Because the Liberal Party is named after a philosophy, one might think the core of its historical identity is to be found in its values. This would be a mistake. The core of its identity is its conviction that it should occupy the Treasury benches and not the other mob, the Labor Party, the party of big spenders and union bosses, which supports the leaners not the lifters and so can’t be trusted with tax payers’ money. It should occupy the Treasury benches because it understands finances and is more able to provide stable, competent government in the national interest than the sectional, self-focused, inexperienced Labor Party. 

This conviction formed early, in the first decade of last century when electoral support for Labor grew so fast that the two previous parties of government bundled themselves together into the Fusion Party and lost the 1910 election. To the horror of the bowler-hatted, cloth-capped working men who had never had a cheque account became ministers of state, and they did much better than was expected. Andrew Fisher’s Labor government from 1910 to 1913 was Australia’s first majority government and its first government to last a full term.