page_title: United Australia Party
section_title: Foundation
hierarchical_section_title: United Australia Party / History / Foundation
caption_attribution_description: English: Australian election advertisement for the United Australia Party at the 1931 Australian federal election. The advertisement features a prominent caricature of Jack Lang, the Premier of New South Wales, and claims the Australian Labor Party will nationalise the banking industry. It includes a quote from Douglas Copland
context_page_description: The United Australia Party was an Australian political party that was founded in 1931 and dissolved in 1945. The party won four federal elections in that time, usually governing in coalition with the Country Party. It provided two Prime Ministers of Australia – Joseph Lyons and Robert Menzies.
  The UAP was created in the aftermath of the 1931 split in the Australian Labor Party. Six economically conservative Labor MPs left the party to protest the Scullin Government's financial policies during the Great Depression. Led by Joseph Lyons, a former Premier of Tasmania, the defectors initially sat as independents, but then agreed to merge with the Nationalist Party and form a united opposition. Lyons was chosen as the new party's leader due to his popularity among the general public, with former Nationalist leader John Latham becoming his deputy. He led the UAP to a landslide victory at the 1931 federal election, where the party secured an outright majority in the House of Representatives and was able to form government in its own right.
  After the 1934 election, the UAP entered into a coalition with the Country Party; it retained government at the 1937 election.
context_section_description: The UAP was formed in 1931 by Labor dissidents and a conservative coalition as a response to the more radical economic proposals of Labor Party members to deal with the Great Depression in Australia. Lyons and Fenton's opposition to the economic policies of the Scullin Labor Government had attracted the support of prominent Australian conservatives, known as "the Group", whose number included future prime minister Robert Menzies. In parliament on 13 March 1931, though still a member of the ALP, Lyons supported a no confidence motion against the Scullin Labor government.  Soon afterward, Lyons, Fenton and four other right-wing Labor MPs--Moses Gabb, Allan Guy, Charles McGrath and John Price—resigned from the ALP in protest of the Scullin government's economic policies.  Five of the six Labor dissidents–all except Gabb–formed the All for Australia League and crossed over to the opposition benches. On 7 May, the All for Australia League, the Nationalist opposition (hitherto led by John Latham) and former Prime Minister Billy Hughes' Australian Party (a group of former Nationalists who had been expelled for crossing the floor and bringing down Stanley Bruce's Nationalist government in 1929), merged to form the UAP. Although the new party was dominated by former Nationalists, Lyons was chosen as the new party's leader, and thus became Leader of the Opposition, with Latham as his deputy. The Western Australia branch of the Nationalists, however, retained the Nationalist name.
  Claiming that the Scullin government was incapable of managing the economy, it offered traditional deflationary economic policies in response to Australia's economic crisis.  Though it was basically an upper- and middle-class conservative party, the presence of ex-Labor MPs with working-class backgrounds allowed the party to present a convincing image of national unity transcending class barriers.  This was especially true of the party leader, Lyons.  Indeed, he had been chosen as the merged party's leader because he was thought to be more electorally appealing than the aloof Latham, and was thus better suited to win over traditional Labor supporters to the UAP.  Its slogan was "All for Australia and the Empire".
  A further split, this time of left-wing NSW Labor MPs who supported the unorthodox economic policies of NSW Premier Jack Lang, cost the Scullin government its parliamentary majority.  In November 1931, Lang Labor dissidents broke with the Scullin government and joined with the UAP opposition to pass a no-confidence motion, forcing an early election.
caption: At the 1931 federal election, the UAP campaigned on a platform of economic conservatism, accusing the Labor governments of James Scullin and Jack Lang of destroying the economy
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