page_title: Jack Beasley
section_title: Federal politics
hierarchical_section_title: Jack Beasley / Federal politics
caption_attribution_description: English: Lang Labor members of the 14th Parliament, Old Parliament House, Canberra, 1935. Standing (from left) Senator Arthur Rae, Hubert Lazzarini, Eddie Ward, Joseph Gander, John Garden, Daniel Mulcahy, Joe Clark. Seated (from left), Senator James Dunn, Jack Beasley (John Albert Beasley), Rowland James, Solomon Rosevear. http://image.sl.nsw.gov.au/hood/064/06475h.jpg
context_page_description: John Albert Beasley was an Australian politician who was a member of the House of Representatives from 1928 to 1946. He served in the Australian War Cabinet from 1941 to 1946, and was a government minister in the Curtin and Chifley Governments. Beasley was a member of the Australian Labor Party, although on two occasions he left the party to join the breakaway Lang Labor groups, leading the faction in federal parliament. He concluded his career as High Commissioner to the United Kingdom from 1946 until his death in 1949.
context_section_description: In 1928 Beasley was elected for the safe Labor seat of West Sydney. When Labor under Jim Scullin won the 1929 federal election, he became an Honorary Minister (minister without portfolio), but he resigned this position in 1931 in protest at the Scullin government's policies in response to the Great Depression. He became the leading lieutenant of the radical Premier of New South Wales, Jack Lang, and when Lang decided to break with the federal ALP Beasley resigned from the ALP Caucus and became leader of the Lang Labor party in federal Parliament. In December 1931 he led his group across the floor of the House and brought down the Scullin Government on a vote of confidence. This earned him the nickname "Stabber Jack" for the rest of his life.
  From 1932 to 1936 Beasley led the Lang group in opposition to both the United Australia Party government of Joseph Lyons and Federal Labor. In 1935 Scullin retired and in early 1936 the new federal leader, John Curtin, brought about a reunification of the NSW and Federal parties, and Beasley joined the Opposition front bench. But in 1940 Lang again broke off relations with the federal party, although by this time he was no longer Premier and no longer had the support of the NSW Branch as a whole. Nevertheless, Beasley again supported Lang and became leader of the so-called Non-Communist Labor Party in federal Parliament.
caption: Lang Labor MPs in 1935 including Beasley
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