State Labor Party

The State Labor Party (also known as State Labor Party (Hughes-Evans)), [Not to be confused with the Jack Lang breakaway party/parties which were variously known as: State Labor Party (NSW), Lang Labor and Australian Labor Party (Non-Communist)] was an Australian political party which operated exclusively in the state of New South Wales (NSW) in the early 1940's. The party was initially a far-left faction of the Australian Labor Party, strongly opposed to the right-wing faction of the party dominated by Jack Lang, former premier of NSW (1925-27, 1930-32). Lang dominated the NSW Branch of the Labor Party, in the 20's and for most of the 30's, and his leadership had produced a great deal of instability in the NSW Labor Party, with Lang's dominant group seceding and rejoining the (National) Labor Party several times throughout the 1930's.

The grouping which was to become the State Labor Party (NSW), was led by Jack Hughes, President of the NSW Labor Council, and Walter Evans, General Secretary of the NSW Labor party. Both of these men were undercover members of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA), and worked closely with the CPA executive leadership, which had adopted a policy of encouraging disaffected ALP members seeking membership of the CPA, to remain in the Labor Party as undercover operatives. With the outbreak of World War II, preceded by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the priority of the CPA was to work to ensure Australian neutrality towards the war in Europe. Hughes and Evans devoted their efforts towards this end, in their capacity as powerful executives within the ALP.

Ultimately, the position of the Hughes-Evans group came to be seen as untenable within the ALP, and their influence began to wane. In August, 1940, the federal executive of the ALP moved to suspend the NSW executive, including Hughes and Evans. Several weeks later Hughes, Evans and their supporters formed a new party, the State Labor Party. This was only weeks away from the federal elections of September 1940. State Labor contested the poll for election to the House of Representatives in NSW, and achieved 6.6% of the vote in that state (2.6% nationally), but failed to see any of its candidates (including Greg McGirr) elected. [ cite web
first=David
last=Clune
title =Facts and Figures - Political Parties of NSW (Overview)
publisher =Parliament of New South Wales
url =http://parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/web/common.nsf/key/ResourcesFactspolparty
accessdate = 2008-04-16 ]

The party contested the NSW State elections of May, 1941, and secured 5.6% of the primary vote, but again failed to secure any seats. The party's final attempt to gain parliamentary representation was at the federal election of August, 1943, but it polled less than 1% nationally. Five months later (January 1944), the State Labor Party voted to end its own existence and amalgamated with the CPA.

Footnotes

References

*McKnight, David (2000, Frank Cass, London) Espionage and the Roots of the Cold War (Chapter: A Trojan Horse Within Social Democracy)

*Nairn, Bede (1986, Melbourne University Press) The 'Big Fella': Jack Lang and the Australian Labor Party (1891-1949)