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The 1931 Tasmanian state election was held on 9 May 1931 in the Australian state of Tasmania to elect 30 members of the Tasmanian House of Assembly. The election used the Hare-Clark proportional representation system[1] — six members were elected from each of five electorates. For the first time, voting was compulsory, resulting in a high voter turnout.[2]
The Nationalist Party had defeated Labor by one seat at the 1928 election, and John McPhee had been Premier of Tasmania since then. Joseph Lyons left state politics in 1929 to enter federal politics, and was succeeded by Albert Ogilvie as leader of the dispirited Labor Party. The depression had struck Tasmania hard with unemployment nearly 30% and unions impotent.
The Nationalist Party won the 1931 election in a landslide, with 19 seats in the House of Assembly and a margin over Labor of more than 22%, the largest victory over Labor in Tasmania since Hare-Clark elections began in 1909. The win was attributed to public endorsement of McPhee's expenditure cuts over Ogilvie's expansionist policies.[3] It has been said that Ogilvie's error was in identifying with an unpopular federal Labor government.
Despite the scale of the Nationalist victory, the non-Labor forces in Tasmania did not win another election until 1969.
Results
|
1931 Tasmanian state election | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Enrolled voters | 118,730 | |||||
| Votes cast | 112,779 | Turnout | 94.99% | +13.10% | ||
| Informal votes | 3,885 | Informal | 3.44% | +0.20% | ||
| Summary of votes by party | ||||||
| Party | Primary votes | % | Swing | Seats | Change | |
| Nationalist | 61,414 | 56.40% | +14.20% | 19 | + 4 | |
| Labor | 38,030 | 34.92% | –12.23% | 10 | – 4 | |
| Independent | 9,450 | 8.68% | –2.07% | 1 | ± 0 | |
| Total | 108,894 | 30 | ||||
Distribution of votes
Primary vote by division
| Bass | Darwin | Denison | Franklin | Wilmot | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labor Party | 37.2% | 31.4% | 40.3% | 31.8% | 34.2% |
| Nationalist | 62.8% | 60.0% | 53.7% | 43.9% | 62.1% |
| Other | – | 8.5% | 6.1% | 24.3% | 3.7% |
Distribution of seats
See also
References
- ↑ House of Assembly Elections, Parliament of Tasmania.
- ↑ Report on General Election, 1931 Archived 2008-07-20 at the Wayback Machine, Tasmanian Electoral Commission.
- ↑ R. P. Davis, McPhee, Sir John Cameron (1878 - 1952), Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 10, Melbourne University Press, 1986, pp 355-356.
External links
- Assembly Election Results, 1931, Parliament of Tasmania.
- Report on General Election, 1931, Tasmanian Electoral Commission.
Further reading
- Batt, Neil (1969). "Tasmania's Depression elections". Labour History. Liverpool University Press. 17: 111–120. doi:10.2307/27507957.
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