Liberal Democrats – Page 2

2021 Liberal Democrats AGM

A bit over 20 years ago a small group of young Canberra libertarians got together at the Kingston Hotel and outlined our plans to launch a new political party. Flash forward to this year and that small group had become a national network of thousands of members, with several important electoral victories under our belt, and playing an important role in the Australian liberty movement. It was a moment worth celebrating, and thank you to everybody who came along to our 20th birthday celebration in Canberra earlier this month.

Case for a classical liberal political party

_{Humphreys, J. (2007), “Taking Classical Liberalism to the People“, Policy, 23:1 (August 2007), Centre for Independent Studies, Sydney, pp40-43.}

Classical liberals have been disappointed by the performance of the Liberal Party, and are likely to remain disappointed my any major party. While a minor party may not win government, they have several benefits from having an explicitly classical liberal political party such as the Liberal Democrats:

Better advocacy and reaching more people
Changing the parameters of political debate
Being copied by the majors
Votes and preferences

John Humphreys is the Chief Economist at The Australian Taxpayers Alliance, Sessional Lecturer at the University of Queensland, and National President of the Liberal Democrats.

John has worked previously for The Australian Treasury, done consulting projects for clients including the World Bank and ASEAN, and ran a university research centre (PRIME) and education charity (HCP/Bodia) in Cambodia, for which he was awarded a knighthood in 2016. He has a PhD in economics, has travelled to over 80 countries, and is a qualified JP and scuba divemaster. John lives with his wife and three boys on the Redcliffe Peninsula in Queensland.