The Lang Labor 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, ...

active in

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

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. It controlled the New South Wale ...

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 system, Westminster Parliamentary System, with a Parliament of New South Wales actin ...

Jack Lang.

Establishment

It was formed as a result of increasing tensions within the

Australian Labor Party The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also known as the Labor Party or simply Labor, is the major Centre-left politics, centre-left List of political parties in Australia, political party in Australia and one of two Major party, major parties in Po ...

over the party's economic response to the

Great Depression in Australia Australia was affected 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 had years of high unemployment, poverty, ...

. 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 Depress ...

" to achieve those ends. The 1931 Labor split occurred both at a state and federal level, with Lang's supporters being known as "

". 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 Douglas Henry Bardolph (18 February 1893 – 2 February 1951) was an Australian journalist, trade unionist and politician. History Henry Bardolph (ca.1854 – 22 June 1933) and Mary Bardolph (née Taggart) had five sons, and lived at Manly, New ...

, 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, 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 ...

was held for the

South Australian House of Assembly The House of Assembly (also known as the lower house) is one of two chambers of the Parliament of South Australia, the other being the Legislative Council. It sits in Parliament House in the state capital, Adelaide. Overview The House of Assem ...

seat of

Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...

, 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 Martin Louis Collaton (11 August 1887 – 25 November 1963) was an Australian politician who represented the South Australian House of Assembly multi-member seat of Adelaide from 1931 to 1933. Elected for the Lang Labor Party, he defected to t ...

, 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 Anderson may refer to: Politics *Joe Anderson (politician) (born 1958), mayor of Liverpool *Joseph Anderson (South Australian politician) (1876–1947), and accountant, real estate *Joseph C. Anderson (1830–1891), member of the Kansas T ...

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

and formed their own party, the South Australian Lang Labor Party (SALLP). In June 1934, the four Labor factions were reunited.

References

{{Defunct Australian political parties Defunct political parties in South Australia Australian Labor Party breakaway groups

Establishment

South Australian Lang Labor Party (SALLP)

See also

References