It largely avoided Keynesian pump-priming and pursued a more conservative fiscal policy of debt reduction and balanced budgets as a means of stewarding Australia out of the Depression.

Menzies served as Prime Minister from 1939 to 1941 but resigned as leader of the minority World War II government amidst an unworkable parliamentary majority.

[37] From 1942 onward Menzies had maintained his public profile with his series of "The Forgotten People" radio talks—similar to Franklin D. Roosevelt's fireside chats of the 1930s—in which he spoke of the middle class as the "backbone of Australia" but as nevertheless having been "taken for granted" by political parties.

[6][7][8] Outlining his vision for a new political movement, Menzies said:[40] [W]hat we must look for, and it is a matter of desperate importance to our society, is a true revival of liberal thought which will work for social justice and security, for national power and national progress, and for the full development of the individual citizen, though not through the dull and deadening process of socialism.The formation of the party was formally announced at Sydney Town Hall on 31 August 1945.

John McEwen replaced Arthur Fadden as leader of the Country Party in March 1958 and the Menzies-McEwen Coalition was returned again at elections in November 1958—their third victory against Labor's H. V. Evatt.

Menzies stood for office for the last time at the November 1963 election, again defeating Calwell, with the Coalition winning back its losses in the House of Representatives.

[44] Menzies came to power the year the Communist Party of Australia had led a coal strike to improve pit miners' working conditions.

External Affairs Minister Percy Spender had put forward the proposal to work along similar lines to the NATO Alliance.

Menzies continued the expanded immigration programme established under Chifley, and took important steps towards dismantling the White Australia Policy.

In the early-1950s, external affairs minister Percy Spender helped to establish the Colombo Plan for providing economic aid to underdeveloped nations in Australia's region.

[48] In 1958, the government replaced the Immigration Act's arbitrarily applied European language dictation test with an entry permit system, that reflected economic and skills criteria.

Holt's government introduced the Migration Act 1966, which effectively dismantled the White Australia Policy and increased access to non-European migrants, including refugees fleeing the Vietnam War.

[56] Bonner was chosen by the Liberal Party to fill a Senate vacancy in 1971 and celebrated his maiden parliamentary speech with a boomerang throwing display on the lawns of Parliament.

Following Whitlam's victory, John Gorton played a further role in reform in October 1973 by successfully moving a motion, seconded by Labor minister Moss Cass, which decriminalised homosexuality on a federal and territory level.

The deadlock came to an end when the Whitlam government was controversially dismissed by the governor-general, Sir John Kerr on 11 November 1975 and Fraser was installed as caretaker prime minister, pending an election.

[This quote needs a citation] The Fraser government also established the multicultural broadcaster SBS,[59] accepted Vietnamese refugees, opposed minority white rule in apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia and opposed Soviet expansionism, but Liberal minister Don Chipp split off from the party to form a new centrist-social liberal party, the Australian Democrats in 1977.

policy document—a radical collection of dry (economic liberal) measures including the introduction of a goods and services Tax (GST), various changes to Medicare including the abolition of bulk billing for non-concession holders, the introduction of a nine-month limit on unemployment benefits, various changes to industrial relations including the abolition of awards, a $13 billion personal income tax cut directed at middle and upper income earners, $10 billion in government spending cuts, the abolition of state payroll taxes and the privatisation of a large number of government owned enterprises − representing the start of a very different future direction to the keynesian economic policies practised by previous Liberal/National Coalition governments.

Hewson's difficulty in explaining this to the electorate was exemplified in the infamous birthday cake interview, considered by some as a turning point in the election campaign.

Howard generally framed the Liberals as being conservative on social policy, debt reduction and matters like maintaining Commonwealth links and the American Alliance but his premiership saw booming trade with Asia and expanding multiethnic immigration.

In 2005, Howard reflected on his government's cultural and foreign policy outlook in oft repeated terms:[63] When I became Prime Minister nine years ago, I believed that this nation was defining its place in the world too narrowly.

My Government has rebalanced Australia's foreign policy to better reflect the unique intersection of history, geography, culture and economic opportunity that our country represents.

A further spill was called by Turnbull, in which he declined to stand and the leadership of the party was decided in favour of Treasurer Scott Morrison, over Dutton.

[citation needed] In August 2018, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton unsuccessfully challenged Turnbull for the leadership of the Liberal Party.

In that ballot, Morrison was seen as a compromise candidate and defeated both Dutton and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop to become leader of the Liberal Party.

[74][75] The party's founder and longest-serving leader Robert Menzies envisaged that Australia's middle class would form its main constituency.

He believed in a liberal political tradition that encompassed both Edmund Burke and John Stuart Mill—a tradition which I have described in contemporary terms as the broad church of Australian Liberalism.Until the 2022 election, the Liberals were in electoral terms largely the party of the middle class (whom Menzies, in the era of the party's formation called "The forgotten people"), though such class-based voting patterns are no longer as clear as they once were.

The Menzies government formalised Australia's alliance with the United States in 1951 and the party has remained a strong supporter of the mutual defence treaty.

It was not until the late 1970s and through their period out of power federally in the 1980s that the party came to be influenced by what was known as the New Right—a conservative liberal group who advocated market deregulation, privatisation of public utilities, reductions in the size of government programs and tax cuts.

Historically, Liberal governments have been responsible for the carriage of a number of notable socially liberal reforms, including the opening of Australia to multiethnic immigration under Menzies and Harold Holt; Holt's 1967 Referendum on Aboriginal Rights;[83] John Gorton's support for cinema and the arts;[84] and Malcolm Fraser's Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976.

[87] For the 2015–2016 financial year, the top ten disclosed donors to the Liberal Party were: Paul Marks (Nimrod resources) ($1,300,000), Pratt Holdings ($790,000), Hong Kong Kingson Investment Company ($710,000), Aus Gold Mining Group ($410,000), Village Roadshow ($325,000), Waratah Group ($300,000), Walker Corporation ($225,000), Australian Gypsum Industries ($196,000), National Automotive Leasing and Salary Packaging Association ($177,000) and Westfield Corporation ($150,000).