House of Representatives Members – 11th Parliament 1928-1929

This is the full list of members who served in the eleventh House of Representatives from 1928 until 1929.

In a 75-member chamber, the Nationalist Party government of Prime Minister Stanley Melbourne Bruce saw its majority decrease at the November 17, 1928 election, winning 29 (-8) seats. The ALP, now led by James Scullin, won 31 (+8) seats. The Country Party won 13 (-1) seats, there was one Country Progressive Party member and and one independent. The coalition government held 42 seats to 33, an overall majority of 9 (-18).

The Nationalists polled 39.09% of the primary vote, a loss of 3.37%. The ALP polled 44.64% (-0.40%), whilst the Country Party secured 10.47% (-0.27%). On a two-party-preferred basis, the Nationalists polled 51.60% (-2.20%) to the ALP’s 48.40%. It was the Nationalist Party’s fifth consecutive victory since 1917. Within a year, the government fell and Scullin’s ALP won a landslide victory. The 11th Parliament is the shortest parliament in Australia’s federal history.

Two future Labor prime ministers entered the parliament at this election: John Curtin, in Fremantle, and Ben Chifley, in Macquarie.

There was one by-election in the Eleventh Parliament:

• 1929: Balaclava (Vic) – William Watt (Nat) resigned; replaced by Thomas White (Nat).

The Downfall of the Bruce Government; Hughes Takes His Revenge

In 1929, the Bruce government introduced the Maritime Services Bill, which sought to abolish Commonwealth arbitration in most areas and return the industrial relations power to the states. Not for the first or last time, industrial relations would damage an incumbent government.

On September 10, 1929, former prime minister Billy Hughes led four other Nationalists in crossing the floor to pass an amendment that called for the government to submit the bill to the judgement of the people at either a referendum or a general election. The government indicated it would treat passage of the amendment as a confidence vote.

The government called an election for October 12, 1929 at which it was defeated by the ALP. James Scullin became prime minister and Bruce became the first incumbent prime minister to lose his seat at an election.

The Nationalist members who crossed the floor to defeat the government were:

• Billy Hughes (North Sydney-NSW). Hughes took his revenge on Stanley Bruce for displacing him as prime minister following the 1922 election. Hughes remained in parliament until his death in 1952.
• Edward Mann (Perth-WA). Mann was responsible for the 1924 passage of the bill that introduced compulsory voting. Running as an independent in the 1929 election, he lost his seat.
• Walter Marks (Wentworth-NSW). Running as an independent, Marks retained his seat at the 1929 election. He was endorsed by the United Australia Party at the 1931 election but was defeated by a renegade UAP member, Eric Harrison, the future deputy leader of the Liberal Party under Menzies.
• George Maxwell (Fawkner -Vic). Running as a member of Hughes’ Australian Party, Maxwell retained his seat in 1929. He then joined the United Australia Party in 1931 and won two more elections before he died in 1935. He was succeeded by the future prime minister Harold Holt.

The two independents in the 11th Parliament also supported the vote against the Maritime Services Bill:

• William McWilliams (Franklin-Tas). McWilliams was the first leader of the Country Party. He lost his seat in 1922 but regained it in 1928 as an independent. He won again in 1929 but died soon after the election.
• Percy Stewart (Wimmera-Vic). Stewart first won his seat as a Country Party member. He worked with Albert Dunstan to form the Victorian Country Progressive Party. He retained his seat in 1929 and died in 1931.

Additionally, the Speaker of the House contributed to the demise of the Bruce-Page government.

• Sir Littleton Groom (Darling Downs-Qld). As Speaker, he refused to cast a vote that would have saved the government in the committee stage of the Maritime Services Bill. Groom was opposed to the bill but also supported the conventions surrounding the independence of the Speaker, one of which demands that the Speaker not vote even when technically eligible to do so. He was expelled from the Nationalist Party, lost his seat at the election but was returned again in 1931, at which time he joined the United Australia Party.

The first table shows the state-by-state breakdown of the House following the 1928 election.

The second table lists the 77 members who served in the 11th House of Representatives, 76 elected in 1928 and one who entered via a by-election. *The Northern Territory member had voting rights only for matters affecting the territory and is therefore excluded from the calculations of party strength in the House.