sure Kemp is not asking us here to make a choice between the \u201csocialism\u201d of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the \u201cliberalism\u201d of the Surf Life Saving Association. Rather, he seems to think that the two go together seamlessly as part of the one \u201cliberal state\u201d. A view I do not share.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Note: This post is part of a series on the History of the Classical Liberal Tradition] Some conservative\/liberal groups in Australia have adopted a slogan first used in the US, namely the \u201cAustralian Way of Life\u201d modeled on the notion of the \u201cAmerican Way of Life\u201d. It implies that such an \u201cAustralian\u201d way of life … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_import_markdown_pro_load_document_selector":0,"_import_markdown_pro_submit_text_textarea":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[75,83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-libertarianism"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1113"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":203902,"href":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1113\/revisions\/203902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}