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The Australian Party was a
political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...
founded and led by former Australian prime minister
Billy Hughes William Morris Hughes (25 September 1862 – 28 October 1952) was an Australian politician who served as the seventh prime minister of Australia from 1915 to 1923. He led the nation during World War I, and his influence on national politics s ...
after his expulsion from the Nationalist Party. The party was formed in 1929, and at its peak had five members of federal parliament. It was merged into the new
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 Elections in Australia, federal elections in that time, usually governing Coalition (Australia), in coalition ...
in 1931, having never contested a federal election.


History


Background

Billy Hughes William Morris Hughes (25 September 1862 – 28 October 1952) was an Australian politician who served as the seventh prime minister of Australia from 1915 to 1923. He led the nation during World War I, and his influence on national politics s ...
was a former
prime minister A prime minister 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. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...
who had been successively a member of the Labor Party, the National Labor Party, and the Nationalist Party. By 1928, he was the ''de facto'' leader of a group of
backbench In Westminster and other parliamentary systems, a backbencher is a member of parliament (MP) or a legislator who occupies no governmental office and is not a frontbench spokesperson in the Opposition, being instead simply a member of t ...
ers hostile to the government of
Stanley Bruce Stanley Melbourne Bruce, 1st Viscount Bruce of Melbourne (15 April 1883 â€“ 25 August 1967) was an Australian politician, statesman and businessman who served as the eighth prime minister of Australia from 1923 to 1929. He held office as ...
(who had replaced him as Nationalist leader in 1923). He and his supporters began to frequently
cross the floor In some parliamentary systems (e.g., in Canada and the United Kingdom), politicians are said to cross the floor if they formally change their political affiliation to a political party different from the one they were initially elected under. I ...
and vote against the government, particularly on the controversial subject of industrial relations. On 22 August 1929, Hughes and Edward Mann were expelled from the Nationalist Party for voting in favour of an unsuccessful censure motion against the government. Tensions finally came to a head on 10 September, when Hughes successfully moved an amendment to the government's flagship Maritime Industries Bill. Bruce took this to be a
vote of no confidence A motion or vote of no confidence (or the inverse, a motion or vote of confidence) is a motion and corresponding vote thereon in a deliberative assembly (usually a legislative body) as to whether an officer (typically an executive) is deemed fi ...
, and called an election for 12 October. Labor under
James Scullin James Henry Scullin (18 September 1876 – 28 January 1953) was an Australian politician and trade unionist who served as the ninth prime minister of Australia from 1929 to 1932. He held office as the leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), ...
won a landslide victory, while Hughes and two other ex-Nationalists were re-elected as independents.


Formation

After the 1929 election, Hughes made unsuccessful attempts to rejoin both the Nationalists and the Labor Party, in the hopes that he could return as prime minister. He eventually resolved to form his own party, which he hoped would secure the balance of power.Fitzhardinge (1979), p. 591. The new party was launched on 2 December 1929. Four other federal MPs joined Hughes as members— Walter Marks, George Maxwell, and Senators Walter Duncan and
Walter Massy-Greene Sir Walter Massy-Greene Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George, KCMG (6 November 187416 November 1952) was an Australian politician and businessman. As a Commonwealth Liberal Party, Liberal and Nationalist Party (Australia), N ...
.Fitzhardinge (1979), p. 592. The press regarded the Australian Party as a simply a vehicle for Hughes' ambitions; ''
The Sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot Plasma (physics), plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as ...
'', a Sydney tabloid, was the only newspaper to give it favourable publicity. The party claimed 75 branches and 4,000 members at its peak, but the only real activity took place in the electorates of its MPs. It was predominantly based in New South Wales, with a limited presence in Victoria and abortive attempts to expand to South Australia. Hughes and Marks were the party's chief financial backers, because membership fees were deliberately kept low and one of the party's planks was to refuse corporate donations. However, Hughes in particular was stingy with his money, sending the party treasurer only £100 out of a requested £250 for expenses and even then complaining about the cost.Fitzhardinge (1979), p. 594.


Elections

The first election the Australian Party contested was a
by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, or a bypoll in India, is an election used to fill an office that has become vacant between general elections. A vacancy may arise as a result of an incumben ...
to the
New South Wales Legislative Assembly The New South Wales Legislative Assembly is the lower of the two houses of the Parliament of New South Wales, an Australian state. The upper house is the New South Wales Legislative Council. Both the Assembly and Council sit at Parliament House ...
in July 1930, in the Lane Cove constituency. With Frederick Dunn (a former mayor of Lane Cove) as its candidate, the party polled 25.6% of the vote, putting it in third place behind Labor (30.7%) and the Nationalists (43.5%). Despite it being a
safe seat A safe seat is an electoral district which is regarded as fully secure, for either a certain political party, or the incumbent representative personally or a combination of both. With such seats, there is very little chance of a seat changing h ...
for the Nationalists, it was suggested by some that the Australian Party would have won if Labor had not contested the election. At the October 1930 state election in New South Wales, the Australian Party fielded candidates in 18 seats (all but two in Sydney). It polled 9.8% of the vote in seats it contested, but only 2.1% state-wide. The campaign was widely regarded as a failure, given that the party had hoped to win multiple seats. Hughes had little interest in state politics, and campaigned mainly on federal issues. He presented his party as an alternative to the incumbent Nationalist government of Thomas Bavin, but anti-government voters overwhelmingly voted for Jack Lang's Labor Party, which won a landslide victory with 55.0% of the vote. Hughes complained frequently about the lack of press coverage his party received, calling the media "as conformist as fascist Italy or Soviet Russia in following a party line".


Demise

George Maxwell resigned from the party in May 1930 to rejoin the Nationalists, citing policy differences. The party secretary, W. F. Jackson, did likewise in August, personally attacking Hughes in an open letter to ''
The Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, Australia, and owned by Nine Entertainment. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuous ...
''. In September, Hughes published a 16-page pamphlet titled "Bond or Free? Sir Otto Niemeyer’s Report", which sold nearly 50,000 copies in a month (at threepence each). It was widely quoted in newspapers. The statement effectively placed the Australian Party to the left of the federal Labor government on economic issues, and close to the radical views held by
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. It controlled the New South Wale ...
. ''The Sun'' withdrew its support of the party, and Walter Marks resigned his membership, citing Hughes' failure to consult him. Massy-Greene also resigned in December 1930 to re-join the Nationalist Party. The Australian Party virtually ceased to exist after the 1930 state election. On 15 April 1931, John Latham—the Nationalist leader and
leader of the opposition The Leader of the Opposition is a title traditionally held by the leader of the Opposition (parliamentary), largest political party not in government, typical in countries utilizing the parliamentary system form of government. The leader of the ...
—wrote to Hughes,
Joseph Lyons Joseph Aloysius Lyons (15 September 1879 – 7 April 1939) was an Australian politician who served as the tenth prime minister of Australia, from 1932 until his death in 1939. He held office as the inaugural leader of the United Australia Par ...
, and
Earle Page Sir Earle Christmas Grafton Page (8 August 188020 December 1961) was an Australian politician and surgeon who served as the 11th prime minister of Australia from 7 to 26 April 1939, in a caretaker capacity following the death of Joseph Lyons. ...
suggesting that they unify their parties and factions and form a united opposition to the Scullin government. Hughes and Lyons accepted, and the new
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 Elections in Australia, federal elections in that time, usually governing Coalition (Australia), in coalition ...
(UAP) officially came into existence on 7 May, with Lyons as leader. Hughes and Walter Duncan, the Australian Party's sole remaining parliamentary members, joined the new UAP, as did Marks and Maxwell. Hughes' biographer Laurie Fitzhardinge wrote of the Australian Party: "The party had no popular roots, but had been created from above, and only the untiring efforts of Hughes and Duncan kept it going. It lacked experience, it lacked a coherent programme, and above all it lacked finance".


Platform

The Australian Party presented itself as apolitical. It had a "vague and eclectic platform" which mixed
left-wing populism Left-wing populism, also called social populism, is a Ideology#Political ideologies, political ideology that combines left-wing politics with populist rhetoric and themes. Its rhetoric often includes elements of anti-elitism, opposition to the E ...
and economic nationalism. Hughes wanted the party to be "democratic and progressive €¦indeed so democratic that any Labor man may join and support it". Some policies were more or less lifted directly from the Labor platform, such as the abolition of state governors and
legislative council A legislative council is the legislature, or one of the legislative chambers, of a nation, colony, or subnational division such as a province or state. It was commonly used to label unicameral or upper house legislative bodies in the Brit ...
s. Hughes nonetheless denounced the Labor Party as controlled by communists, while simultaneously attacking the Nationalists as responsible for the Great Depression. Other Australian Party policies reflected Hughes' pet interests, such as amending the constitution to increase the federal government's powers over commerce and industrial relations. In general the
party platform A political party platform (American English), party program, or party manifesto (preferential term in British and often Commonwealth English) is a formal set of principal goals which are supported by a political party or individual candidate, t ...
put forward few specifics, and the party was almost wholly reliant on the personal appeal of Hughes for its support.Hogan & Clune (2001), pp. 21–23.


Notable members


Members of parliament

*
Billy Hughes William Morris Hughes (25 September 1862 – 28 October 1952) was an Australian politician who served as the seventh prime minister of Australia from 1915 to 1923. He led the nation during World War I, and his influence on national politics s ...
* Walter Duncan * Walter Marks * George Maxwell


Other members

* Stan Lloyd * John Waddell


External links


Pamphlet outlining the Australian Party's platform (National Library of Australia)


References

Notes Citations {{reflist 1929 establishments in Australia 1931 disestablishments in Australia Defunct political parties in Australia Political parties established in 1929 Political parties disestablished in 1931 White nationalist parties