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Australian Labor Party - Open Encyclopedia (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21) |
 | | Party mythology says it was founded at a meeting of agricultural workers under a tree (the "Tree of Knowledge") in Barcaldine, Queensland, in 1891. |
 | | The party has historically been committed to socialist economic policies, but, while supporting national wage fixing and a strong welfare system, it did not nationalise private enterprise - an attempt to nationalise the banking system in the 1940s was ruled unconstitutional by the High Court of Australia. |
 | | Indeed, during the 1980s the party was responsible for the introduction of many economic policies such as privatisation of government enterprises, and deregulation of many previously tightly-controlled industries, which are normally the province of conservative governments. |
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