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In 1931, the All for Australia League and other 'citizens movements' mounted a major challenge to the established conservative parties. Traditional views of the League saw it as a reflection of economic group interests, whether of the business establishment or dissident capitalists such as manufactures. More recent scholarship has stressed middle-class concerns with 'sound finance' as the inspiration of the League. This paper instead situates the League in the historical context of centre party projects in New South Wales, and of progressivism, in particular industrial psychology. The economic crisis and the rightward shift of the nationalists enabled a group of political entrepreneurs to transform the League from a front group ]hr business into a populist movement. However, the shift of mainstream conservatism back to the political centre fatally undercut the League's support base. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to explain the origins and continued rise of the New Christian Right (NCR) in Australia since the sexual revolution. Australia is an increasingly secular country, yet conservative religion continues to strongly influence sexual discourse in Australia. The success of the NCR in Australia thus requires explanation. Proportional representation in the Australian parliamentary system explains the unique role that the NCR political parties have played in the Australian sexual polity. The article suggests that Australia's pragmatic and pluralistic secularism was a necessary condition for the making of the NCR. It argues, following Janice Irvine, that the rise of the Right did not simply trigger bitter conflicts over sexuality; it was accomplished through them. They produced a new, conservative, ecumenical, and politically engaged Christian movement that was defined by sexual politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The defeat of the Australian government's attempts to outlaw communism in 1950 and 1951 was a significant victory for the protection of civil liberties. Yet for the Australian Council for Civil Liberties, which had fought a long battle against the measures, the result was not greeted with a sense of triumph. The campaign to avert draconian powers exposed a Council struggling to adapt to the Cold War, and revealed tensions in the Council's belief in democratic institutions and the popular opinion that underpinned them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legislation introduced by Prime Minister Robert Menzies to ban the Communist Party of Australia in 1950 has been studied in great detail, but there has been little discussion about why Menzies considered that an outright ban was the best way to thwart the Communist Party. Australia did not, for example, follow the American example of public show trials, denunciations and informants, characteristics of the phenomenon known as McCarthyism. This article explores the decision to reject the American model by focusing on legislation that the Liberal Party drafted in 1948, but never introduced. It also details the internal division of the Liberal Party over communism and the conflicted nature of Menzies’ own views. As a consequence, Australia did not introduce the equivalent of the anti-communist state apparatus of the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]