page_title: Ben Chifley
section_title: Prime minister
hierarchical_section_title: Ben Chifley / Prime minister
caption_attribution_description: English: en:Australian Labor Party leaders en:Ben Chifley (middle) and en:Herbert Evatt (left) with en:British Prime Minister en:Clement Attlee (right) at the Dominion and British Leaders Conference, en:London, en:1946. www.pictureaustralia.org Image number M1409:31
context_page_description: Joseph Benedict Chifley was an Australian politician who served as the 16th Prime Minister of Australia, in office from 1945 to 1949. He was leader of the Labor Party from 1945 until his death.
  Chifley was born in Bathurst, New South Wales. He joined the state railways after leaving school, eventually qualifying as an engine driver. He was prominent in the trade union movement before entering politics, and was also a director of The National Advocate. After several previous unsuccessful candidacies, Chifley was elected to parliament in 1928. In 1931, he was appointed Minister for Defence in the government of James Scullin. He served in cabinet for less than a year before losing his seat at the 1931 election, which saw the government suffer a landslide defeat.
  After his electoral defeat, Chifley remained involved in politics as a party official, siding with the federal Labor leadership against the Lang Labor faction. He served on a royal commission into the banking system in 1935, and in 1940 became a senior public servant in the Department of Munitions. Chifley was re-elected to parliament later that year, on his third attempt since 1931.
context_section_description: When Curtin died in July 1945, Forde became Prime Minister for eight days. Chifley defeated him in the leadership ballot, replacing him as Prime Minister and Curtin as Labor leader. Once the war ended a month later, normal political life resumed, and Chifley faced Robert Menzies and his new Liberal Party in the 1946 election, which Chifley won with 54 percent of the two-party-preferred vote. It marked the first time that an incumbent federal Labor government was re-elected. In the post-war years, Chifley maintained wartime economic controls, including the highly unpopular petrol rationing. He did this partly to help Britain in its postwar economic difficulties.
caption: Chifley (middle) and Bert Evatt (left) with Clement Attlee (right) at the Dominion and British Leaders Conference, London, 1946
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