Founding the ALP

History

The Australian curriculum: History

The Australian Curriculum: History aims to ensure that students develop:

interest in, and enjoyment of, historical study for lifelong learning and work, including their capacity and willingness to be informed and active citizens
knowledge, understanding and appreciation of the past and the forces that shape societies, including Australian society
understanding and use of historical concepts, such as evidence, continuity and change, cause and effect, perspectives, empathy, significance and contestability
capacity to undertake historical inquiry, including skills in the analysis and use of sources, and in explanation and communication.

This resource contains extracts from the Australian Curriculum and is current as at 25 May 2011. © Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority 2010.
ACARA neither endorses nor verifies the accuracy of the information provided and accepts no responsibility for incomplete or inaccurate information. You can find the unaltered and most up to date version of this material at http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/Home
This material is reproduced with the permission of ACARA.

History activities [2]

Activity 1: Party politics

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Subtheme(s): Politics

The Australian Labor Party (ALP) is Australia's oldest political party, having celebrated its centenary in 1991. It is one of a small group of genuine political labor parties around the world which affiliate trade unions, incorporating them into the structure of the party. From its inception, the ALP has been a party for the working class, supporting the rights of Australian workers.

Discover

Students should research and respond to the following questions:

What is a political party?
What do political parties aim to do?
Who were the original founders of the ALP?
How many ALP prime ministers have been elected in Australia?
Who is the leader of the ALP today?

Reflect

Use the websites below to find information about the ALP:

The Australian Labor Party, http://www.alp.org.au/labor-history
Labor History, http://www.laborhistory.org.au/home.html

Students could create an A5 election flyer to elect the first ALP Prime Minister in 1904, JC Watson.

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Student Activity Sheet H12.4: What is the ALP?

Activity 2: The ALP

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Subtheme(s): Politics; Social order and education

Discover

As a class discuss the question: Why was the Australian Labor Party (ALP) formed and who were the founders trying to help?

Reflect

Hot seat role-play is a strategy where students research and analyse a character from the episode. Through their observations they find out who the person is, their importance to the story and what differentiates them from other characters. Once students understand the character, they can pretend to be them and answer questions from other members of the class while remaining in character.
Students choose a character from the episode. In small groups, students can develop a storyline for their character, creating a drama in which the character interacts with other characters based on a given scenario.
Each scenario listed below relates to the hard times experienced by workers in the 1890s.

Brickworks employee gets ill and faces his boss about the situation. He gathers others who are ill to support his case.
Local publican hosts secret meetings for the unemployed brickworks employees at the back of his pub.
Unemployed workers have a meeting to discuss the problems they face. Some of them agree that they should join the ALP and others feel scared.
Bosses and company owners talk about not paying out money to ill workers. They are faced with having to deal with locals getting together for secret ALP meetings.