1937_Australian_federal_election
1937 Australian federal election
Australian federal election
The 1937 Australian federal election was held in Australia on 23 October 1937. All 74 seats in the House of Representatives, and 19 of the 36 seats in the Senate were up for election. The incumbent UAP–Country coalition government, led by Prime Minister Joseph Lyons, defeated the opposition Labor Party under John Curtin.
The election is notable in that the Country Party achieved its highest-ever primary vote in the lower house, thereby winning nearly a quarter of all lower-house seats. At the 1934 election nine seats in New South Wales had been won by Lang Labor. Following the reunion of the two Labor parties in February 1936, these were held by their members as ALP seats at the 1937 election. With the party's wins in Ballaarat and Gwydir (initially at a by-election on 8 March 1937), the ALP had a net gain of 11 seats compared with the previous election.
This was the first federal election that future Prime Ministers Harold Holt and Arthur Fadden contested as members of parliament, having entered parliament at the 1935 Fawkner by-election and 1936 Darling Downs by-election respectively.
This was the first federal election under George VI who became head of state after his brother Edward VIII who abdicated in December the previous year.
