Australian federal election, 1954

Federal elections were held in Australia on 29 May 1954. All 121 seats in the House of Representatives were up for election, no Senate election took place. The incumbent Liberal Party of Australia led by Prime Minister of Australia Robert Menzies with coalition partner the Country Party led by Arthur Fadden defeated the Australian Labor Party led by Herbert Evatt.

See Australian Senate election, 1953 for Senate composition.

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History

In 1949, Sir Robert Menzies founded the Liberal Party of Australia (descended from the United Australia Party) and was led by Menzies for 16 years through successive re-elections with the traditional coalition in place with the National Party of Australia (since 1922 as the Country Party). Labor stayed out of government for 23 years after the defeat of the Chifley Government in 1949, largely due to the split of the Democratic Labor Party from Labor - also three times the party won the two-party preferred vote (the 1954, 1961 and 1969 elections) but not enough seats to form government. The 1954 election is also noteworthy for the fact that the Opposition ALP gained more than 50% of the primary vote (due to several uncontested seats) but was still unable to win government.

The election was complicated by the Petrov Affair, in which Vladimir Petrov, an attache to the USSR embassy in Canberra, defected amidst a storm of publicity, claiming that there were Soviet spy rings within Australia. Given that the 1951 election had been fought over the issue of banning the Communist Party of Australia altogether, it is unsurprising that such a claim would gain credibility.

Evatt took the extraordinary step of publicly assuring Parliament, just prior to the calling of the election, that he had written to Vyacheslav Molotov, the Soviet Foreign Affairs Commissar, regarding Petrov's allegations, and that Molotov had assured him that there were no Soviet spy rings within Australia. Menzies was able to use this very effectively in the ensuing election campaign, and Evatt (and the ALP) were defeated, although they made up ground on the ruling Liberal/Country Party coalition.

The defeat, as well as Evatt's many tactical mistakes, directly led to the great ALP/DLP split of 1955, and ensured that the Liberal/Country Party coalition would retain power for the next 17 years.

References

* [http://elections.uwa.edu.au/ University of WA] election results in Australia since 1890
* [http://www.aec.gov.au/Elections/Australian_Electoral_History/House_of_Representative_1949_Present.htm AEC 2PP vote]
*Prior to 1984 the AEC did not undertake a full distribution of preferences for statistical purposes. The stored ballot papers for the 1983 election were put through this process prior to their destruction. Therefore the figures from 1983 onwards show the actual result based on full distribution of preferences.