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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. Members of 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 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 predominantly 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 Noel McCoy.

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. However, in 2006 the NSW State Representative of the Australian Liberal Students Federation said "I am pleased to report that the link between NSW Liberal Students and the NSW Young Liberal movement is stronger than ever. Through joint functions and campaigns we have achieved a unity of purpose enabling us to work together to promote Liberalism".¹

History

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.² However, the Young Nationalists Organisation, also founded by Menzies in Victoria, and which became part of the Liberal Party at its founding, can be seen as its earliest form.

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 did not always agree with its parent party, however, as exemplified by its opposition to the referendum in 1951 to ban the Communist Party.

Criticism

In 2005, the Young Liberals in Melbourne attracted media attention for their behaviour at social functions and accusations of rivalry between ALSF and the Young Liberal movement. ³

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."⁴ 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.⁴ 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.⁵

In July 2006, Young Liberal Movement was the subject of controversy after the ABC's Lateline program aired footage from the 2005 National Union of Students' conference in Ballarat. The video showed Liberal students chanting "We're racist, we're sexist, we're homophobic". The president of the New South Wales Young Liberals released a statement condemning the outbursts.⁶ The Queensland division of the Young Liberals pointed out that, while one prominent Young Liberal member was involved, the students were delegates elected by their university's student bodies and were therefor members of the Australian Liberal Students' Federation (a separate organisation to the Young Liberals) whom the Young Liberals have no connection with.^{citation needed}

Make Education Fair

In February 2008, the Young Liberals launched a campaign titled Make Education Fair, the campaign catalogued alleged incidents of bias experienced by students, including photos, stories and course guides and asked students to "dob in" an academic. ^{7 8} It is understood that Young Liberals were motivated by comments by former Prime Minister John Howard who said "The left-liberal grip on educational institutions and large, though not all, sections of the media remains intense". ⁹ The President of the Young Liberals said that his organisation wanted a "a charter of academic freedom to promote intellectual diversity" ¹⁰ In response to this campaign, the Senate announced an Inquiry into Academic Freedom ¹¹in June 2008 with the Inquiry Into Academic Freedom - Parliament of Australia terms of reference.

Response

The campaign has since been described as a "witch hunt" or McCarthyism and as an attack on the professionalism of academics¹².

In response to Make Education Fair, the National Tertiary Education Union said "there is no evidence of widespread left-wing bias" ¹³ and launched its own campaign entitled "Academic Freedom Watch". ¹⁴. The President of the NTEU dismissed the accusation that academics are running their own agendas in the classroom as "nonsense". ⁹

New South Wales Greens politician John Kaye said "any school or university educator who expresses an opinion would be at risk from the young Liberals plan to create a McCarthy-ist environment on campuses and schools"¹⁵

External links

• Young Liberal Movement of Australia

References

Wikipedia content modification information:

• This page was last modified on 5 November 2008, at 06:07.

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