16/10/2026
On this day, 16 October 1944, the Non-Labor Unity Conference meeting in Canberra adopts the name the ‘Liberal Party of Australia’ for the new political formation of the Australian centre-right. The Liberal Party would replace the defunct United Australia Party and bring together splinter parties which had broken off from the UAP. The date is often recorded as the foundation date of the Liberal Party, though this is open to debate, as its constitution and organisational structure would not be formed until a later meeting at Albury in December.
The name ‘Liberal’ was one of several options considered by the Conference, the others being ‘Conservative’, ‘Democratic’, ‘Nationalist’, ‘Constitutionalist’ and ‘Commonwealth’. Indeed, for a while the name ‘Liberal’ was considered unsuitable because ‘the great Liberal Party of Britain has outlived its usefulness and the use of the name in Australia savours of looking backward instead of forward’. There had already been a ‘Liberal Party’ at the Commonwealth level, formed out of the fusion of the Free Traders and Protectionists, and it had only ever won one election under Joseph Cook before being absorbed into the Nationalists amidst the turmoil of the First World War.
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