Whips have managed business and maintained party discipline for Australia's federal political parties in the House of Representatives since Federation. The term has origins in the British parliamentary system.
As the number of members of parliament and amount of business before the House has increased, so too has the number of whips. The three parties represented in the first Parliament each appointed one whip. Each of today's three main parties appoint a chief whip, while the Australian Labor Party and Liberals each have an additional two whips and the Nationals have one additional whip. Until 1994, a party's more senior whip held the title "Whip", while the more junior whip was styled "Deputy Whip". In 1994, those titles became "Chief Whip" and "Whip", respectively.
The current Chief Government Whip in the House of Representatives is Joanne Ryan of the Australian Labor Party, in office since 31 May 2022.[1] The current Chief Opposition Whip in the House of Representatives is Bert van Manen of the Liberal Party.
While many whips have gone on to serve as ministers, only three have gone on to lead their parties: Labor's Frank Tudor, the Country Party's Earle Page, and the National Party's Mark Vaile. Page is the only one of them to have served as prime minister (albeit for only a short time), and Vaile is the only one to have served as deputy prime minister. Tudor, less auspiciously, was the only of them to serve as leader of the opposition.
Page was also one of four people to serve as whip while representing Cowper, the others being Francis Clarke (Protectionist), John Thomson (Commonwealth Liberal and Nationalist), and Gerry Nehl. As of August 2013, one other constituency has the same distinction: Griffith, represented by William Conelan, William Coutts, Don Cameron, and Ben Humphreys—all of them Labor except Cameron. Oddly, the last three served in the seat consecutively.
^Fenton became acting Whip at Page's death.[6] The arrangement was made permanent on 29 September that year.[7]
^Gil Duthie, the Labor Whip, noted in a debate in November 1968 that the position of Deputy Whip had been created in the Labor party at his request "four or five" years before his speech.[15] That puts the post's creation in the 24th Parliament, which sat from 20 February 1962 to 30 October 1963, or the 25th Parliament, which sat from 25 February 1963 to 28 October 1966. In a debate in 1963, Duthie referred to Coutts as the "Deputy Whip", though it is unclear whether the title had yet been formalised.[16] Coutts participated as a teller, a key duty of a whip, in all divisions in 1962,[17] 1963,[18] and 1964 where Labor and the Coalition were on opposite sides except two in May 1964 and the ones during and immediately before a trip on parliamentary business[19] as part of Australia's delegation to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.[20]
^ abNicholls and James were the Whip and Deputy Whip, respectively for the 29th Parliament.[24] Caucus elections were held on 10 June 1974.[25]
^Later Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives.
^Humphreys was the Deputy Whip beginning with the 32nd Parliament,[28] and caucus elections were held on 8 November 1980.[29]
^Allan Guy was appointed whip of the United Australia Party on 12 February 1941[58] He continued as whip of the new Liberal Party from the founding of the parliamentary party,[59] announced by Robert Menzies on 21 February 1945.[60]
^While the date is uncertain, it is clear that Pearce was Deputy Whip at the time of his promotion to Whip.[66]
^Parliament adjourned on 20 May 1964 and returned on 11 August. On 10 June,[71] the Whip, Peter Howson, was promoted to Minister for Air, and his deputy, William Aston, was promoted to replace him. Kelly then replaced Aston as Deputy Whip. A National Archives of Australia document records his service as 1 August 1964 to 28 February 1967.[72] Unfortunately, those documents use the first or last day of a month for the date a term began or ended, respectively, when the exact day is unknown. This can be seen, for example, with Kelly's end date of 28 February 1967, when the actual date was in fact 21 February.[73] It is likely therefore that Kelly's appointment happened somewhere from 1 to 11 August 1964. It is also possible that he was appointed Deputy Whip as early as 10 June and that the document is based on paperwork filed when the House of Representatives convened in August.
^ abHalverson and Hawker were appointed Liberal Whip and Deputy Whip, respectively, on 26 May 1994, but took the new titles of Chief Whip and Whip a week later, on 2 June.[88][87]
^As Kathy Martin, Sullivan served as the Liberal deputy whip in the Senate from 1975 to 1977.[92]
New South Wales Premier and Labor Party Leader Jack Lang's adherents in the Federal Parliament crossed the floor in 1931 to defeat Labor Prime Minister James Scullin, precipitating the 1931 election. Following the election, Lang's NSW Labor Party expelled members who, being loyal to the federal party, had stood against official NSW Labor candidates. The federal party then expelled Lang and his supporters. Lang's four supporters formed their own parliamentary party, with Jack Beasley (who had led the faction within the Labor Party) as leader. The party expanded to nine following the 1934 election and at their pre-sessional meeting in October re-elected Beasley and elected a deputy leader and whip. Following Scullin's resignation as Labor leader in late 1935, the Lang and Official Labor began negotiating a resolution to the split, and the two parties formally adopted an agreement under which the NSW Labor Party was absorbed back into the federal party on 25 February 1936.[180]
^Identically worded news stories appeared in newspapers in July 1905 following the fall of the Reid government that suggested Sydney Smith would resume the position.[145] Wilks, however, continued as whip.[146][147][148] These reports may have been simple misreporting, or the appointment of Smith may have been due to Wilks's intention at that point to nominate for Deputy Speaker; Wilks, in the end, did not put himself forward. Smith may have been a placeholder due to the unlikelihood of Wilks's success given the state of the parties, or Wilks may have been given back the role of whip when he chose not to stand for Deputy Speaker.
^Story acted as a teller for all divisions bar two from 25 April to end of the Parliament[168][169] and was senior whip in the succeeding Parliament (following Thomson's defeat), therefore he was almost certainly junior whip following Massy Greene's appointment as a minister.
^ abLater Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives.
^"Maranoa Vacancy". The Sydney Morning Herald. 13 June 1921. p. 9. Retrieved 7 August 2013. No action has yet been taken to fill the position of Opposition Whip, so ably filled by Mr. Page. For the present, the Deputy Whip, Mr. Fenton, will act.
^"Personal: Vice-Regal". The Sydney Morning Herald. 30 September 1921. p. 8. Retrieved 7 August 2013.
^"The Scullin Ministry". The Canberra Times. 23 October 1929. p. 1. Retrieved 7 August 2013.
^Bennett, Scott. "Guy, James Allan (1890–1979)". James Allan Guy. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. Retrieved 28 July 2013. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
^"Mr. Gullett Resigns as Govt. Whip". The Age. 26 September 1951. p. 1. Retrieved 28 July 2013. Mr. Gullett's successor as Liberal party Whip will likely be Mr. R. W. C. Swartz, member for Darling Downs, Queensland. Mr Swartz has acted as deputy Whip for the past 12 months. (N.B. The Prime Minister, Robert Menzies, convinced Gullett not to resign, despite the headline.)
^"About People". The Age. 21 August 1952. p. 2. Retrieved 28 July 2013.
^"Fraser's 6 new men". The Sydney Morning Herald. 27 March 1975. p. 1. Retrieved 28 July 2013.
^"MPs wrangle, so Fraser cracks a Whip". The Age. 17 March 1978. p. 3. Retrieved 28 July 2013. The Prime Minister, Mr. Fraser, yesterday dumped Mr. Don Cameron as deputy Government Whip. Mr. Fraser appointed another Queenslander, Mr. John Hodges, to replace Mr. Cameron.
^Australian Parliamentary Library. "Hodges, J. C."Trove. National Library of Australia.
^"Federal Government Whip". The Maitland Daily Mercury. Maitland, NSW. 3 September 1904. p. 5. Retrieved 27 August 2013.
^"The Federal Oppositionists". The North Western Advocate and the Emu Bay Times. Devonport and Burnie, Tas. 2 August 1905. p. 2. Retrieved 13 August 2013.
^ abMassy Greene and Thomson were the whips of the Commonwealth Liberal Party when it entered a coalition with the Prime Minister Hughes's National Labor Party.[157][158] The coalition followed a schism months earlier when Hughes and his supporters were expelled from the Australian Labor Party, of which Hughes was until then the leader, over conscription of soldiers for the First World War. The Liberal whips acted as de facto government whips during the period between schism and the coalition agreement.[159] Hughes soon called an election in May 1917, at which the two parties formally merged and after which Massy Greene was reported in the press as continuing as Nationalists' whip in the new Parliament,[160] though he and Thomson were both government whips during that Parliament until Massy Greene was made an Honorary Minister in March 1918.[161][162][163][164]
^"New Ministers Sworn in". Northern Star. Lismore, NSW. 28 March 1918. p. 5. Retrieved 13 August 2013.
^"Concerning People". The Register. Adelaide. 18 May 1918. p. 6. Retrieved 13 August 2013.