Lyons died while still in office in , and his wife entered federal politics herself. She was the first woman elected to the House of Representatives and the first female member of a federal ministry. He was known as Joe. He was the fourth of eight children born to Michael Lyons and Ellen Carroll, both of whose parents were Irish immigrants.
He suffered a nervous breakdown and was unable to support his family. He became a pupil-teacher in , finally qualifying as a teacher in After graduating he taught in Launceston and Hobart.
He was very critical of people with large landholding interests and was in frequent conflict with his employer, the Tasmanian Education Department, for his political activities.
Lyons resigned from the teaching service in to contest the seat of Wilmot in the state Legislative Assembly. He was horsewhipped during the campaign by a large landowner he had criticised. Once elected, he promoted a series of progressive reforms, including free medical treatment and education for children, a state medical scheme, reform of the Legislative Council, aid to farmers, factory legislation and the breaking up of large estates.
In Lyons was elected president of the state ALP branch. When the ALP split over conscription in November , Earle resigned as parliamentary party leader in Tasmania and Lyons was elected to replace him. He spent almost seven years as state opposition leader from to Lyons stood unsuccessfully as the ALP candidate for the federal seat of Darwin in Tasmania at the general election on December He became Premier of Tasmania on 25 October when the Nationalist government of Walter Lee fell after several Nationalists deserted the party.
Lyons was appointed Premier at the head of a minority ALP government. As well as being Premier he took the Treasury and Railways portfolios.
He remained Treasurer for the five-and-a-half years he was Premier. His consensual approach won supporters from the Nationalists, helping the ALP retain government at the June general election. The Nationalists eventually regrouped, however, and were returned to government by a narrow margin at the next state election in May When Lyons broke from Labor, on 13 March , he took with him the votes of disaffected Laborites in their thousands.
This quasi-political people movement—organised by conservative operatives and with names such as All For Australia League—latched onto Lyons as their hero. These groups eventually came together under the United Australia Party in May It was a unique political precedent. Lyons was elected leader of this conservative collective in the Nationalist party room. Instead, he became the leader of the conservative opposition—the United Australia Party.
In late November , after the Lang Labor MPs had helped defeat the Scullin Government on the floor of the House over a relatively minor matter, Scullin dissolved Parliament and went to the people in a House of Representatives only election. On 19 December, the UAP won a record result for the House of Representatives, a record that has not been matched in spite of the landslide. So Australia suddenly had a Catholic prime minister leading a predominantly Protestant party, and a somewhat Masonic one—a Catholic with a Labor past.
This was quite an aberration in Australian politics. The Catholic vote for Labor took a nosedive at the federal election—it was Lyons, not Menzies, who brought the Catholic vote for the first time over to the conservative side.
It is quite timely to be speaking about Joseph Lyons and the way he was so quickly thrust onto the national stage as such a popular leader. Two years before his win in , most Australians would not have heard of him. To win such a victory in December meant a lot had happened between October and that election.
Joseph Lyons had led the Tasmanian Labor Party from November until he entered federal politics at the election. During the post-World War I years and into the s, Lyons had toyed with left-leaning politics and was always a pacifist. He had led Tasmanian anti-conscriptionists in the First World War plebiscites. But, with successive defeats for Labor at state elections from , Lyons became more conservative with his desire to win over swinging voters.
In late , Labor fell into government in Tasmania when the Nationalist government of Sir Walter Lee lost a vote on the floor of the Assembly. Lyons, called to Government House, persuaded Administrator Sir Herbert Nicholls that he could command the numbers to form a Labor government. Tasmania was in worrying debt at the time and Lyons had railed against the inability of the Lee Government to make savings. Lyons was by then an opponent of what economist Lyndhurst Giblin called unproductive government spending—public works that did not produce income.
Scullin had railed against the Bruce—Page Government for the large government debt of — During the latter half of —and while Scullin was overseas from August—Lyons, as Acting Treasurer, kept to the script as advised by Scullin. Economies had to be found and budgets reduced.
The Lang rant against the moneylenders and his advocacy of repudiating debt was as firmly opposed by Scullin as Lyons. In the tussles with the Langites in caucus after October , Scullin supported Lyons by cable to hold the line; he also strongly supported the huge loan conversion of December , when Lyons joined with Menzies, the Victorian Young Nationalists and many of the chief financial houses of the day such as J. Ted Theodore, who had been forced to stand down as Treasurer in July to answer allegations of financial impropriety when he was Premier of Queensland, had faded in influence.
The Labor government of Jim Scullin probably stands alongside the government of Gough Whitlam as the most disastrous waste of an opportunity to govern. Both had difficult financial times, but each seemed not to have grasped the need to act pragmatically rather than ideologically. This disturbed Lyons—a person who acted always with the highest propriety, standing aside one of his ministers in Tasmania in over a financial scandal.
Unhappy with the state of play around Theodore, Lyons resigned from the Scullin ministry soon after his reinstatement to the ministry. However, the most divisive issue for Lyons was the fiduciary bill Theodore now planned to bring before the Parliament to print money for work relief. Lyons saw this as financial suicide—and Lyons knew that the Senate would vote it down. Caucus had become dysfunctional as the Depression and unemployment crippled the economy.
Journalist Warren Denning wrote that the din of caucus meetings after August could be heard in the corridor through padded doors. Evatt to the High Court. Won easily by the Nationalists, it would be a heavy loss for Labor at a time when the party was close to splitting apart.
History books have then skimmed over the Lyons years as ones of quiet lost opportunities and then the story goes on to the years of World War II and John Curtin. So, why was he forgotten? Well, he fell between the cracks. Labor would never again claim him. And with the formation of the Liberal Party in the mids, Liberal leader Robert Menzies became the figure revered by the conservatives. But by forgetting Lyons, we lose a significant chunk of Australian political history.
A lot happened for Australia in the Lyons years at the Lodge. Lyons was a figure who could draw out the vote, could draw out ordinary people, and he was mourned hugely when he died.
At the election, with John Curtin as the fresh new Labor leader, Lyons pulled the UAP back from staring at certain defeat to a win where the party hardly lost a seat. Moreover, over seven long years, Lyons mastered a cabinet made up of divided egos and would-be leaders, and negotiated unity through struggles with policy and the financial stress of depression.
Lyons, with the partnership of Stanley Bruce as High Commissioner in London, also made an impact in foreign relations. Lyons even made the cover of Time magazine as he arrived in New York. Lyons—as one of the dominion leaders after the Statute of Westminster—played a significant role in the abdication. In the lead up to the Munich conference, it was Lyons who made a last-minute call to Neville Chamberlain suggesting Mussolini might be able to broker yet another meeting with Hitler over his intentions in the Sudetenland.
Chamberlain followed up on that advice and the Munich Agreement was the outcome. We should recall that most political leaders were appeasers in —the memory of World War I had them in a bind that another world conflict should be avoided at all costs. Lyons was certainly with the majority on Munich at that stage. It was also Lyons who pushed for a Pacific Pact on non-aggression through the many meetings of the Imperial Conference in London. The years of the s were also years of great strides in communications—a revolution of sorts with the development of radio and air travel.
Lyons was a master at the use of both. His immediate task as prime minister was to counter Lang who had sought to repudiate overseas loan payments. In a series of skilful manoeuvres largely devised by Latham and pursued vigorously by Lyons, Lang was forced into increasingly desperate reponses which led to his dismissal by the governor, Sir Philip Game. He easily won the elections, but the U. The coalition was re-established after Lyons's convincing victory in the elections. Lyons was content to apply the orthodox economic policies embodied in the Premiers' Plan.
He also sought to rekindle the development and welfare objectives of the Bruce-Page government of the s. He tried without success to develop Northern Australia by charter companies, and sought expansion of public works programmes with emphasis on housing and urban infrastructure.
He was frustrated in introducing welfare policies by lack of funds and from the opposition on constitutional grounds of Menzies, deputy leader since the elections. Lyons sponsored a national insurance scheme which parliament approved in , but the Act was never proclaimed. He took few initiatives in foreign affairs, contenting himself with the reiteration of Imperial sentiments and stressing the primacy of the British navy in Australia's defence.
He maintained his opposition to conscription as pressure for rearmament grew in the late s, imposing it on his cabinet colleagues in a rare assertion of policy. Latham's earlier enthusiastic efforts to prosecute communists, and the vigorous censorship and restrictive immigration policies applied by some ministers had given the Lyons government a repressive tinge.
These ministers had left the cabinet by and Lyons depended on Page and on younger colleagues from his own party, notably Richard Lord Casey. His relationship with Menzies was ambivalent. There are hints in Lyons's correspondence with his wife that he expected to make way for Menzies after the elections, but was persuaded to remain by the National Union which considered Menzies immature.
Lyons's skills as a consensual politician and co-ordinator were fully deployed in the management of a difficult cabinet. He acted largely as chairman, using his abilities to present decisions in the best light. This approach led him into errors of judgement, notably over the trade diversion controversy of and the exclusion from Australia in of a British passport-holder, Mrs Mabel Freer, apparently on moral grounds.
For the most part, Lyons was able to contain tensions and avoid political mishaps. His touch with his parliamentary party was just as sure although he sustained occasional rebuffs, notably over tariff adjustments and the timing of the elections. Much of his energy was devoted to co-ordinating and administering the loosely organized U.
He spent considerable time publicizing his government, holding frequent press conferences and briefing journalists, editors and newspaper proprietors. He sought the assistance of private enterprise groups in economic reconstruction.
Lyons won three successive elections convincingly, a performance then unmatched by any other prime minister. His victories in and were certainly assisted by bitter divisions within the A.
Lyons innovatively made extensive use of air travel and placed emphasis on radio broadcasting. His parliamentary skills were outstanding, Menzies describing him as the finest parliamentarian he had seen in action. Despite increasing exhaustion, Lyons maintained the stability of his government until the final months before his death, but his increasing desperation was revealed in letters to his wife. He wrote in May 'It is just dreadful to come back to what always awaits me here [Canberra] but I suppose one day it will come to an end'.
He found solace and relief in official visits to Europe and the United States of America in and Menzies, who accompanied him in , effusively praised his extempore speeches and public performance, although he noted with distaste the relish of Lyons and his wife for official travel, observing that both were 'over-inclined to extract the last drop of juice from the orange'.
Lyons was deeply affected by his visits to Australian war cemeteries in France and Belgium, which reinforced his pacifist and anti-conscription convictions. His final months were miserable as his government became increasingly unstable. Apart from Menzies, there were other threats, particularly from Charles Hawker. According to Enid Lyons, Hawker was on his way to Canberra to challenge Lyons when he was killed in a plane crash in October Lyons lost the support of Sir Henry Gullett to whom he had been extremely loyal during the trade diversion controversy, and he came to doubt even Casey's loyalty.
Although Menzies never issued a direct challenge, he made pointed public comments about lack of national leadership; through his claims were advanced in the newspapers of Sir Keith Murdoch , previously an enthusiastic supporter of Lyons. He retained the support of the National Union, the U.
State branches and most federal parliamentarians, and was able to thwart the implicit Menzies challenge in the final months of On 14 March Menzies resigned from cabinet because of the deferment of the national insurance scheme.
Sensing that a direct challenge to his leadership was inevitable, Lyons urged Bruce to return from London to take over, but he insisted on impossible conditions, including a national government. Despite these pressures there were signs in this period that Lyons was emerging as a more assertive and decisive figure, ready to confront his opponents. There is evidence that he would not have submitted to Menzies without a struggle. Lyons died in Sydney Hospital on 7 April from coronary occlusion.
After memorial services in Sydney and Canberra, his body was conveyed in state by an Australian navy vessel to Devonport in Tasmania where he was buried. He was survived by Dame Enid, six daughters and five sons of whom Kevin became deputy premier of Tasmania in the Liberal ministry of Angus Bethune. Lyons was the first prime minister to use the official lodge in Canberra as a family home. The large family was often split, with Lyons looking after three or four of the children at the lodge with the assistance of domestic staff.
He was often photographed in the grounds flanked by his children. In Lyons successfully stood for the Federal seat of Wilmot. During the Depression years Lyons advocated orthodox finance, opposing the policies of Treasurer Ted Theodore.
Lyons' cautious economic approach won him public support, but infuriated the Labor Caucus. When Theodore was reinstated as treasurer, Lyons defected. In , Lyons became prime minister and the Coalition maintained power in the and elections. On 7 April , Lyons died unexpectedly of a heart attack while in office.
In response to the Great Depression, on 3 May the Loan Unemployment Relief Works Act authorises the government to grant money from a fund of 1 pounds for relief work approved by the employment council in each state.
The referendum held on 6 March contained two questions relating to increasing Commonwealth power over aviation and marketing. Neither was carried. This day is remembered as marking the first Aboriginal civil rights gathering. Lyons was able to deliver on his promises of economic stability. His government too, was generally stable, until the last few months before his death. Lyons was, by nature, gentle and honest and possessed a pacifying style of leadership.
As prime minister he had significant public appeal, but within the UAP he had the task of managing a 'nest of impatient egos'. There were pressures associated with the tension within the as the UAP, from a revitalized ALP, and the growing likelihood of another world war.
By late , Lyons began to lose control of his party, as several challenges to his leadership emerged.
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