Talk:1934 Australian federal election

Coalition numbers
Some time ago – I find it was August 2013 – I raised the issue on the talk page for the 1931 federal election that candidates nominated in South Australia in 1931 by Coalition-supporting groups (i.e. the Emergency Committee of South Australia) were recorded as a separate party, but not in the numbers of the Coalition or the UAP.

That has now been fixed for 1931, but the same issue now applies to the 1934 election, where five elected candidates in SA are recorded as Liberal and Country League when they were at the same time Coalition candidates – four UAP, one Country Party.

Their omission from Coalition totals gives a false picture of the situation after the election.

All of these five elected LCL MPs fought the 1937 election: four for the House of Representatives, all in the seats they were occupying; and one for the Senate. In each case, in 1937, those candidates are recorded for the UAP or the Country Party rather than the LCL.

Below is a list of the MPs elected in SA:


 * (1) The Wikipedia page for the 1934 federal election labels all five non-UAP MPs as LCL. Psephos Archive has four of them as UAP, and Cameron A as CP. Four of these were re-elected in 1937 (three as UAP, Cameron A as CP), and the fifth, McBride, contested the Senate in 1937 as a UAP candidate. The Wikipedia page for the 1937 federal election labels all these under their respective parties and not as LCL.
 * (2) Gabb was elected as an Emergency Candidate candidate but is listed as an Independent, as is well documented in the page on the 1931 federal election.
 * (3) McBride contested the Senate in 1937 as a UAP candidate.
 * (4) Hawker was a minister in the UAP Government from spring 1932 to autumn 1932, which indicates listing EC members as UAP in 1931 was reasonable.

Further to this, the 1937 election page records in the upper infobox that the Coalition increased its numbers by 1 from 42 to 43, while the detailed Results table lower down the page records the Coalition lost 4 seats to end up with 43. There is an obvious inconsistency here and the issue is the 5 LCL-held seats in SA.

I therefore contend the LCL should be counted with the Coalition on this page, and propose to make amendments accordingly.

Marplesmustgo (talk) 20:51, 1 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Agreed - good catch. Frickeg (talk) 11:58, 2 January 2019 (UTC)