Australian Prime Minister Does It Again Snopes
The claim
United Australia Party chairman Clive Palmer says his party can boast 3 old prime number ministers.
In a Dec 2021 press release, Mr Palmer said: "We are very pleased to denote that nosotros are officially celebrating 90 years since this great party first held government under our inaugural Prime number Government minister, Joseph Lyons."
"We are also commemorating other United Australia Party leaders who were Prime Ministers of Australia in Billy Hughes and Sir Robert Menzies," he said.
In the "about us" section of the United Australia Party's website, the party also claims Mr Lyons, Mr Hughes and Sir Robert equally its ain: "Our history — United Australia Political party prime ministers".
So, were these erstwhile prime ministers members of the same political party as Mr Palmer?
RMIT ABC Fact Check investigates.
The verdict
Mr Palmer's merits is nonsense.
The original United Australia Party was a political party established in 1931 and formally disbanded in 1945. Experts told Fact Check that many members then transferred to the Liberal Party and historical accounts prove assets also moved across.
Mr Lyons and Sir Robert (who was Mr Menzies at the time) were indeed prime ministers as leaders of the original UAP. Mr Hughes was likewise at one stage leader of the UAP, however, he served every bit prime minister nether earlier Australian Labor Party, National Labor Party and Nationalist Party governments.
Mr Palmer's party on the other mitt has only been registered with the Australian Balloter Commission since 2022 and has changed its name twice since then.
A party of the same name was briefly registered in Queensland in 2012 before merging with his Palmer United Party. Palmer United Party was voluntarily deregistered in 2017.
In a statement to Fact Check, a spokesman for the Australian Balloter Commission said: "The current UAP was registered in 2018. Information technology was not a continuation of registration from the UAP registered in the 1930s."
Experts told Fact Bank check the contemporary iteration of the UAP had no connexion or continuity to the original UAP beyond sharing the same name. One expert compared the claim to changing his name to "Charles Dickens" and claiming he wrote Oliver Twist.
Furthermore, experts argued significant differences in policies and voter bases set the parties apart.
I said the "true heir" to the UAP was today'southward Liberal Political party.
The original United Australia Party
The original United Australia Party was established in 1931 combining the Nationalist Political party and conservative erstwhile members of the Australian Labor Political party.
The political party's policies largely responded to the great depression, promising Australians financial responsibility and an alternative to the warring factions of the ALP.
The UAP held federal office for nearly ten years controlling the government outright and in coalition with the Country Party. Over this term, the party was primarily led by Mr Lyons until his decease in 1939. Mr Menzies, as he and then was, succeeded him equally prime number minister.
Afterwards the 1940 federal election Mr Menzies narrowly retained the office of prime minister supported by independents in a hung parliament where Labor and the UAP-CP Coalition held 36 seats each.
Following leadership strife inside the Coalition and disagreements with the ALP, Mr Menzies resigned as prime minister and leader of the UAP in 1941.
Following his resignation, Mr Hughes — who had formerly served as prime minister as leader of the ALP, National Labor Party and the Nationalist Party — causeless leadership of the UAP simply not the prime ministership.
This position instead briefly went to the leader of the Country Party Arthur Fadden, before the Coalition was overthrown by the ALP with the back up of independents just three months later on.
After the UAP suffered a crushing ballot defeat by Labor in the 1943 federal ballot, the new Liberal Party emerged with Mr Menzies as leader.
As Liberal leader, Mr Menzies became prime minister over again in 1949, serving a record term until 1966. He was knighted in 1963.
The Australian Parliamentary Library describes the UAP as "predecessor to the modernistic Liberal Party". The National Museum of Commonwealth of australia says the Liberal Party "was in effect a radically reorganised and rebranded version of the United Commonwealth of australia Party that had in recent years struggled to gain and hold government".
The UAP did not survive. In a thesis published past the Australian National University, Canberra historian Sylvia Marchant writes: "The moribund UAP was formally wound up in Jan 1945 and its assets and membership transferred to the new [Liberal] party."
She refers to an article by BD Graham published in 1963 which says: "The Liberal Party in New South Wales was the direct heir of the U.A.P.-Democratic Party to the extent of inheriting its members of Parliament, its paid officers and premises, its parliamentary and conciliar leaders, its general policies, and most of its rank-and-file members."
In his 1964 book Australian Party Politics, political scientist James Jupp described "the essential continuity of many of [the UAP'south] practices, personnel and support" when the Liberal Party was formed.
"The non-Labor party has only had i major crisis, between 1941 and 1944," Dr Jupp wrote.
"From the ruins of that it built a new machine, though its voters and leading parliamentarians were still basically the same."
The changing confront of Clive Palmer's United Commonwealth of australia Political party
In September 2012, IP Australia registered a trademark for "United Commonwealth of australia Party" at Mr Palmer'south Brisbane role accost which included the categorisation of "services of a political party".
In April 2013, two sitting members of the Queensland Legislative Assembly, Alex Douglas and Carl Judge, told parliament they had joined the United Australia Party. Dr Douglas said the emergence of the UAP "occurred organically over the last year".
2 months later, Dr Douglas told parliament the Electoral Commission of Queensland had officially registered the party in the land.
Meanwhile, at the federal level, in July 2013 Mr Palmer lodged a successful application with the Australian Balloter Commission to register the "Palmer United Party".
Mr Palmer won the federal seat of Fairfax from the Coalition in September 2013 alongside two Senators under the PUP imprint. Following a Senate re-run, a third senator was elected in 2014.
In November 2013, Dr Douglas told Queensland Parliament that he now represented the Palmer United Party and said "the Palmer United Political party and the United Commonwealth of australia Party take merged equally one".
Mr Palmer did not recontest Fairfax in the July 2022 ballot and the PUP did not win whatsoever Senate seats.
The PUP was voluntarily deregistered in May 2017.
In 2018, Mr Palmer registered a new political party with the AEC named "United Australia Party". This was after renamed "Clive Palmer's United Australia Party" in 2022 and then reverted back to "United Commonwealth of australia Party" in 2021.
In August 2021, federal MP Craig Kelly, who had been sitting equally an independent after leaving the Liberal Party, switched to the UAP. He was named leader of the UAP and announced the UAP'due south intention to competition all 151 lower house seats in the upcoming federal ballot. Mr Palmer remains chairman of the party.
The rules on naming parties
Australian elections are regulated past the Commonwealth Electoral Deed 1918 and are overseen by the Australian Electoral Commission.
Speaking to Fact Cheque, a spokesman for the AEC said there were some restrictions on the naming of parties.
"In that location are restrictions in the Electoral Act relating to names that are the aforementioned or similar to names of political parties that are currently on the federal register. This does non extend to previously registered political parties," he said in an electronic mail.
"The AEC does non own the term 'political party' — people tin consider themselves a political party without being federally registered. In that location is nothing in electoral law that says people cannot refer to their organisation equally a political party if they're not on the register."
Still, a political party must exist federally registered for a political party proper noun and/or logo to appear on the ballot paper at a federal election, the spokesman said.
Are the parties related?
In a statement to Fact Check, a spokesman on behalf of the Australian Electoral Commission said: "The electric current UAP was registered in 2018. It was not a continuation of registration from the UAP registered in the 1930s."
Experts told Fact Check the contemporary iteration of the United Australia Party led past Mr Kelly and chaired by Mr Palmer had no relation to the historical UAP apart from its proper name.
Professor in authorities and international relations at the University of Sydney Rodney Tiffen said the most glaring problem with the electric current UAP'southward claim to sometime prime number ministers was the fact that the UAP was formally disbanded nigh fourscore years prior to Mr Palmer'southward rebrand of his political party.
"The UAP went out of existence in most 1944-5, then didn't exist again until a couple of years ago," he said.
"So to say there is a direct link between the ii is only ridiculous.
"There's no continuity at all, no direct lineage between the UAP of the 1930s and 1940s and Clive Palmer'south party," he said.
"It's like me changing my proper name to Charles Dickens and and then claiming I wrote Oliver Twist."
Professor and electoral law expert at the University of Queensland's School of Law Graeme Orr agreed, telling Fact Check Mr Palmer's claim was "conspicuously false" and that "null connects the two entities, other than an opportunistic recycling of the proper noun."
He also identified the modernistic day Liberal political party as the UAPs successor.
"As an clan, [the UAP] members agreed to disestablish. It was understood its MPs would join the new Liberal Party of Australia, led by Menzies," he said in an e-mail.
"Its true heir is clearly the Liberal Party."
Furthermore, Professor Tiffen pointed to stark differences between the parties' bases and policy platforms explaining that in contrast to the fringe politics pursued by Mr Palmer's political party, the former UAP was a party of mainstream bourgeois entreatment.
"Joseph Lyons was the exact reverse of someone similar Clive Palmer or Craig Kelly," he said.
"The UAP was basically a very mainstream political party."
Professor of politics in the School of Social Sciences at Monash University James Walter also pointed to major philosophical differences between the parties. He described the former UAP as: "a sort of loose confederation of Deakinite liberals and ane-time social democrats, much influenced, however, by fiscal rectitude and by their media supporters."
"None of this, however, would put them in the same camp of extreme individualism, let lonely anti-land activism, promoted by Palmer and Kelly," he said.
Principal researcher: Sonam Thomas
Sources
- Clive Palmer, Media Release, December 20, 2021
- United Australia Party, website, 2022
- Australian Parliamentary Library, Political Parties in the House of Representatives, 2022
- National Library of Australia, Serial 49. Formation of the United Commonwealth of australia Party, 1930-1931
- CJ Loyd, The germination and development of the United Australia party 1929-37, 1984
- Museum of Australian Democracy, Joseph Lyons Election Spoken communication, 1931
- Sylvia Marchant, The End of the United Australia Party 1939 to 1943, 1998
- BD Graham, The Place of Finance Committees in Non-Labor Politics, 1910-1930, 1963
- J Jupp, Australian Political party Politics, Melbourne Academy Press, 1964
- National Archives of Commonwealth of australia, Australia'south Prime number Ministers, 2022
- Museum of Australian Democracy, Baton Hughes, 2022
- Parliament of Australia, Parliamentary Handbook, 2020
- Parliament of Australia, Detailed results: House of Representatives 1943-1963, 2022
- National Museum of Australia, Liberal Party Forms, 2022
- Australian Government, IP Commonwealth of australia, trade mark 1517434, 2012
- Queensland Parliament Hansard, Spoken language by Alex Douglas, thirty April 2013
- Queensland Parliament Hansard, Spoken language by Carl Guess, 30 April 2013
- Queensland Parliament Hansard, Speech by Alex Douglas, half dozen June 2013
- Queensland Government Gazette, Vol. 265, 14 Feb 2014
- Queensland Parliament Hansard, Spoken communication by Alex Douglas, 20 November 2013
- Australian Electoral Commission, Observe of registration of a political party — Palmer United Political party, 5 July 2013
- Australian Electoral Commission, Ballot 2013 Seat Summary, 4 November 2013
- Australian Electoral Commission, Election 2013, Senate Party Representation, 01 November 2013
- ABC News, Western Australia Senate re-election, 2014
- Australian Electoral Committee, 2022 Election Results, 2016
- Australian Electoral Commission, Notice under s 135(1) of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, 8 May 2017
- Australian Electoral Commission, Notice of Decision of Party Registration, 2018
- Australian Electoral Commission, Notice of Decision of Party Registration, 2020
- Australian Electoral Commission, Find of Decision of Party Registration, 2021
- United Australia Party, Media Release, 23 August 2021
- Republic Electoral Human activity 1918
- Australian Electoral Commission, Awarding for registration approved — Uniting Commonwealth of australia Party, 2013
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Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-22/fact-check-clive-palmer-former-prime-ministers-uap/100848832
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