The Lang Labor Party was a
political party
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...
active 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 ...
from 1931 to 1934, aligned with
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 ...
and the policies of
Premier of New South Wales
The premier of New South Wales is the head of government in the state of New South Wales, Australia. The Government of New South Wales follows the Westminster Parliamentary System, with a Parliament of New South Wales acting as the legislatu ...
Jack Lang.
Establishment
It was formed as a result of increasing tensions within the
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 ...
over the party's economic response to 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 opponents of austerity in the Labor Party, of which Lang was among the most prominent figures, had supported repudiating Australia's debt, while supporters of austerity policies would subsequently introduce the national "
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 Depression ...
" to achieve those ends. The
1931 Labor split occurred both at a state and federal level, with Lang's supporters being known as "
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 ...
".
By May 1931, the "Lang Plan Campaign Committee" had been formed in South Australia to give publicity to and campaign for Lang's ideas. Its members were not, at its inception, outside the Labor Party; however, the breach between Lang's supporters and the mainstream party quickly broadened, and reports that month suggested that a split in the party was imminent. The committee's president was
Doug Bardolph, and its secretary was
Tom Howard.
In July 1931, 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 ...
was held for 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 South Australian Legislative Council, Legislative Council. It sits in Parliament House, Adelaide, Parliament House in the st ...
seat of
Adelaide
Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...
, in the wake of Labor MP
Bert Edwards being sentenced to jail. The Lang Plan Campaign Committee decided to separately contest the by-election, and the secretary of the Ironworkers' Union,
Martin Collaton, was chosen as their candidate. Collaton went on to win the by-election, in which he had been usually referred to as a "Lang Plan supporter" or a "Lang Plan candidate".
The supporters of Lang had begun being referred to as the "Lang Labor Party" by August 1931, by which time they had established local branches. In addition to Collaton, the party supported independent Labor state MP
Bob Dale, who had been expelled from the Labor Party for supporting Lang's ideas, and who would later run for re-election under the party's banner. In October, the Lang Labor Party nominated Bardolph in a
Legislative Council by-election for the Central District No. 1 seat and ran a significant campaign on his behalf, but saw him defeated by independent
Joseph Anderson
Joseph Inslee Anderson (November 5, 1757 – April 17, 1837) was an American soldier, judge, and politician, who served as a United States Senator from Tennessee from 1797 to 1815, and later as the First Comptroller of the United States Treasur ...
South Australian Lang Labor Party (SALLP)
Two of the three Lang Labor Party MHAs elected at the
1933 state election,
Bob Dale and
Tom Howard, left the party in 1933 post-election after falling out with leader
Doug Bardolph and formed their own party, the South Australian Lang Labor Party (SALLP).
In June 1934, the four Labor factions were reunited.
See also
*
Australian Labor Party (South Australian Branch)
The Australian Labor Party (South Australian Branch), commonly known as South Australian Labor, is the South Australian Branch of the Australian Labor Party, originally formed in 1891 as the United Labor Party of South Australia. It is one of two ...
*
Members of the South Australian House of Assembly, 1930–1933
This is a list of members of the South Australian House of Assembly from 1930 to 1933, as elected at the 1930 state election:
: Adelaide MHA Bert Edwards had his seat vacated for absence without leave on 23 June 1931. Lang Plan Campaign Comm ...
*
References
{{Defunct Australian political parties
Defunct political parties in South Australia
Australian Labor Party breakaway groups