The 1931 Australian federal election was held on 19 December 1931 to elect all 75 seats in the House of Representatives and 18 of the 36 seats in the Senate.
The incumbent first-term Australian Labor Party (ALP) government led by Prime Minister James Scullin was defeated in a landslide by the United Australia Party (UAP) led by Joseph Lyons. As of 2025, this is the last time that a sitting government at a federal level has been defeated after a single term.
The election was held at a time of great social and political upheaval, coming at the peak of the Great Depression in Australia. The UAP had only been formed a few months before the election, when Lyons and a few ALP dissidents joined forces with the Nationalist Party and the Australian Party. Although it was dominated by former Nationalists, Lyons became the merged party's leader, with Nationalist leader John Latham as his deputy.
Scullin's position eroded further when five left-wing Labor MPs from New South Wales who supported NSW Premier Jack Lang broke away and moved to the crossbenches in protest of Scullin's economic policy, reducing Scullin to a minority government. Late in 1931, they supported a UAP no-confidence motion and brought down the government. The two Labor factions were decimated; massive vote-splitting left them with only 18 seats between them (14 for the official ALP and four for the Langites).
Prior to the election, it was assumed that the Country Party, led by Earle Page, would hold the balance of power, and Page tentatively agreed to support the UAP if that were the case. The two parties campaigned separately and stood candidates against each other in the House of Representatives, but ran joint tickets in Senate. However, the UAP came up four seats short of a majority. The five MPs from the Emergency Committee of South Australia, which contested the election in that state in place of the UAP and Country Party, joined the UAP party room, giving the UAP enough numbers to form a majority government by two seats. Page was still willing to form a coalition with the Country Party, but negotiations broke down and Lyons decided the UAP would govern by itself. As a result, the First Lyons Ministry was composed solely of UAP members.Page, Sir Earle Christmas (1880–1961), Australian Dictionary of Biography
Labor spent the next 10 years in opposition; it did not return to power until 1941.
Issues 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 in which Lyons and four other Labor dissidents crossed the floor to the opposition, ultimately merging into the UAP. Although the UAP, like the Nationalists, was a mostly upper- and middle-class conservative party. However, the presence of Lyons and other ex-Labor MPs allowed the party to project an image of national unity.
By the time the writs were issued, official Labor and Lang Labor were in open warfare. Combined with the Labor defections to the UAP, this made a UAP victory all but certain. Due to the massive vote splitting brought on by a large number of three-cornered contests, Labor tallied its lowest primary (first preference) vote since Federation, while the two Labor factions, official Labor and Lang Labor, won only 18 seats between them, with official Labor losing a record 32 seats on a massive 15.2% swing to the UAP.
The two Labor factions did not reunite until 1936.
Results The UAP emerged with 38 seats in the House of Representatives (including four members elected as candidates of the South Australian Emergency Committee). The Country Party won 17 seats (including the remaining Emergency Committee candidate, Archie Cameron), while the official Labor Party won 14 seats and Lang Labor won 4 seats.
House of Representatives
+House of Representatives (IRV) – Turnout: 95.04% (CV) Party First preference vote Seats Votes % Swing () Seats Change United Australia Party UAP 1,155,809 36.4 33 15 Country CP 388,544 12.2 +1.93 16 6 Labor ALP 860,260 27.1 16 22 Emergency Committee ECSA 174,288 5.5 +5.5 5 6 Labor (NSW) L (NSW) 335,309 10.6 +10.6 4 1 Communist CPA 8,511 0.3 +0.3 0 0 Independent 260,786 6 –0.02 3 1 Total 3,287,992 100.00 76 Valid votes 3,173,515 96.52 rowspan=4 rowspan=4 rowspan=4 Informal ballots 114,477 3.5 Turnout 3,287,992 90 Registered voters 3,652,196
Results by electorate ConstituencyTotalseatsSeats wonUAPCPALP ECSAL (NSW)IndependentNew South Wales281383040Victoria201244000Queensland10225001South Australia7 001501Western Australia5121001Tasmania55 0 0 0 0 0 Northern Territory100 10 0 0 Total76331615543
Senate + Senate (P BV) — 1931–34—Turnout 95.02% (CV) — Informal 9.60% Party First preference votes % Swing Seats won Seats held Change UAP/Country (Joint Ticket) 945,741 30.16 * 6 Australian Labor Party 917,218 29.25 −19.70 3 10 +3 United Australia Party 791,870 25.26 −14.02 9 21 −3 Australian Labor Party (NSW) 379,870 12.12 * 0 0 0 Communist Party of Australia 29,443 0.94 * 0 0 0 Country Party * * −11.18 0 5 0 Independents 71,181 2.27 +1.68 0 0 0 Total 3,135,323 18 36
Results by electorate ConstituencyTotalseatsSeats wonUAPCPALP New South Wales32 1 0Victoria3300Queensland3003South Australia3210Western Australia3210Tasmania3300Total181233
Seats changing hands Seat Pre-1931 Swing Post-1931 Party Member Margin Margin Member Party Adelaide, SA Labor George Edwin Yates 11.4 21.0 9.6 Fred Stacey Emergency Committee Angas, SA Labor Moses Gabb 4.7 31.5 26.8 Moses Gabb Ind. Emergency Committee Ballaarat, Vic Labor Charles McGrath 7.4 20.7 13.3 Charles McGrath United Australia Barton, NSW Labor James Tully 17.6 20.8 3.2 Albert Lane United Australia Bass, Tas Labor Allan Guy 10.4 24.9 14.5 Allan Guy United Australia Batman, Vic Labor Frank Brennan 25.8 26.6 0.8 Samuel Dennis United Australia Bendigo, Vic Labor Richard Keane 5.1 14.6 9.5 Eric Harrison United Australia Boothby, SA Labor John Price 5.6 29.6 24.0 John Price Emergency Committee Brisbane, Qld United Australia Donald Charles Cameron 2.4 3.1 0.7 George Lawson Labor Calare, NSW Labor George Gibbons 1.6 11.7 10.1 Harold Thorby Country Corangamite, Vic Labor Richard Crouch 2.1 15.0 12.9 William Gibson Country Corio, Vic Labor Arthur Lewis 6.0 16.6 10.6 Richard Casey United Australia Dalley, NSW Labor Ted Theodore N/A 8.9 14.0 Sol Rosevear Labor (NSW) Darling Downs, Qld United Australia Arthur Morgan N/A 17.7 9.8 Littleton Groom Independent Denison, Tas Labor Charles Culley 9.2 14.2 5.0 Arthur Hutchin United Australia East Sydney, NSW Labor (NSW) Eddie Ward 5.7 11.7 1.7 John Clasby United Australia Eden-Monaro, NSW Labor John Cusack 0.1 13.7 13.6 John Perkins United Australia Flinders, Vic Labor Jack Holloway 0.2 18.5 18.3 Stanley Bruce United Australia Franklin, Tas Labor Charles Frost 1.9 13.0 17.9 Archibald Blacklow United Australia Fremantle, WA Labor John Curtin 7.0 13.5 5.5 William Watson United Australia Grey, SA Labor Andrew Lacey 9.6 17.1 7.5 Philip McBride Emergency Committee Gwydir, NSW Labor Lou Cunningham 3.7 13.5 9.8 Aubrey Abbott Country Hume, NSW Labor Parker Moloney 6.6 14.1 7.5 Thomas Collins Country Hunter, NSW Labor Rowley James 100.0 57.2 7.2 Rowley James Labor (NSW) Indi, Vic Labor Paul Jones 1.4 14.4 13.0 William Hutchinson United Australia Lang, NSW Labor William Long 16.2 20.4 4.2 Dick Dein United Australia Macquarie, NSW Labor Ben Chifley 15.6 16.2 0.6 John Lawson United Australia Maribyrnong, Vic Labor James Fenton 23.2 23.6 0.4 James Fenton United Australia Martin, NSW Labor John Eldridge 6.4 22.7 16.3 William Holman United Australia Oxley, Qld United Australia James Bayley 0.1 5.9 5.8 Francis Baker Labor Parramatta, NSW Labor Albert Rowe 3.3 19.5 16.2 Frederick Stewart United Australia Reid, NSW Labor Percy Coleman N/A 55.3 5.3 Joe Gander Labor (NSW) South Sydney, NSW Labor Edward Riley 16.3 21.4 5.1 John Jennings United Australia Wannon, Vic Labor John McNeill 2.0 14.3 12.3 Thomas Scholfield United Australia Werriwa, NSW Labor Bert Lazzarini 15.4 17.1 1.7 Walter McNicoll Country West Sydney, NSW Labor Jack Beasley 36.5 11.4 15.1 Jack Beasley Labor (NSW) Wimmera, Vic Country Progressive Percy Stewart N/A 21.8 11.8 Hugh McClelland Country Wilmot, Tas Labor Joseph Lyons 2.9 25.0 22.1 Joseph Lyons United Australia Members listed in italics did not contest their seat at this election.
Government formation
After the election, Lyons offered three minor cabinet portfolios to the Country Party, but this offer was rejected by Country Party leader Earle Page and Lyons refused to entertain the full coalition Page sought along the lines of the Bruce–Page government of the 1920s. Lyons formed a UAP-only ministry on 6 January 1932, with Page publicly promising the cooperation of the Country Party in parliament.
Lyons and the UAP initially expected to hold a narrow working majority in the House of Representatives, with 38 out of 75 voting members. However, UAP MP John Clasby died in office in January 1932, less than a month after the election. Lang Labor candidate Eddie Ward won the resulting 1932 East Sydney by-election, with the government reduced to a minority after the election of George Mackay as speaker.
See also Candidates of the Australian federal election, 1931 Members of the Australian House of Representatives, 1931–1934 Members of the Australian Senate, 1932–1935
Notes
References
External links University of WA election results in Australia since 1890 Two-party-preferred vote since 1919
Further reading Cook, Peter. "Labor and the Premiers' Plan." Labour History (1969): 97–110. in JSTOR Denning, Warren, and Alan Douglas Reid. Caucus crisis: the rise & fall of the Scullin government (Hale & Iremonger, 1982) Head, Brian. "Economic crisis and political legitimacy: the 1931 federal election." Journal of Australian Studies (1978) 2#3 pp: 14–29. online Richardson, Nick. "The 1931 Australian Federal Election—Radio Makes History." Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television (2010) 30#3 pp: 377–389. DOI:10.1080/01439685.2010.505037 Roberts, Stephen H. "The Crisis in Australia: September, 1930-January, 1932." Pacific Affairs (1932) 5#4 pp: 319-332. in JSTOR Robinson, Geoff. "The Australian class structure and Australian politics 1931-40." APSA 2008: Australasian Political Science Association 2008 Conference. Australasian Political Science Association, 2008. online Robertson, J. R. "Scullin as Prime Minister: seven critical decisions." Labour History (1969): 27–36. in JSTOR Robertson, John. J.H. Scullin: A political biography (University of Western Australia Press, 1974)