Australian federal election, 1931
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32
32Joseph Lyons
UAP/Country coalition
Federal elections were held in Australia 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. The incumbent Australian Labor Party led by Prime Minister of Australia James Scullin was defeated by the newly formed opposition United Australia Party--a merger of the Nationalist Party of Australia with several Labor dissidents led by Joseph Lyons, who became leader of the merged party. The UAP fought the election in the traditional non-Labor Coalition with the Country Party, led by Earle Page, but won enough seats to form a majority UAP government. But with the historic Australian Labor Party split of 1931 it was not nearly enough to stave off severe defeat. To date, it is the last time that a sitting government in Australia has been denied a second term.
Independent: Littleton Groom (Darling Downs, Qld)
The election was dominated by the Great Depression in Australia, which was at its height. As the Labor Government had come to office two days before the Wall Street Crash of 1929, it was seen as being responsible for many of the economic and social problems Australia faced, which sparked the historic Australian Labor Party split of 1931. The result was Labor's primary vote dropping to its lowest level since 1901. The two Labor factions, official Labor and Lang Labor, won only 18 seats between them.
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