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 prime ministers: Joseph Lyons (1932–1939) and Robert Menzies (1939–1941).
Joseph Aloysius Lyons was an Australian politician who was the tenth prime minister of Australia, in office from 1932 until his death in 1939. He began his career in the Australian Labor Party (ALP), but became the founding leader of the United Australia Party (UAP) after the Australian Labor Party split of 1931. He had earlier been 26th premier of Tasmania from 1923 to 1928.
John Thomas Lang, usually referred to as J. T. Lang during his career and familiarly known as "Jack" and nicknamed "The Big Fella", was an Australian politician, mainly for the New South Wales Branch of the Labor Party. He twice served as the 23rd Premier of New South Wales from 1925 to 1927 and again from 1930 to 1932. He was dismissed by the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Philip Game, at the climax of the 1932 constitutional crisis and resoundingly lost the resulting election and subsequent elections as Leader of the Opposition. He later formed Lang Labor that contested federal and state elections and was briefly a member of the Australian House of Representatives.
Sir John Robert Kerr, was an Australian barrister and judge who served as the 18th governor-general of Australia, in office from 1974 to 1977. He is primarily known for his involvement in the 1975 constitutional crisis, which culminated in his decision to dismiss the incumbent prime minister Gough Whitlam and appoint Malcolm Fraser as his replacement, which led to unprecedented actions in Australian federal politics.
James Henry Scullin 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), having briefly served as treasurer of Australia during his time in office from 1930 to 1931. His time in office was primarily categorised by the Wall Street Crash of 1929 which transpired just two days after his swearing in, thus heralding the beginning of the Great Depression in Australia. Scullin remained a leading figure in the Labor movement throughout his lifetime, and was an éminence grise in various capacities for the party until his retirement from federal parliament in 1949. He was the first Catholic, as well as the first Irish-Australian, to serve as prime minister.
Air Vice-Marshal Sir Philip Woolcott Game, was a Royal Air Force commander, who later served as Governor of New South Wales and Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis (London). Born in Surrey in 1876, Game was educated at Charterhouse School and entered the military at Royal Military Academy Woolwich, gaining his commission in 1895. Serving with the Royal Artillery, Game saw action in the Second Boer War and the First World War. After serving with distinction and bravery, Game transferred to the Royal Flying Corps in early 1916 serving as General Trenchard's chief staff officer. Finishing the War as an acting major-general, Game remained in the Royal Air Force after the close of hostilities. Notably he served as Air Officer Commanding RAF India and Air Member for Personnel. He retired from the military in 1929, having reached the rank of air vice-marshal.
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, poverty, low profits, deflation, plunging incomes, and lost opportunities for economic growth and personal advancement.
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 Wales branch of the ALP throughout most of the 1920s and 1930s. The faction broke away to form separate parliamentary parties on several occasions and stood competing candidates against the ALP in state and federal elections.
James McGirr was an Australian politician. He served as premier of New South Wales from 1947 to 1952, holding office as leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). He led the party to victory at the 1947 and 1950 New South Wales state elections. He was a pharmacist by profession and the younger brother of Patrick and Greg McGirr, who were also members of parliament; Greg also led the ALP briefly but was never premier.
Sir Bertram Sydney Barnsdale Stevens, also referred to as B. S. B. Stevens, was an Australian politician who served as the 25th Premier of New South Wales, in office from 1932 to 1939 as leader of the United Australia Party (UAP).
Edmond John "Ned" Hogan was an Australian politician who was the 30th Premier of Victoria. He was born in Wallace, Victoria, where his Irish-born parents were small farmers. After attending a Roman Catholic primary school, he became a farm worker and then a timber worker, and spent some time on the goldfields of Western Australia.
The following lists events that happened during 1932 in Australia.
The 1931 Australian federal election was held on 19 December 1931. All 75 seats in the House of Representatives and 18 of the 36 seats in the Senate were up for election.
This is a list of members of the Australian Senate from 1929 to 1932. Half of its members were elected at the 14 November 1925 election and had terms starting on 1 July 1926 and finishing on 30 June 1932; the other half were elected at the 17 November 1928 election and had terms starting on 1 July 1929 and finishing on 30 June 1935. The process for filling casual vacancies was complex. While senators were elected for a six-year term, people appointed to a casual vacancy only held office until the earlier of the next election for the House of Representatives or the Senate.
The 1932 New South Wales state election was held on 11 June 1932. This election was for all of the 90 seats in the 30th New South Wales Legislative Assembly and it was conducted in single member constituencies with compulsory preferential voting. It was a landslide victory for the UAP/Country Party coalition of Bertram Stevens, which had a majority of 42 in the Assembly.
The Lyons government was the federal executive government of Australia led by Prime Minister Joseph Lyons. It was made up of members of the United Australia Party in the Australian Parliament from January 1932 until the death of Joseph Lyons in 1939. Lyons negotiated a coalition with the Country Party after the 1934 Australian federal election. The Lyons government stewarded Australia's recovery from the Great Depression and established the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
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.
Members of the New South Wales Legislative Council who served from 1930 to 1932 were appointed for life by the Governor on the advice of the Premier. This list includes members between the 1930 state election on 25 October 1930 and the 1932 state election on 11 June 1932. The President was Sir John Peden. The Premier Jack Lang had been seeking to swamp the council, however the Governor Sir Philip Game had declined to do so in November 1930, March, June and September 1931 when Lang sought 70 new members be appointed. In November 1931 Lang dropped his request to 25 new members and the governor agreed to the request. This raised the number of members of the council from 85 to 110.
The Federal Labor Party were the members of the Australian Labor Party in the state of New South Wales who supported the federal party leadership in the split with the state Labor party which broke away in 1931. Federal Labor retained some seats in the Parliament of Australia but was a minor party in state elections. The dispute was healed in 1936.
In Australian politics, largely in New South Wales, Langism is the politics, ideology, and style of governing of former New South Wales Premier and Labor Leader Jack Lang. Reaching its peak in the 1930s and 1940s around the period of Lang's Premiership (1930–1932), dismissal, and federal political career, Langism is largely characterised as a combination of political ideals of Jack Lang, including economic populism/nationalism, anti-austerity policies, Australian nationalism and anti-communism. Much of which was laid out in the Lang Plan. Lang's opposition to reimbursing foreign debt and supporting lowering domestic interest rates gave Lang a reputation as a radical, a renegade, and even a dictator. After the sacking of Lang in 1932 by Governor Philip Game, the term Langism was used by conservatives and the United Australia Party as a pejorative and to smear the New South Wales Labor Party. Adherents of Langism, or his government and politics, are referred to as Langites.
