Talk:1955 Australian federal election

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Why was this election held?

The article should state why the 1955 election was held as the previous election was the year before. I for one would like to know why Menzies went back to the people two years early. The Shadow Treasurer (talk) 00:11, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

From AJPH (Rawson, Don (1956). "Australian Political Chronicle: July–December 1955". Australian Journal of Politics and History. 1 (2): 245–246. ISSN 0004-9522. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)):

"From late 1954, when the Labor Party dispute broke out, there had been reports that the Government would hold elections for both Houses some time before the Senate election would normally have fallen due in mid-1956. This would mean that elections for Senate and for House of Representatives would again be held on the same day, reducing the frequency of elections, and at the same time would enable the Government to take advantage of the disunity of the Opposition. While the Government could reasonably hope to increase its majority in the House of Representatives, it could only hope to retain control of the Senate under the most favourable circumstances, since most of the retiring Senators would be Government supporters. Picking a likely election date became a serious tactical problem for the Government and an exercise in ingenuity for political journalists.

"The Government’s chance of obtaining a Senate majority depended less on its own record than on the unpopularity and disunity of the Labor Party. Labor’s unpopularity arose principally from Dr. Evatt’s attitude to the Royal Commission [OIC: on Espionage, following the Petrov affair, a previous section deals with this], and this was also the immediate occasion, though not the cause, of the party’s disunity. For these reasons, the Commission’s report, and the reactions it produced, were an important influence on election strategy. Dr. Evatt’s continued criticism of the conduct and conclusions of the Royal Commission, and particularly his action in writing privately to Mr. Molotov, confirmed if they did not give rise to the Government’s decision to hold an election almost immediately."

(If anyone wants more info from the source about the election campaign and so on, it'd be easier to just send me an email and I'll attach you back the PDF by return email.) Orderinchaos 00:18, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Some of this needs to go into the article, because the huge swing to the government is currently not explained or even commented on. I assume "the Labor party dispute" above means Australian Labor Party split of 1955.

Here is a bit more of the above article:

Mr. Menzies’ policy speech contained few specific proposals for future government action. The Government’s appeal was based almost solely on its past record and on the disunity and alleged Communist sympathies of the A.L.P. ...
The Anti-Communist Labor Party’s campaign was directed primarily against the A.L.P. ... In other respects, there was little difference between the policies of the two Labor parties, except that the Anti-Communists gave more emphasis, or at least more conscious emphasis, to the needs of larger families in their social services proposals.

Adpete (talk) 04:22, 11 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]