Talk:1931 Australian federal election

Coalition numbers
Why are the total Coalition numbers given as the sum of the UAP and the Country Party? The Emergency Committee in SA was the UAP by another name and four of the six elected candidates were sitting MPs re-elected; all of them UAP, two ex-Labor, two exNationalist. Surely they should be counted with the Coalition with the possible exception of Moses Gabb? Marplesmustgo (talk) 06:56, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Further to this, I have made the change to treat the EC as part of the Coalition. Its candidates in SA were not opposed by the UAP and all (except Gabb) sat as UAP members, most standing as UAP in 1934. The divisions of Barker and Wakefield are not treated as gains in the gains/losses box. The six divisions won are not treated as losses to the UAP in the 1934 article. Marplesmustgo (talk) 18:25, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
 * This is a good catch - thanks for picking it up! Frickeg (talk) 23:20, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry if this is or comes across as a silly comment but how is it any different to how we treat other parties in similar circumstances? 1934, 1943, 1946? The inherent vagaries from one situation to the next would lead to WP:OR if we started arbitrarily including some and excluding others. If a state party ran under another name this in itself was enough for the sources used to count them separately from their national party. They are still included in the national results table, obviously, however to avoid arbitrary choices one way or another, only the official UAP/Lib/CP seat totals were combined at the bottom of the results table to avoid the potential for WP:OR. This has no effect on who formed government and each election article clearly states who did. As for the seats changing hands table, do we include seats in the very rare circumstance where the affiliation of a successful incumbent MP has changed directly from one major party to the other? Two changed MPs and parties anyway and excluding Gabb leaves only Price/Boothby in question, which depending on the answer to the previous question may render the decision to remove that single seat change either correct or incorrect. And upon further inspection, seat wins by non official, non national, non UAP/Lib/Country parties in 1934/1943/1946 (such as the SA LCL as but one example) are counted separately in the nationwide results table in the election articles correctly as per the references, however unlike the Emergency Committee it seems the candidates and members articles count them all, incorrectly, as part of the national UAP/Lib/CP, which is simply due to a difference in the level of article detail more than anything else. Happy to revisit the vagaries of conditions for listings in seats changing hands tables and remove (and add!) as necessary, however the total Coalition numbers should be as they have been for years which is to list only the sum of the official UAP/CP. Again, arbitrary WP:OR whereas UAP+CP=Coalition seat total is not ambiguous and has no effect on the clear election article indication of government formation. Preferably the election result table seat affiliations would match the candidate and member article affiliations and each party with an elected MP would have their own article explaining their relationship to the Coalition. Timeshift (talk) 15:46, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I am slightly confused by this comment. Are you disputing that the EC was a Coalition party? It's much the same as the LNP is today - in fact even more so, because the EC was only a stop-gap organisation since they couldn't get the SA UAP organised in time. As for 1934, I found to my horror that the LCL is not included in the Coalition total there either!!! This is totally absurd. I checked the only reference listed (UWA, a pretty unreliable one) and it doesn't have Coalition totals at all. On the other hand, Psephos clearly includes the SA numbers in the national total. Frickeg (talk) 22:40, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not claiming any of my examples as non-Coalition parties. I'm simply saying that for many years up until now, the election result tables in the election articles have only combined the seat numbers of the official CLP/Nat/UAP/Lib and CP/NCP/NP (and CLP and LNP as they're a permanent change) tallies to produce Coalition seat totals in the result tables. If you're wanting to use discretion to change 1931 and 1934 Coalition totals now, I have but this to say, again, knowing you don't want to touch it with a 10-foot pole... 1943? :) It's times like this that I despair we have to resort to third-party, non-authoritative and differing sources like UWA and Adam Carr... something as, at least in my mind, important as federal election results, really should, again at least in my mind, have an official, central, primary, authoritative source, such as the AEC. Is that too much to ask and am I just an ameteur pseph tragic? Timeshift (talk) 22:54, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I guess we could go to the old paper-copy Parliamentary Handbooks and official returns, but bleurgh. In this case I think we have plenty of verifiable stuff to support what is included in the Coalition. (I doubt there even was any kind of "official" Coalition count early on - after all party registration didn't become a thing until MUCH later.) 1943, I don't even know what UWA is on about there. I think EC/LCL is pretty straightforward by comparison though! :) Frickeg (talk) 02:32, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Seconding Frickeg's comments here. We've always had to choose between using a bit of research and common sense to come up with accurate articles pre-1950, or trying to make head nor tail of conflicting book sources which half-arsed the issue. I would be content to simply ditch UWA as a source entirely across the board at this point, and Adam's detail gets proportionately more useful once you hit the first creation of a formal party system, so for me that weighs in favour of going back and sorting this mess. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 02:43, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Timeshift. This was not a silly comment. Let me add my tuppen'orth. I happen to be a Briton who has never been further east than Majorca or south than Tenerife, so I lack proper knowledge except what the internet furnishes. I welcome you pulling me up on this, I really do, because it's right that no one shoves his stuff on Wikipedia without challenge. I also thank you for not just unilaterally reverting me. All I can answer is as follows:
 * a) Coalition numbers only the combination of UAP + CP (or successors): I do think this is wrong. In 1931 it seems pretty clear the EC was the UAP by another name. If it wasn't, you have to ask why did the UAP not run in SA given the importance of the election? Why did the elected EC members support the Government, and many of them stand as UAP in 1934 and in some cases join the Government in due course? If the CP is going to be counted in the Coalition total for 1931, even though it was excluded from the Government after the election, why should not other UAP supporters?
 * b) You indicate classifying Coalition as UAP+CP only makes no difference to giving the Coalition as a majority, as it were, in the article. While this is true, it is misleading. UAP+CP = 50 seats in 1931. But 56 MPs (less Gabb) elected actually supported the Coalition at the election. 50>(75/2) and 56>(75/2) but 56 is accurate.
 * c) 1934: UWA classifies 5 LCL members from SA. Adam Carr states 4 UAP members and 1 CP (Archie Cameron in Barker). Personally I do believe the LCL MPs should be added to the Coalition total. Moreover, I think Carr's figures should be taken on this article and the UWA's taken out.
 * Either way, should it really be suggested these not be classified as Coalition in the circumstances? If you looked into Hansard, would it really be suggested these 5 did not support the Government? You could only suggest they not be classified as Coalition if you insist only UAP+CP members be classified as Coalition. But there is no good reason to insist on that. As the LCL never contested another federal election I'd suggest Carr is right and UWA is wrong. Not least because the section Seats changing hands does not indicate 5 LCL gains, but does state Barker as a CP gain. The contradiction is palpable.
 * d) 1943: Is this the splits between the various Country Parties? I'm not informed enough to offer an opinion on these.
 * e) It may seem that the Aussie 'amateur pseph tragic' has it harder than a Brit amateur pseph tragic like me, through the lack of an AEC in the inter-war era, but analysing British elections of the inter-war era here in the 21 C seems more complicated than Australian ones. Of course, we had FWS Craig to do decent analysis before us. In the absence of him, a dose of common sense is required. In the 1931 example, common sense suggests splitting out the EC as a separate party for the analysis of 1st prefs, but in analysing the Coalition/Labour/Other divide, they plainly belong with the Coalition. Marplesmustgo (talk) 19:50, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * You know what? Nobody is right, because it's impossible to be right, as there are no authoritative sources that put Coalition totals in to a federal election context. Without an authoritative source, the best we can do is WP:OR and WP:SYNTH our way to an inherently flawed outcome. Naturally I would prefer more editor contributions on this talk page. But whatever the outcome is on whatever the issue at hand is, I tend not to be as bothered by the outcome so much as the consistency in other similar articles. One thing I would find unacceptable is for this article to be changed in isolation, while leaving all other affected election articles as is, destroying the consistency. And if this discussion is confined to just this article's talk page, consistency will fall by the wayside. Changing something in isolation in a very-light-traffic article which ruins the consistency with many many more similar articles is a pet-peeve of mine beyond words. Can we draw a line/end the discussion here, and pick up where we left off at a high-visibility talkpage like Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian politics? Timeshift (talk) 22:06, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * This is a pretty unique issue to these elections, and the points that have been made here are eminently reasonable (especially concerning the Emergency Committee, which we blatantly botched in the first place and should have been fixed long ago). There is no point being consistently wrong (which is how the chronically-unreliable UWA led us up the garden path on about fifty different issues), and this is a specific and simple fix that can be made. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 23:45, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Again, there is no right or wrong without an authoritative source that put Coalition totals in to a federal election context. If you believe the 1931 result table is wrong, then you should strive for consistency and correct the other wrong result tables. How is it acceptable to change 1931 but leave 1934 and 1943? Please, be consistent one way or the other. I really don't mind what you do with the 1931 result table and the EC as long as you are genuine and acting upon principle, in which case you should be applying the same new rule to other affected election result tables. If you are genuine and acting upon principle, how could you possibly change just 1931 and not 1934 or 1943? Why doesn't 1934 and 1943 get to you in the same way that 1931 does, and why would you feel satisfied with every single other election using the UWA results with the sole exception of 1931? Please act upon the principle you're espousing and correct the errors rather than inexplicably cherry-picking just one...? Is it too much to ask for you to apply your standard uniformly? It's just a couple of elections. Seriously, come on. Timeshift (talk) 01:43, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I want us to get it right - here, at 1934, and at 1943 - but this is the conversation we're having now (and I would be very happy to have it about the other two). Those articles (which I haven't looked at yet) being wrong is not an argument for knowingly keeping this article wrong. As for UWA: they are so inaccurate so often I would prefer Wikipedia declared them an unreliable source, and if not stuck them on the sitewide blacklist, did our best to expunge their links from Wikipedia. They got added because they were the most accessible nearly a decade ago, but they're by far the most unreliable of all the possible datasets we could be using. UWA is the end result when one ignores accuracy in the name of simplicity: you get a dataset that is simple and pretty but manifestly and demonstrably wrong on about fifty different levels, and we should try to not do this. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 09:09, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I used the UWA all those years ago because it was the only academic and/or reliable source that covered all federal election results going back to 1901. At the time it seemed better to use the only comprehensive valid source to create all the election results going back to 1901. Personally I know doing it that way was better than not doing it at all. But so much for praising the pioneering work. Perhaps I just have halcyon memories of a time where creation (though now with cynical retrospective imperfection) was the order of the day, where content was made to be improved upon rather than criticised a decade later... I guess 20/20 just feels so righteous to some. Issues crop up and evolve, that's how wikipedia was meant to work. I'm not fighting your concern, that's partly what is so irritating here! I just want you to fix the error wherever it exists, not just this article in isolation. You are concerned about the error rather than a fixation on an individual example, aren't you? If not, it's very strange behaviour. I'm not asking for 100 article fixes, just 3 instead of a lazy 1. You are interested in fixing this mistake aren't you? I fail to see what one could have to gain out of what appears to be a single article obsession - fixing an error in a single article when there are two more articles with the same issue. Are you concerned about the 3-article issue, or just a single article? It's all very odd. If you care so much about the principle behind it, I fail to see any reason at all why you wouldn't jump as eagerly on the other 2 articles. After all, your aim for the 1931 page is the same aim for the 1934 and 1943 page, isn't it? Just be rational and fix the three occurrences rather than just a stubborn point-proving singular occurrence. If you were genuine about this, you'd completely agree that the other two pages should be amended. But clearly you think that going from two methods (1931/1934/1943 vs the rest) to three methods (1931 vs 1934/1943 vs the rest) is a step in the right direction. I honestly haven't the foggiest where the logic in that is. I'd almost call it suspicious if I could think of a shred of what an editor might have to gain out of it. Almost WP:POINTy, but such a strange situation to be pointy in. Truly bizarre. Timeshift (talk) 09:23, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm not criticising the rollout of articles based on the sources we had and what we knew then - it's only over ten years that we've established the existence of far better sources, and we need to value accuracy rather than knowingly publishing wrong data because it looks cleaner. I don't understand why you think I'm arguing with making changes to the other articles as well: I don't want to use different methods, I want us to get it right. That we have multiple articles that appear to be wrong is not a reason to knowingly leave them wrong - it's a reason to fix the bloody articles! The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 09:42, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * How can you reconcile incorporating the EC in to the Coalition in 1931 but not the LCL in to the Coalition in 1934? It beggars belief. If you're not willing to be consistent with two identical issues then what are you attempting to achieve? Does the 1931 election hold some sort of special significance to you? Perhaps you have a great grandfather or great uncle who was an EC candidate or MP but it forever gave him great pain to have run under a different party name? It's a stretch I know, but i'm running out of plausible reasons. Timeshift (talk) 10:35, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Not including the LCL in the coalition is even sillier than not including the Emergency Committee - that's actively embarrassing that no one noticed it before now. I've said at least three times that I want to fix all the issues here - that this was just the first one to raise the issue, but that we need to fix these issues across the board. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 10:39, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * I find Timeshift's comment above really odd. No one is saying LCL shouldn't be included in the Coalition in 1934. We're talking about this page. I have yet to see a shred of a reason for not including the EC under the Coalition other than "it's neater". From my reading of the above discussion, which becomes needlessly verbose several times, there's actually not a lot of disagreement. All the pages should be fixed. Let's do it. (And yes, pretty much every source is better than UWA these days.) Frickeg (talk) 10:44, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * TDW - Ok now i'm really confused. LCL/1934 has been mentioned multiple times in this discussion on this talkpage, but still you kept claiming you were only interested in fixing the 1931 article only. Well I don't know what's changed, but if you're now willing to fix 1931 AND 1934, that's two of three. Which just leaves 1943 as far as i'm aware. I understand your hesitation to tackle 1943, the Coalition parties are a royal mess and would take much more time and effort. But hopefully your concern about this issue will override that and you'll manage to get to three out of three, and we'll finally be in agreement. I completely fail to understand why something so theoretically simple took this long, but better late than never. Thank you. Frickeg - this issue goes far beyond just this article. This is one of those issues that goes beyond the scope of a single article as multiple articles are affected in the same way by the same issue and ideally should be moved to somewhere like Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian politics as more traffic and visibility means more contributions for an issue that affects multiple pages in the exact same way, avoids an inappropriate focus on one particular article when others are just as affected, ensures a wide rather than narrow range of readers which gives more diversity of views, generates a much quicker and far more solid and far less disputable consensus through much-increased participation, ensures the affected articles are given the equal attention they deserve, and lastly it vastly decreases the chances of other editors coming along afterward claiming they would have had a say if they knew the discussion was happening. Taking it to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian politics is the best way to ensure everyone who would want a say can have a say. There would undoubtedly be editors who would have a view on this but don't have the 1931 Australian federal election on their watchlist. It's common-place that when an issue/error arises that affects multiple pages equally that it is taken to a talkpage like Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian politics for the reasons given. Timeshift (talk) 11:03, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what's up with you today (and I don't mean that in a snarky way), but you're reading things into posts in all three discussions neither said, intended or implied. Like, in about the last five responses I go "yes, let's fix all of these articles!" and you accuse me of being obsessed with 1931, and I go "uh?" I don't even understand why either of the EC or the LCL is controversial enough to need discussion: one was basically a direct state counterpart of the UAP and one was directly analogous to the CLP and LNP today. I don't know enough about the 1943 election - as you know, my main focus is SA politics (and I'm not very interested in 1940-1970 politics at the best of times), so I am a lot more familiar with the LCL and EC than whatever ungodly hell was going on with the Country Party nationally in 1943. My answer to 1943 would probably be "I don't care enough to do all of that reading about that election, so if anyone else has strong opinions about how to classify that coalition, I'll go with that, but if no one does I'll begrudgingly read enough come up with my own opinion." I don't give two hoots where we have the discussion: these two seem to be both different and should-be-uncontroversial (or at least there should be an explanation why they're controversial before insisting on a broader discussion about it), and a discussion either at the WikiProject or the 1943 talk page about 1943 is just going to attract the same editors anyway. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 11:11, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Hmmmm. I apologise, it seems I was too quick in reading and replying. I think what caused confusion was that if we're going to change 1931, we also need to change 1934 and 1943. Everyone seems eager to change 1931, and indeed 1934, but nobody seems interested in the mess that is 1943. While it is understandable given how much more complicated 1943 is in comparison, my original point was that if we're going to include the EC in the Coalition in 1931 and the LCL in 1934, we can't just ignore 1943. We need consistency. I don't think i'm wrong in saying nobody eagerly putting up their hand to fix 1943, and if this is the case, perhaps we shouldn't be changing 1934 and 1931 so quickly, but rather, we need to figure out how to proceed correcting the three elections before we start changing just one. Going from 1931/1934/1943 vs the rest (two methods) to 1931/1934 vs 1943 vs the rest (three methods) is not an improvement. Sorry to repeat but my main last point remains: This is one of those issues that goes beyond the scope of a single article as multiple articles are affected in the same way by the same issue and ideally should be moved to somewhere like Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian politics as more traffic and visibility means more contributions for an issue that affects multiple pages in the exact same way, avoids an inappropriate focus on one particular article when others are just as affected, ensures a wide rather than narrow range of readers which gives more diversity of views, generates a much quicker and far more solid and far less disputable consensus through much-increased participation, ensures the affected articles are given the equal attention they deserve, and lastly it vastly decreases the chances of other editors coming along afterward claiming they would have had a say if they knew the discussion was happening. Taking it to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian politics is the best way to ensure everyone who would want a say can have a say. There would undoubtedly be editors who would have a view on this and have Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian politics on their watchlist but don't have the 1931 or 1943 Australian federal election articles on their watchlist. I've seen it countless times, taking a multi-article issue to somewhere like Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian politics will ALWAYS get more contributors providing their views. It's common-place that when an issue/error arises that affects multiple pages equally that it is taken to a talkpage like Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian politics for the reasons given. Timeshift (talk) 11:26, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * I absolutely want to fix 1943, but it's the one of the three I know absolutely bugger all about so can make the least useful contribution on. I don't see the issue with changing 1931 and 1934: they're cases where we know the article got the coalition parties wrong, no one seems to coming up with any argument why the coalition parties aren't wrong, and they're really easily fixed. There is a broader issue with the accuracy of early coalitions, but they need to be discussed individually because they're factually so different (as here, where I know a lot about two of the elections and sweet bugger all about the third one), and I don't see any benefit with trying to wrangle uncontroversial fixes from the 1930s around Depression-era splits in with solving a completely different quagmire in completely different states around wartime splits in the 1940s. I am completely fine with having an discussion about 1943 at the WikiProject if you'd prefer to have it there, but would like some explanation of why either of 1931 or 1934 are individually in any way controversial before bothering to not just fix them. The better-researched our articles get, the more of these historical inaccuracies we're going to clean up over time (as you and I did with the NDL/LDU/FPPU mess) - they're never going to be able to be hashed out en masse across decades in one place, but here, we can easily fix two, and then actually go try to work on the challenging one. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 11:37, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Going back a bit, the reason we need to gain a much broader consensus than this talk page can provide is that what is being advocated is including the EC in 1931 and the LCL in 1934 as part of the UAP/CP Coalition. There are many references for the UAP/CP Coalition, however in the context of an electoral tally for the UAP/CP coalition, nobody has produced a reference that on an electoral tally basis alone, that the EC or LCL are automatically included. It's a UAP/CP Coalition, not a UAP/EC/CP Coalition or UAP/LCL/CP Coalition. Sure, common sense says that they should be included, but again, in the context of a Coalition electoral tally in 1931 or 1934, without a WP:RS explicitly stating so, it is technically WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. That's not to say we shouldn't include the EC or LCL in the Coalition electoral tallies, but before we make claims without a contextually valid WP:RS, it is incumbent upon us that we take the discussion away from little-watched articles and in to a place like Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian politics. This will allow many more editors to have a say, to attempt to find WP:RS sources in the specific context of Coalition electoral tallies that include the EC and the LCL and allow a reasonable time in such a highly-viewed page for this to occur, and on the assumption that we have given as many editors as possible a reasonable timeframe to find such a WP:RS but fail to, then we collectively and explicitly need to agree to WP:IAR by disregarding WP:OR and WP:SYNTH and a further reasonable timeframe for that. Disregarding WP:OR and WP:SYNTH over multiple articles is not something to be done lightly. What's wrong with doing this the proper way that will ensure we minimise as far as practically possible any future debate over the WP:IAR decisions we arrived at over multiple articles? It's been incorrect for a decade now, I really don't see why 1-2 weeks for broad and inclusive discussion/research at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian politics and 1-2 weeks for agreeing to WP:IAR by disregarding WP:OR and WP:SYNTH over multiple articles is such a big deal? Let's do this the proper way so it can be permanently settled through procedure which will provide the most legitimate outcome going forward? Timeshift (talk) 12:09, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

That's being a bit unnecessarily confrontational. There isn't a reasonable argument for why the EC and LCL weren't part of the coalition at those two elections - it's abundantly obvious that they were, and it's abundantly obvious in the sources that they were, even if it means replacing whatever source is currently used in those articles. We have a bad tendency on Wikipedia to obsess over the first thing someone links even if it's wrong, and in this case this is hardly the most difficult thing to source.

You're attracting virtually the same editors here as you would at the WikiProject, except you might maybe pick up another...one editor, there? I'm passionate enough about getting the detail right enough that, if you really want to tackle 1943, I'll go digging through book sources even though it's not really my thing and work out what the heck was the deal with the coalition in 1943, but if every little detail is going to be like pulling teeth I'll save myself the trouble, and if you're this aggressive about it with everyone you'll probably wind up having a discussion at the WikiProject with yourself. Like I said before - and I am absolutely not snarking about this - I don't know what's going on with you today, but you've had a hair-trigger temper in every discussion all day that's going to wear me and the small other amount of enthusiasts in this area out pretty quickly as long as it lasts, and I don't know why, because you've been massively helpful in similar discussions in the past. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 12:29, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree with this - I do not see the need for a big discussion about this or 1934. As for RS, OR and SYNTH - where the hell is the source giving a Coalition total excluding the EC/LCL? It sure isn't UWA, which doesn't give Coalition counts. On the other hand we have Psephos, a better source in practically every way (which also describes the EC as "the name the United Australia Party used in South Australia"). Oh, and also the Parliamentary Handbook. The number of words above about this very tiny, very obvious (and not seriously disputed) issue is ridiculous and, as TDW says, fatiguing even for those of us interested in this kind of thing. By this point, I'm ready to say - we have as much consensus on 1931/34 as we're going to get, and we should fix it, and I will. It's an easy fix. 1943 is obviously more complicated (wasn't the UAP sort of falling apart by then anyway?), so we'll deal with that separately. (Edit: Wait, it's already fixed?? WTF are we wasting all this time on then?) Frickeg (talk) 13:59, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * TDW, i'm sorry but i'm not sure where in my last post I came off as aggressive. I thought it was the most fair, comprehensive and balanced post i've made so far today in this discussion. I admit that some of my previous posts were less so, but I really thought my last post was well considered, respectful and representative of the situation. If after that attempt, there's still no desire to do this the right way by forming a thorough and wide-spread consensus as to determining which parties should and shouldn't be included in the UAP/CP Coalition seat total in respect to election tallies on the three election articles, then I see no point attempting to persuade any further and will let chaos theory reign. Perhaps i'm just not in the right frame of mind for this at the moment due to external factors but I really did put what I thought was a large and convincing effort in to my last post. *tongue in cheek* - be thankful for small blessings... at least at my worst i'm still nowhere near Adam Carr... :) Timeshift (talk) 14:14, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Moses Gabb
Labor-turned-Independent Moses Gabb was simply endorsed by the Emergency Committee of South Australia who did not run their own candidate. However, the Emergency Committee of South Australia article, results at Australian federal election, 1931, and Candidates of the Australian federal election, 1931 (and probably others I can't think of) treat him implicitly and sometimes explicitly as though he were EC, UAP, or even government. I also particularly take issue with Moses' primary vote being included as UAP in the infobox table which combines the UAP and EC vote to come up with a 41.59% primary vote. What should we do? Timeshift (talk) 07:46, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Gabb has always been a bit of a questionable case here, but it's probably best to just treat him as an independent. Worth double-checking in Trove though just to see how he was described during the campaign. Frickeg (talk) 08:02, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

I'm going to make some changes - am taking Gabb's primary vote out of the UAP/EC total, and treat the new UAP like all other conservative major party successors have been treated. Timeshift (talk) 08:06, 19 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Done. Timeshift (talk) 08:22, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Single term government
The second paragraph currently says "To date, no other sitting government at federal level has been defeated after only a single term in office."

This appears to be wrong. Scullin's government is the most recent single-term government, but there have been others. The Fisher ALP government served one term, winning power in 1910 and losing 1913, and the Cook Commonwealth Liberal government served one, 1913-14. And almost all of their predecessors in the 1900s did not serve even one full term (the exception being the Barton/Deakin Protectionist government of 1901-04, serving just over one term).

But I did not want to make the change in case I'm missing some nuance within the claim. I propose the wording "This is currently the most recent sitting government to be defeated after only a single term in office." Axver (talk) 11:54, 10 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Seems like a good call. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 12:12, 10 September 2018 (UTC)