The 1940 Victorian state election was held in the Australian
state
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
of
Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada
* Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory
* Victoria, Seychelle ...
on Saturday 16 March 1940 to elect 44 of the 65 members of the state's
Legislative Assembly.
Background
Several events had taken place since the
previous state election on 2 October 1937, which had changed the breakdown of the parties in the Assembly:
* In November 1937,
Ian Macfarlan
Ian Macfarlan (born John Robert Macfarlan; 21 November 1881 – 19 March 1964) was the Deputy Leader of the Australian Liberal Party in the Australian state of Victoria during 1945. He was briefly commissioned as the 35th Premier of Victor ...
(the member for
Brighton
Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...
) left 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) and sat as an
Independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independ ...
. Macfarlan gave two reasons for his resignation from the UAP: that the party was sitting in opposition to the Dunstan Country government which he praised; and that it was controlled by a central body outside of the parliament, the members of which were unknown to most party members.
Frederick Holden
Frederick Charles Thomas Holden (22 March 1894 – 26 April 1961) was an Australian politician.
He was born in Wallace to George Frederick Holden, a merchant and Minnie Elizabeth Ireson. He attended Geelong College and became a farmer at Me ...
(
Grant
Grant or Grants may refer to:
Places
*Grant County (disambiguation)
Australia
* Grant, Queensland, a locality in the Barcaldine Region, Queensland, Australia
United Kingdom
*Castle Grant
United States
* Grant, Alabama
*Grant, Inyo County, C ...
) also left the UAP and sat on the cross benches.
This reduced the UAP's numbers from 21 to 19.
*
Ernie Bond (
Port Fairy and Glenelg) had been expelled from the
Labor Party (ALP) over his support for the "
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 ...
" in 1932, and had won several elections as an independent. He was re-admitted to the ALP in on 16 April 1938.
This increased the ALP's numbers from 20 to 21.
* On 5 November 1938, the
United Country Party (UCP) won a
by-election
A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...
in the seat of
Gippsland North, after the death of the sitting member
James Weir McLachlan, an independent.
This reduced the number of Independents to 3, and increased the numbers for the UCP from 20 to 21.
* In August 1939,
Alfred Kirton
Alfred James Kirton (14 April 1877 – 20 April 1960) was an Australian politician.
He was born in Ballarat to bookmaker Emanuel Kirton and Jane Milburn. He left school at the age of twelve to work for a draper, and from the age of fifteen ...
(
Mornington) resigned from the UAP and sat briefly as an independent, before joining the United Country Party on 29 August 1939. This reduced the UAP from 19 seats to 18, and increased the UCP seats from 21 to 22.
* In 1939
Frederick Cook
Frederick Albert Cook (June 10, 1865 – August 5, 1940) was an American explorer, physician, and ethnographer who claimed to have reached the North Pole on April 21, 1908. That was nearly a year before Robert Peary, who similarly claime ...
(
Benalla
Benalla
is a small city located on the Broken River gateway to the High Country north-eastern region of Victoria, Australia, about north east of the state capital Melbourne. At the the population was 10,822.
It is the administrative centr ...
) moved from being an Independent to joining the
Liberal Country Party
The Liberal Country Party (LCP) was a splinter group of the United Country Party, the Victorian branch of the Australian Country Party, formed after federal MP John McEwen was expelled from the state branch for accepting a ministry in the Lyon ...
, a breakaway group from the Country Party who supported the federal party's participation in a
Coalition government
A coalition government is a form of government in which political parties cooperate to form a government. The usual reason for such an arrangement is that no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an election, an atypical outcome in ...
.
Results
Legislative Assembly
See also
*
Candidates of the 1940 Victorian state election
*
1940 Victorian Legislative Council election
References
{{Victorian elections
1940 elections in Australia
Elections in Victoria (Australia)
1940s in Victoria (Australia)
March 1940 events