Smash the Red Wreckers and Save Australia

The 1931 Australian federal election was held in Australia on 19 December 1931. All 75 seats in the

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 18 of the 36 seats in the

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 ...

were up for election. The incumbent first-term

Australian Labor Party The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also simply known as Labor, is the major centre-left political party in Australia, one of two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-right Liberal Party of Australia. The party forms t ...

(ALP) government led by

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

James Scullin was defeated in a landslide by the

United Australia Party The United Australia Party (UAP) was an Australian political party that was founded in 1931 and dissolved in 1945. The party won four federal elections in that time, usually governing in coalition with the Country Party. It provided two prim ...

(UAP) led by

Joseph Lyons Joseph Aloysius Lyons (15 September 1879 – 7 April 1939) was an Australian politician who served as the 10th Prime Minister of Australia, in office from 1932 until his death in 1939. He began his career in the Australian Labor Party (ALP), ...

. To date, this is the last time that a sitting government at federal level has been defeated after a single term. The election was held at a time of great social and political upheaval, coming at the peak 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 ...

. The UAP had only been formed a few months before the election, when Lyons and a few ALP dissidents joined forces with the Nationalist Party and the

Australian Party The Australian Party was a political party founded and led by Billy Hughes after his expulsion from the Nationalist Party. The party was formed in 1929, and at its peak had four members of federal parliament. It was merged into the new Unite ...

. Although it was dominated by former Nationalists, Lyons became the merged party's leader, with Nationalist leader John Latham as his deputy. Scullin's position eroded further when five left-wing Labor MPs from New South Wales who supported NSW Premier Jack Lang broke away and moved to the crossbenches in protest of Scullin's economic policy, reducing Scullin to a

minority government A minority government, minority cabinet, minority administration, or a minority parliament is a government and cabinet formed in a parliamentary system when a political party or coalition of parties does not have a majority of overall seats in t ...

. Late in 1931, they supported a UAP no-confidence motion and brought down the government. The two Labor factions were decimated; massive vote-splitting left them with only 18 seats between them (14 for the official ALP and four for the Langites). Prior to the election, it was assumed that the Country Party, led by

Earle Page Sir Earle Christmas Grafton Page (8 August 188020 December 1961) was an Australian surgeon and politician who served as the 11th Prime Minister of Australia, holding office for 19 days after the death of Joseph Lyons in 1939. He was the leade ...

, would hold the balance of power, and Page tentatively agreed to support the UAP if that were the case. The two parties campaigned separately and stood candidates against each other in the House of Representatives, but ran joint tickets in Senate. However, the UAP came up four seats short of a majority. The five MPs from 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 ...

, which contested the election in that state in place of the UAP and Country Party, joined the UAP party room, giving the UAP enough numbers to form a

majority government A majority government is a government by one or more governing parties that hold an absolute majority of seats in a legislature. This is as opposed to a minority government, where the largest party in a legislature only has a plurality of seats ...

by two seats. Page was still willing to form a

coalition A coalition is a group formed when two or more people or groups temporarily work together to achieve a common goal. The term is most frequently used to denote a formation of power in political or economical spaces. Formation According to ''A Gui ...

with the Country Party, but negotiations broke down and Lyons decided the UAP would govern by itself. As a result, the First Lyons Ministry was composed solely of UAP members.Page, Sir Earle Christmas (1880–1961)
''

Australian Dictionary of Biography The ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'' (ADB or AuDB) is a national co-operative enterprise founded and maintained by the Australian National University (ANU) to produce authoritative biographical articles on eminent people in Australia's ...

'' Labor spent the next 10 years in opposition; it did not return to power until 1941.

Issues

The election was dominated by the

, which was at its height. As the Labor Government had come to office two days before the

Wall Street Crash of 1929 The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It started in September and ended late in October, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange coll ...

, it was seen as being responsible for many of the economic and social problems Australia faced, which sparked the historic

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 ...

in which Lyons and four other Labor dissidents crossed the floor to the opposition, ultimately merging into the UAP. Although the UAP was seen as an upper- and middle-class conservative party, the presence of ex-Labor MPs allowed the party to project an image of national unity. By the time the writs were issued, official Labor and Lang Labor were in open warfare, making a UAP victory all but certain. Due to the massive vote splitting brought on by a large number of three-cornered contests, Labor tallied its lowest primary vote since Federation, while the two Labor factions, official Labor and Lang Labor, won only 18 seats between them, with official Labor losing a record 32 seats on a massive 15.2% swing to the UAP. The two Labor factions would not reunite until 1936.

Results

House of Representatives

Results by electorate

Senate

Results by electorate

Seats changing hands

* Members listed in italics did not contest their seat at this election.

Notes

Notes References

References

University of WA
election results in Australia since 1890
Two-party-preferred vote since 1919
{{DEFAULTSORT:Australian Federal Election, 1931 Federal elections in Australia 1931 elections in Australia December 1931 events

Issues

Results

House of Representatives

Results by electorate

Senate

Results by electorate

Seats changing hands

See also

Notes

Further reading

References