User:The Drover's Wife/Australian Labor Party split of 1916

The Australian Labor Party split of 1916 occurred following intense internal conflict within the Australian Labor Party over the issue of proposed conscription to boost Australian forces in World War I. Labor Prime Minister of Australia Billy Hughes had, by 1916, become an enthusiastic supporter of conscription as a means to boost Australia's contribution to the war effort. On 30 August 1916, he announced plans for a referendum on the issue (the Australian plebiscite, 1916), and introduced enabling legislation into parliament on 14 September, which passed only with the support of the opposition. Six of Hughes' ministers resigned in protest at the move, and the New South Wales state branch of the Labor Party expelled Hughes. The referendum saw an intense campaign in which Labor figures vehemently advocated on each side of the argument, although the "no" campaign narrowly won on 14 November. In the wake of the referendum defeat, the caucus moved to expel Hughes on 14 November; instead, he and 23 supporters resigned and formed the National Labor Party. Hughes was recommissioned as Prime Minister, heading a minority government supported by the opposition Commonwealth Liberal Party; the two parties then merged as the Nationalist Party of Australia and won the 1917 federal election. The Nationalist Party served as the main conservative party of Australia until 1931, and the split resulted in many early Labor figures ending their careers on the political right.

Background
In October 1915, Andrew Fisher, the first Labor Prime Minister of Australia, resigned due to ill-health, and his Attorney-General, Billy Hughes, was unanimously elected to succeed him. In early 1916, Hughes decided to travel to England, where he publicly championed the World War I war effort and co-operation with their dominions overseas, with his speeches being widely reported and well received; he also visited the war front in France. He returned to Australia on 31 July 1916 with the possibility of conscription to reinforce Australian forces overseas having become a prominent political issue; the issue starkly divided the Labor Party, with senior figures on both sides of the debate. Hughes, emboldened by his experiences overseas, came out strongly in favour of conscription, and lacking a compliant Senate, decided to take the issue to a national plebiscite on 28 October in the hope of establishing a popular mandate for the move. The plebiscite was immensely controversial within the Labor Party, with Hughes heading the Yes campaign against many members of his own party and against the formal policy of the 1916 party conference.

The initial expulsion moves
The opposition to Hughes and his supporters from within the Labor movement over the conscription plebiscite had been intense from the beginning of the campaign, and by mid-September, the media was reporting on vehement disagreement within the federal Labor caucus. When Hughes and his supporters introduced the enabling bill for the plebiscite on 13 September, they were met with open opposition from within Labor on the floor of parliament. Backbencher Frank Brennan vehemently criticised Hughes, declaring that the plebiscite was "an absolutely unexampled act of oppression and coercion", while James Matthews, William Finlayson and William Maloney were among the Labor MPs to speak against it. The conservative opposition unanimously supported Hughes on the bill, while both camps within Labor openly attacked each other. Facing pressure to act from his local party branch in Richmond, Victoria, Frank Tudor resigned from the ministry on 14 September. The bill would finally be passed by parliament on 23 September, but only with the support of the opposition.

On 15 September 1916, the central executive of the New South Wales Political Labor League passed a motion expelling Hughes and fellow federal MP Ernest Carr from the party, and withdrawing preselection endorsements for four pro-conscription state MPs, including Premier William Holman. They further asked that all MPs be questioned as to their position on conscription and required to give "yes" or "no" answers. Hughes forcefully rejected the expulsion motion, declaring that he did "not recognise either the authority or right of the P.L.L. Executive to expel me", and declaring that "nothing will prevent me from pointing out to my fellow citizens what has to be done to win the war", while Holman argued that the executive had "gone entirely beyond its powers" and suggested that the move "could only result in strengthening the case of those urging the carrying of the referendum".

The decision of the state executive, and that of Hughes to ignore it, at a time when Labor was less centralised, left Hughes as leader of the federal party caucus despite having been expelled from the party organisation in his own state. Supporters of Hughes' stance argued that any expulsion decision had to go before an interstate conference of the party to remove a member from the caucus. They also argued that, while the last party conference had passed a policy motion against conscription, its absence from the formal party platform meant that Hughes was not bound to oppose it. He nonetheless faced public calls from within the federal Labor caucus in support of his expulsion.

The immediate backlash also extended to the trade union movement: the Sydney Wharf Labourers' Union, of which Hughes was general secretary, expelled him on 28 September, and the Trolly and Draymens' Union, of which he was a co-founder, expelled him in early October. In late September, the powerful Australian Workers' Union suspended their president and union founder, William Spence, for his support of conscription, leading to a ferocious public response from Hughes.

The plebiscite campaign
The day before the vote, 27 October, three members of Hughes' Cabinet, Albert Gardiner, William Higgs and Edward Russell, resigned following a dispute about polling regulations. The plebiscite was unsuccessful, losing the popular vote nationally (48.39% to 51.61%), as well as that in half the states (New South Wales, South Australia and Queensland).