The Origins and Early Years of the Victorian Liberals

The origin story of the Victorian division of the Liberal Party of Australia stretches from 1944 to 1955, when Henry Bolte became head of the State's first stable Liberal government. The long Bolte era that followed overshadows the Division's extended adolescence, a decade of shifting alliances, tension between MPs and the party organization, and even the occasional accusation of treachery. The early Liberals saw themselves as a mass democratic anti-socialist party that eschewed the self-interestedness of traditional politics, upheld the freedom of the individual, and made special provision for women and youth. The Division succeeded in being far more than a revamp of its predecessor party, the UAP, and helped realize Robert Menzies' vision of the Liberals forming Australia's first major non-Labor party based on a properly professional party organization.