Single Tax League Single Tax League | |
|---|---|
| Founded | ca 1910s |
| Ideology | Georgism |
| Political position | Centre to Centre-left |
The Single Tax League was a Georgist Australian political party that flourished throughout the 1920s and 1930s based on support for single tax.
Based upon the ideas of Henry George, who argued that all taxes should be abolished, save for a single tax on unimproved land values, the Single Tax League was founded shortly after World War I, and a newspaper, the People's Advocate was published. The League had pockets of support throughout Australia but none more than on the west coast of South Australia, whose farmers and graziers saw merit in single tax theory. A great proponent of the theory was J. Medway Day via his short-lived weekly newspaper The Voice .
The League's sole parliamentary representative was Edward Craigie, who was elected to the South Australian House of Assembly seat of Flinders (covering the League's west coast power base) in the 1930 state election. Though the party first contested the 1918 state election, the onset of the Great Depression in Australia had led people to seek radical solutions and the manifesto of the League seemed as likely to solve their woes as any government devised plan.
Craigie worked tirelessly to have a single tax system instituted in South Australia but faced stiff opposition from the conservative Liberal Federation (and their successors, the Liberal and Country League), which despised the idea of a single tax, and the Labor Party, which was opposed to the League's free trade stance.
Craigie was re-elected at the 1933 and 1938 state elections before being defeated at the 1941 state election, when the ideas of the Single Tax League already seemed an anachronism to most people. The League did not field any further candidates and drifted into obscurity.
| Date | Votes | Seats | Position | Size | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | % | ± pp | No. | ± | |||
| 1918 | 1,398 | 0.43 | New | 0 / 46 | New | Extra-parliamentary | 5th |
| 1921 | Did not run. | ||||||
| 1924 | Did not run. | ||||||
| 1927 | 1,923 | 0.40 |  0.3 | 0 / 46 |  0 | Extra-parliamentary | 5th |
| 1930 | 2,777 | 1.32 |  0.92 | 1 / 46 | 1 | Opposition | 4th |
| 1933 | 5,429 | 3.12 | 1.80 | 1 / 46 | 0 | Opposition | 5th |
| 1938 | 1,451 | 0.66 | 2.46 | 0 / 39 | 1 | Extra-parliamentary | 3rd |
The Australian Democrats is a centrist political party in Australia. Founded in 1977 from a merger of the Australia Party and the New Liberal Movement, both of which were descended from Liberal Party dissenting splinter groups, it was Australia's largest minor party from its formation in 1977 through to 2004 and frequently held the balance of power in the Senate during that time.
The Liberal Party of Australia is a centre-right political party in Australia. The party is one of the two major parties in Australian politics, the other being the Australian Labor Party. The Liberal Party was founded in 1944 as the successor to the United Australia Party. Historically the most successful political party in Australia's history, the party is now in opposition at a federal level and does not hold government in any Australian state or territory with the exception of the island state of Tasmania.
The premier of South Australia is the head of government in the state of South Australia, Australia. The Government of South Australia follows the Westminster system, with a Parliament of South Australia acting as the legislature. The premier is appointed by the governor of South Australia, and by modern convention holds office by virtue of their ability to command the support of a majority of members of the lower house of Parliament, the House of Assembly.
A two-party system is a political party system in which two major political parties consistently dominate the political landscape. At any point in time, one of the two parties typically holds a majority in the legislature and is usually referred to as the majority or governing party while the other is the minority or opposition party. Around the world, the term has different meanings. For example, in the United States, the Bahamas, Jamaica, and Zimbabwe, the sense of two-party system describes an arrangement in which all or nearly all elected officials belong to either of the two major parties, and third parties rarely win any seats in the legislature. In such arrangements, two-party systems are thought to result from several factors, like "winner takes all" or "first past the post" election systems. The electoral competition is mostly limited to the two major parties.
Richard John Seddon was a New Zealand politician who served as the 15th premier of New Zealand from 1893 until his death. In office for thirteen years, he is to date New Zealand's longest-serving head of government.
The Legislative Council, or upper house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of South Australia. Its central purpose is to act as a house of review for legislation passed through the lower house, the House of Assembly. It sits in Parliament House in the state capital, Adelaide.
The Liberal Party was a parliamentary party in Australian federal politics between 1909 and 1917. The party was founded under Alfred Deakin's leadership as a merger of the Protectionist Party and Anti-Socialist Party, an event known as the Fusion.
The Family First Party was a conservative political party in Australia which existed from 2002 to 2017. It was founded in South Australia where it enjoyed its greatest electoral support. Since the demise of the Australian Conservatives into which it merged, it has been refounded in that state as the Family First Party (2021), where it contested the state election in 2022, but failed to win a seat.
William Arthur Holman was an Australian politician who served as Premier of New South Wales from 1913 to 1920. He came to office as the leader of the Labor Party, but was expelled from the party in the split of 1916. He subsequently became the inaugural leader of the NSW branch of the Nationalist Party.
Dundee was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1832 to 1950, when it was split into Dundee East and Dundee West.
Flinders is a single-member electoral district for the South Australian House of Assembly. It is named after explorer Matthew Flinders, who was responsible for charting most of the state's coastline. It is a 58,901 km² coastal rural electorate encompassing the Eyre Peninsula and the coast along the Nullarbor Plain, based in and around the city of Port Lincoln and contains the District Councils of Ceduna, Cleve, Elliston, Lower Eyre Peninsula, Streaky Bay and Wudinna; as well as the localities of Fowlers Bay, Nullarbor and Yalata in the Pastoral Unincorporated Area. The seat was expanded in 2002 to include a western strip of land all the way to the Western Australia border.
The 1901 Australian federal election for the inaugural Parliament of Australia was held in Australia on Friday 29 March and Saturday 30 March 1901. The elections followed Federation and the establishment of the Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901. All 75 seats in the Australian House of Representatives, six of which were uncontested, as well as all 36 seats in the Australian Senate, were up for election.
Edward John Craigie was a Single Tax League member for the South Australian House of Assembly seat of Flinders from 1930 to 1941.
The 1995 New South Wales state election was held on Saturday 25 March 1995. All seats in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly and half the seats in the New South Wales Legislative Council were up for election. The minority Liberal Coalition government of Premier of New South Wales John Fahey was defeated by the Labor Party, led by Opposition Leader Bob Carr, who went on to become the longest continuously-serving premier in the state's history, before stepping down in 2005. Fahey pursued a brief career as a Federal Government minister.
Rex Whiting Pearson was an Australian politician. Born in Kadina, South Australia, he was educated in Adelaide at Prince Alfred College before becoming a farmer and grazier, initially at Sandilands on the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia.
State elections were held in South Australia on 6 April 1918. All 46 seats in the South Australian House of Assembly were up for election. The incumbent Liberal Union government led by Premier of South Australia Archibald Peake defeated the opposition Australian Labor Party led by Leader of the Opposition Andrew Kirkpatrick. Each district elected multiple members, with voters casting multiple votes.
New South Wales politics takes place in context of a bicameral parliamentary system. The main parties are the Liberal and National parties of the governing Coalition, and the Labor Party. Other minor political parties include the Greens, Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party and One Nation, along with several independent politicians.
The history of the Australian Labor Party has its origins in the Labour parties founded in the 1890s in the Australian colonies prior to federation. Labor tradition ascribes the founding of Queensland Labour to a meeting of striking pastoral workers under a ghost gum tree in Barcaldine, Queensland in 1891. The Balmain, New South Wales branch of the party claims to be the oldest in Australia. Labour as a parliamentary party dates from 1891 in New South Wales and South Australia, 1893 in Queensland, and later in the other colonies.
The Tasmanian Labor Party, officially known as the Australian Labor Party (Tasmanian Branch) and commonly referred to simply as Tasmanian Labor, is the Tasmanian branch of the Australian Labor Party. It has been one of the most successful state Labor parties in Australia in terms of electoral success.
The Western Australian Liberal Party, officially known as the Liberal Party of Australia (Western Australian Division), is the division of the Liberal Party of Australia in Western Australia. Founded in March 1949 as the Liberal and Country League of Western Australia (LCL), it simplified its name to the Liberal Party in 1968.
