Young Liberal Movement | |
|---|---|
| File:Yllogo.gif | |
| Leader | Mark Powell |
| Founded | 1945 |
| Headquarters | Cnr Blackall & Macquarie St Barton ACT 2600 |
| Ideology | Neoliberalism |
| International affiliation | International Young Democrat Union |
| Website | |
| Young Liberal Movement | |
The Young Liberal Movement, or the Young Liberals, is the youth-division of the Liberal Party of Australia, and membership is open to those between 16 and 30 years of age. Young Liberals have full party-membership, and have the choice of which part they join. They are active in Liberal Party campaigning during all state and federal elections.
The Young Liberal Movement was first formed on 12 December, 1945, just a few months after the official inauguration of the Liberal Party on the 31 October in the same year, and, as for the Party proper, much of the credit for its creation can be attributed to Robert Menzies. The formation occurred through a meeting at the Melbourne Town Hall, at which 750 people were present.[1]
The Movement soon spread from Victoria to the other states of Australia, and by 1946 it played an important role in the electoral campaign of the Liberal Party.
The Young Liberals today are one of the largest divisions of the wider Liberal Party of Australia, and are major contributors to policy development and campaigning at election time.
The Movement is predominately organised on the state division level, with each state organising its own events and policy and electing its own executive. A national executive also exists with representatives made up from delegates from each state division. Policy can also be adopted by the Movement's federal body.
The current Federal President of the Young Liberals is Mark Powell.
The Young Liberal Movement is a separate movement to the Liberal students who are based around campus clubs that support the Liberal party but are not officially a part of it. While the Young Liberal is the peak body of local Young Liberal branches, Liberal students are represented by the Australian Liberal Students Federation
Criticism
On 17 July 2006, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Four Corners program broadcast allegations that factional leaders within the Liberal Party in New South Wales had been used "as the foot soldiers in factional warfare in which control goes to the faction which has the most branches."[1] The program quoted John Hyde Page, a former Young Liberal, said that he had worked for the moderate faction to engage in branch stacking in Sydney while he was a member of the Young Liberals, and that currently the right faction was engaged in branch stacking also.[1] Former federal Liberal leader John Hewson expressed his concern that in more recent times, the right faction had taken control of the Young Liberals in New South Wales in an "extreme right takeover", that "in my day as leader the Young Liberals were a burr under my saddle from the left" whereas now they had come to support the agenda of right factional leaders such as David Clarke.[2]
Conservative Sydney Morning Herald columnist Miranda Devine said after the program was broadcast that the shift to the right within all areas of the Liberal Party simply reflected the political zeitgeist of the Howard era, and suggested that the moderate faction was merely angry at losing influence because it had "always regarded the Young Liberals as its personal breeding ground."[3] She also said, that "As the pendulum swings back from the extremes of political correctness which made the state party unelectable, feelings are bound to be hurt and a few little old ladies in blue-ribbon branches might be trampled."[3]
In July 2006, Lateline aired footage from the 2005 National Union of Students' conference in Ballarat. The video showed Young Liberal members chanting "We're racist, we're sexist, we're homophobic". [4]
External links
References
- ^ a b Cohen, Janine (2006-07-17). "Program Transcript - The Right Stuff". Four Corners. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 2006-07-20.
- ^ Cohen, Janine (2006-07-17). "Interview - Dr John Hewson". Four Corners. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 2006-07-20.
- ^ a b Devine, Miranda (2006-07-20). "Rough play won't spoil the party". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2006-07-20.
- ^ Footage released of 'racist' Young Liberals, ''ABC News Online'', July 19 2006
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