Portal:Australia/Featured article/Week 16, 2007

The Liberal Movement, usually referred to as the LM, was a minor South Australian political party that flourished in the 1970s. Stemming from discontent within the ranks of the Liberal and Country League, it was first formed by former Premier Steele Hall as an internal group in 1972 in response to a lack of reform within its parent. A year later, when tensions heightened between the LCL's conservative wing and the LM, it was established on its own as a progressive liberal party. When still part of the league, it had eleven representatives; on its own, it initially had three. In the federal election of 1974, it succeeded in electing Hall to the Australian Senate, and in the 1975 state election, it gained an additional member, narrowly failing to dislodge the incumbent Don Dunstan-led Labor Government in coalition with other non-Labor parties. The limited success of the LM and internal decline led to it being absorbed back into the LCL in 1976, newly renamed as the Liberal Party of Australia. A wing of the LM did not rejoin the Liberals and instead formed a new party, the New LM. The New LM, along with the Australia Party and Don Chipp, went on form the nucleus of the Australian Democrats, which subsequently went on to hold the balance of power in both federal and state upper houses. The LM and its successor parties were an early voice for what is termed small-l liberalism in Australia.