1938 New South Wales state election

1938 New South Wales state election
← 1935 26 March 1938 (1938-03-26) 1941 →
All 90 seats in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly
46 Assembly seats were needed for a majority
  First party Second party
 
Leader Bertram Stevens Jack Lang
Party UAP/Country coalition Labor
Leader since 5 April 1932 31 July 1923
Leader's seat Croydon Auburn
Last election 61 seats 29 seats
Seats won 59 28
Seat change Decrease2 Decrease1
Percentage 49.6% 34.8%
Swing Increase3.6 Decrease7.6
Results by division for the Legislative Assembly, shaded by winning party's margin of victory.
Premier before election

Bertram Stevens
UAP/Country coalition

Elected Premier

Bertram Stevens
UAP/Country coalition

The 1938 New South Wales state election was held on 26 March 1938. This election was for all of the 90 seats in the 32nd New South Wales Legislative Assembly and was conducted in single member constituencies with compulsory preferential voting.

The result of the election was:

The UAP/Country Party coalition of Bertram Stevens and Michael Bruxner had a majority of 28 (down 2). Stevens continued as Premier until 5 August 1939 when he resigned after being censured by the Legislative Assembly, with 10 United Australia members crossing the floor. He was replaced as Premier by Alexander Mair.

Lang Labor reconciled with Labor in February 1936,[1] however Labor's primary vote continued to decline.[2] Labor's continued poor showing in this election was seen as evidence of Jack Lang's inability to appeal to the middle ground of the electorate. As a result, moves to dispose Lang intensified.[citation needed] The Industrial Labor Party led by Lang rival Bob Heffron was re-absorbed into the Labor on 26 August 1939 and Lang was replaced as party leader by William McKell on 5 September 1939.[1]

During this parliament Labor and Industrial Labor each won 2 by-elections from the United Australia Party.[3] This reduced the Government's majority to 20 when the parliament was dissolved.

  1. ^ a b Nairn, Bede. "Lang, John Thomas (Jack) (1876–1975)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. ISBN 978-0-522-84459-7. ISSN 1833-7538. OCLC 70677943. Retrieved 26 November 2021.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Green 1938 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Green, Antony. "1938-1941 By elections". New South Wales Election Results 1856-2007. Parliament of New South Wales. Retrieved 25 May 2020.