State elections were held in

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

on 8 April 1933. All 46 seats in the

South Australian House of Assembly The House of Assembly, or lower house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of South Australia. The other is the Legislative Council. It sits in Parliament House in the state capital, Adelaide. Overview The House of Assembly was creat ...

were up for election. The incumbent

Parliamentary Labor Party The Parliamentary Labor Party (also known as the Premiers' Plan Labor Party or Ministerial Labor Party) was a political party active in South Australia from August 1931 until June 1934. The party came into existence as a result of intense dispu ...

government led by

Premier Premier is a title for the head of government in central governments, state governments and local governments of some countries. A second in command to a premier is designated as a deputy premier. A premier will normally be a head of governm ...

Robert Richards was defeated by the opposition

Liberal and Country League Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and ...

led by

Leader of the Opposition The Leader of the Opposition is a title traditionally held by the leader of the largest political party not in government, typical in countries utilizing the parliamentary system form of government. The leader of the opposition is typically se ...

Richard L. Butler. Each district elected multiple members.

Background

After the ALP government of Premier

Lionel Hill Lionel Laughton Hill (14 May 1881 – 19 March 1963) was an Australian politician who served as the thirtieth Premier of South Australia, representing the South Australian Branch of the Australian Labor Party. Early life Born in Adelaide, So ...

endorsed the controversial

Premiers' Plan The Premiers' Plan was a deflationary economic policy agreed by a meeting of the Premiers of the Australian states in June 1931 to combat the Great Depression in Australia that sparked the 1931 Labor split. Background The Great Depressio ...

following the start of the

Great Depression in Australia Australia suffered badly during the period of the Great Depression of the 1930s. The Depression began with the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and rapidly spread worldwide. As in other nations, Australia suffered years of high unemployment, povert ...

and the subsequent

Australian Labor Party split of 1931 The Australian Labor Party split of 1931 was caused by severe divisions within the Australian Labor Party (ALP) over its economic response to the Great Depression in Australia. Amidst intense disagreement between economically conservative and ra ...

, the ALP state executive expelled 23 of the 30 members of the ALP caucus, including the entire cabinet. The expelled MPs formed the

(also known as Premiers Plan Labor), with Hill as leader and Premier, and continued in office with the support of the Butler-led

Liberal Federation The Liberal Federation was a South Australian political party from 16 October 1923 to 1932. It came into existence as a merger between the rival Liberal Union and National Party, to oppose Labor. Encouraged by the overwhelming success of the E ...

. Amid increasing riots and protests, as well as skyrocketing unemployment, Hill left politics to become Australian Agent-General to the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. He was succeeded by Robert Richards, who had the impossible task of leading the government into the election. In contrast to the ructions in Labor, the conservative forces in the state presented a united front at the 1931 federal election, when all anti-Labor major party candidates in the state ran under the banner of the

Emergency Committee of South Australia The Emergency Committee of South Australia was the major anti-Labor grouping in South Australia at the 1931 federal election. History The Emergency Committee arose as a consequence of the financial turmoil brought about by the Great Depression in ...

. This grouping took an additional two seats to hold six of the state's seven seats in the federal

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

and all three available seats in the bloc-voting winner-take-all

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

. In 1932, buoyed by this success, the Liberal Federation and the Country Party merged as the

under Butler's leadership. With three Labor factions—the official ALP, Premiers Plan Labor and

Lang Labor Lang Labor was a faction of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) consisting of the supporters of Jack Lang, who served two terms as Premier of New South Wales and was the party's state leader from 1923 to 1939. Following the expulsion of the N ...

—splitting the combined 47.8% total Labor vote, the result was a landslide victory for the LCL. The LCL won 29 seats versus only 13 for the three Labor factions combined. Though the Labor split in South Australia would only last until 1934, this would be the start of 32 years of LCL government in South Australia—one of the longest unbroken runs for a governing party in the Commonwealth. The LCL would stay in office until the 1965 state election with the assistance of a pro-LCL electoral

malapportionment Apportionment is the process by which seats in a legislative body are distributed among administrative divisions, such as states or parties, entitled to representation. This page presents the general principles and issues related to apportionmen ...

known as the

Playmander The Playmander was a gerrymandering system, a pro-rural electoral malapportionment in the Australian state of South Australia, which was introduced by the incumbent Liberal and Country League (LCL) government in 1936, and remained in place for 32 ...

, which would be introduced in 1936.

Results

References

History of South Australian elections 1857-2006, volume 1: ECSAState and federal election results
in Australia since 1890 ;Specific {{South Australian elections Elections in South Australia 1933 elections in Australia 1930s in South Australia April 1933 events

Background

Results

See also

References