Skip to content
Surf Wiki
Save to docs
politics

From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

1911 Western Australian state election

State election in Western Australia in 1911


State election in Western Australia in 1911

FieldValue
election_name1911 Western Australian state election
flag_year1870
countryWestern Australia
typeparliamentary
ongoingno
previous_election1908 Western Australian state election
previous_year1908
next_election1914 Western Australian state election
next_year1914
seats_for_electionAll 50 seats in the Western Australian Legislative Assembly
election_date3 October 1911
image1[[File:John Scaddan.jpg130px]]
leader1John Scaddan
leader_since13 August 1910
party1Australian Labour Party (Western Australian Branch)
leaders_seat1Brown Hill-Ivanhoe
percentage152.64%
swing114.73
last_election122 seats
seats134 seats
seat_change112
image2[[File:Frank Wilson (1859-1918).jpeg138px]]
leader2Frank Wilson
leader_since216 September 1910
party2Ministerialist
color26797EA
leaders_seat2Sussex
percentage244.80%
swing216.82
last_election228 seats
seats216 seats
seat_change212
titlePremier
before_electionFrank Wilson
before_partyMinisterialist
after_electionJohn Scaddan
after_partyAustralian Labour Party (Western Australian Branch)

Elections were held in the state of Western Australia on 3 October 1911 to elect 50 members to the Western Australian Legislative Assembly. The Labor Party, led by Opposition Leader John Scaddan, defeated the conservative Ministerialist government led by Premier Frank Wilson. In doing so, Scaddan achieved Labor's first absolute majority on the floor of the Assembly and, with 68% of the seats (34 of 50), set a record for Labor's biggest majority in Western Australia. The record would stand for nearly 106 years until Labor won 69% of seats (41 of 59) at the 2017 election. The result came as something of a surprise to many commentators and particularly to the Ministerialists, as they went to an election for the first time as a single grouping backed by John Forrest's Western Australian Liberal League, under a new system of compulsory preferential voting and new electoral boundaries both of which had been passed by Parliament earlier in the year despite ardent Labor opposition.

The 1911 election is considered by political historians such as Brian de Garis and David Black to mark the end of the first phase of the development of party politics in Western Australia, which had begun with the granting of responsible government to the then British colony in 1890. Labor held onto government with a one-seat majority in the following 1914 election but lost power in 1916 after losing a by-election and after another member left the Labor Party to sit as an Independent.

The Scaddan government was characterised by its involvement in a number of State-owned manufacturing and service businesses on the back of a relatively sluggish economy. The Government Trading Concerns Act 1912 saw it establishing and running the State Brickworks, the State Saw Mills, the State Implement Works, the State Shipping Service, the State Hotels, the State Quarry at Boya as well as meatworks, ferries and tramways.

Results

| turnout % = 74.88 | informal % = 1.40 |votes % = 52.64 |votes % = 44.80 |votes % = 2.56 |}

Notes: : The Labor Party's total of 34 seats includes 10 which were uncontested, representing 30,270 of the 152,645 enrolled voters. : The Ministerialist group (whose elected members formed the Liberal Party soon after the election) stood 65 candidates for a total of 38 seats - notably five in the Moore district and four in Canning.

References

References

  1. Black, David. (1991). "The house on the hill: A history of the Parliament of Western Australia 1832-1990". Parliament of Western Australia.
  2. De Garis in Black (1991), p.90.
  3. {{cite Q. Q125995168. de Garis. Brian
  4. (7 September 2006). "Register of Heritage Places - Assessment Doc'n Government Quarries (fmr)". Heritage Council of Western Australia.
Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about 1911 Western Australian state election — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report