The United Australia Party (UAP) was an Australian political party which was founded in 1931 and dissolved in 1945. It 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).
The UAP was created in the aftermath of the 1931 split in the Australian Labor Party. Six fiscally conservative Labor MPs left the party to protest the Scullin government's financial policies during the Great Depression. Led by Joseph Lyons, a former Premier of Tasmania, the defectors initially sat as independents, but then agreed to merge with the Nationalist Party and form a united opposition. Lyons was chosen as the new party's leader due to his popularity among the general public, with former Nationalist leader John Latham becoming his deputy. He led the UAP to a landslide victory at the 1931 federal election, where the party secured an outright majority in the House of Representatives and was able to form government in its own right.
After the 1934 election, the UAP entered into a coalition with the Country Party; it retained government at the 1937 election. After Lyons' death in April 1939, the UAP elected Robert Menzies as its new leader. This resulted in the Country Party leaving the coalition, but a new coalition agreement was reached in March 1940. The 1940 election resulted in a hung parliament and the formation of a minority government with support from two independents. In August 1941, Menzies was forced to resign as prime minister in favour of Arthur Fadden, the Country Party leader; he in turn survived only 40 days before losing a confidence motion and making way for a Labor government under John Curtin. Fadden continued on as Leader of the Opposition, with Billy Hughes replacing Menzies as UAP leader. Hughes resigned after the 1943 election, and Menzies subsequently returned as UAP leader and Leader of the Opposition. The UAP ceased to exist as a parliamentary party in February 1945, when its members joined the new Liberal Party of Australia. The modern United Australia Party has no connection or relationship with the former party.
History Background
Joseph Lyons began his political career as an Australian Labor Party politician and served as Premier of Tasmania. Lyons was elected to the Australian Federal Parliament in 1929 and served in Prime Minister James Scullin's Labor Cabinet. Lyons became acting Treasurer in 1930 and helped negotiate the government's strategies for dealing with the Great Depression. With Scullin temporarily absent in London, Lyons and acting Prime Minister James Fenton clashed with the Labor Cabinet and Caucus over economic policy, and grappled with the differing proposals of the Premier's Plan, Lang Labor, the Commonwealth Bank and British adviser Otto Niemeyer.
While Health Minister Frank Anstey supported Premier of New South Wales Jack Lang's bid to default on debt repayments, Lyons advocated orthodox fiscal management. When Labor reinstated the more radical Ted Theodore as Treasurer in 1931, Lyons and Fenton resigned from Cabinet.
Foundation
The UAP was formed in 1931 by Labor dissidents and a conservative coalition as a response to the more radical economic proposals of Labor Party members to deal with the Great Depression in Australia. Lyons and Fenton's opposition to the economic policies of the Scullin Labor government had attracted the support of a circle of socially prominent Melburnians known as "the Group" or "Group of Six", comprising stockbroker Staniforth Ricketson, insurance company president Charles Arthur Norris, metallurgist and businessman John Michael Higgins, writer Ambrose Pratt, state attorney-general Robert Menzies, and architect Kingsley Henderson. In parliament on 13 March 1931, though still a member of the ALP, Lyons supported a no confidence motion against the Scullin Labor government. Soon afterward, Lyons, Fenton and four other right-wing Labor MPs—Moses Gabb, Allan Guy, Charles McGrath and John Price—resigned from the ALP in protest of the Scullin government's economic policies. Five of the six Labor dissidents crossed over to the opposition benches. On 7 May, the Labor dissidents, the Nationalist opposition (hitherto led by John Latham) and former Prime Minister Billy Hughes' Australian Party (a group of former Nationalists who had been expelled for crossing the floor and bringing down Stanley Bruce's Nationalist government in 1929), merged to form the UAP. Although the new party was dominated by former Nationalists, Lyons was chosen as the new party's leader, and thus became Leader of the Opposition, with Latham as his deputy. The Western Australia branch of the Nationalists, however, retained the Nationalist name.
Claiming that the Scullin government was incapable of managing the economy, it offered traditional deflationary economic policies in response to Australia's economic crisis. Though it was basically an upper- and middle-class conservative party, the presence of ex-Labor MPs with working-class backgrounds allowed the party to present a convincing image of national unity transcending class barriers. This was especially true of the party leader, Lyons. Indeed, he had been chosen as the merged party's leader because he was thought to be more electorally appealing than the aloof Latham, and was thus better suited to win over traditional Labor supporters to the UAP.
A further split, this time of left-wing NSW Labor MPs who supported the unorthodox economic policies of NSW Premier Jack Lang, cost the Scullin government its parliamentary majority. In November 1931, Lang Labor dissidents broke with the Scullin government and joined with the UAP opposition to pass a no-confidence motion, forcing an early election.
Lyons government
With the Labor Party split between Scullin's supporters and Langites, and with a very popular leader (Lyons had a genial manner and the common touch), the UAP won the elections in December 1931 in a massive landslide which saw the two wings of the Labor Party cut down to 18 seats between them, and Lyons became Prime Minister in January 1932. He took office at the helm of a UAP majority government. The UAP initially hoped to renew the non-Labor Coalition with the Country Party of Earle Page after coming up four seats short of a majority in its own right. However, the five MPs elected from the Emergency Committee of South Australia, which stood in place of the UAP and Country Party in South Australia, joined the UAP party room, giving the UAP a bare majority of two seats. When negotiations with Page broke down, Lyons formed an exclusively UAP government. In 1934, the UAP lost six seats, forcing Lyons to take the Country Party into his government in a full-fledged Coalition.
The Lyons government followed the conservative economic policies it had promised in opposition, and benefited politically from the gradual worldwide economic recovery as the 1930s went on.
Response to Depression
Lyons favoured the tough economic measures of the "Premiers' Plan", pursued an orthodox fiscal policy and refused to accept NSW Premier Jack Lang's proposals to default on overseas debt repayments. A dramatic episode in Australian history followed Lyons' first electoral victory when NSW Premier Jack Lang refused to pay interest on overseas State debts. The Lyons government stepped in and paid the debts and then passed the Financial Agreement Enforcement Act to recover the money it had paid. In an effort to frustrate this move, Lang ordered State departments to pay all receipts directly to the Treasury instead of into Government bank accounts. The New South Wales Governor, Sir Philip Game, intervened on the basis that Lang had acted illegally in breach of the state Audit Act and sacked the Lang Government, who then suffered a landslide loss at the consequent 1932 state election.Brian Carroll; From Barton to Fraser; Cassell Australia; 1978
Australia entered the Depression with a debt crisis and a credit crisis. According to author Anne Henderson of the Sydney Institute, Lyons held a steadfast belief in "the need to balance budgets, lower costs to business and restore confidence" and the Lyons period gave Australia "stability and eventual growth" between the drama of the Depression and the outbreak of the Second World War. A lowering of wages was enforced and industry tariff protections maintained, which together with cheaper raw materials during the 1930s saw a shift from agriculture to manufacturing as the chief employer of the Australian economy – a shift which was consolidated by increased investment by the commonwealth government into defence and armaments manufacture. Lyons saw restoration of Australia's exports as the key to economic recovery.Anne Henderson; Joseph Lyons: The People's Prime Minister; NewSouth; 2011. A devalued Australian currency assisted in restoring a favourable balance of trade. Tariffs had been a point of difference between the Country Party and United Australia Party. The CP opposed high tariffs because they increased costs for farmers, while the UAP had support among manufacturers who supported tariffs. Lyons was therefore happy to be perceived as "protectionist". Australia agreed to give tariff preference to British Empire goods, following the 1932 Imperial economic conference. The Lyons government lowered interest rates to stimulate expenditure. Another point of difference was the issue of establishing national unemployment insurance. Debate on this issue became strained with the Country Party opposing the plan. On this issue, deputy leader Robert Menzies and Country Party leader Earle Page would have a public falling out.
According to author Brian Carroll, Lyons had been underestimated when he assumed office in 1932 and as leader he demonstrated: "a combination of honesty, native shrewdness, tact, administrative ability, common sense, good luck and good humour that kept him in the job longer than any previous Prime Minister except Hughes". Lyons was assisted in his campaigning by his politically active wife, Enid Lyons. She had a busy official role from 1932 to 1939 and, following her husband's death, stood for Parliament herself, becoming Australia's first female Member of the House of Representatives, and later first woman in Cabinet, joining the Menzies Cabinet in 1951.
Preparation for war
Defence issues became increasingly dominant in public affairs with the rise of fascism in Europe and militant Japan in Asia. The UAP largely supported the western powers in their policy of appeasement, however veteran UAP minister Billy Hughes was an exception and he embarrassed the government with his 1935 book Australia and the War Today which exposed a lack of preparation in Australia for what Hughes correctly supposed to be a coming war. Hughes was forced to resign, but the Lyons government tripled its defence budget.Brian Carroll; From Barton to Fraser; Cassell Australia; 1978
On 7 April 1939, with the storm clouds of the Second World War gathering in Europe and the Pacific, Joseph Lyons became the first Prime Minister of Australia to die in office. Driving from Canberra to Sydney, en route to his home in Tasmania for Easter, he suffered a heart attack, dying soon after in hospital in Sydney, on Good Friday. The UAP's Deputy leader, Robert Menzies, had resigned in March, citing the coalition's failure to implement a plan for national insurance. In the absence of a UAP deputy, the Governor-General, Lord Gowrie, appointed Country Party leader Sir Earle Page as his temporary replacement, pending the selection of Lyons' successor by the UAP.
Menzies government
Robert Menzies defeated Hughes for the UAP leadership and became Prime Minister on 26 April 1939. Page refused to serve under Menzies, leaving the UAP with a minority government.