New South Wales Labor Party
The New South Wales Labor Party, officially known as the Australian Labor Party and commonly referred to simply as NSW Labor, is the New South Wales branch of the Australian Labor Party. The branch is the current ruling party in the state of New South Wales and is led by Chris Minns, who has served concurrently as premier of New South Wales since 2023.
The parliamentary leader is elected from and by the members of the party caucus, comprising all party members in the Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council. The party factions have a strong influence on the election of the leader. The leader's position is dependent on the continuing support of the caucus and the leader may be deposed by failing to win a vote of confidence of parliamentary members. By convention, the premier sits in the Legislative Assembly, and is the leader of the party controlling a majority in that house. The party leader also typically is a member of the Assembly, though this is not a strict party constitutional requirement. Barrie Unsworth, for example, was elected party leader while a member of the Legislative Council. He then transferred to the Assembly by winning a seat at a by-election.
When the Labor party wins sufficient seats to be able to control a majority in the Legislative Assembly, the party leader becomes the State Premier and Labor will form the government. When Labor is the largest party not in government, the party leader becomes the Leader of the Opposition. To become a premier or opposition leader, the party leader must be or within a short period of time become a member of the Legislative Assembly.
History
Early history
The NSW branch of the Australian Labor Party, known as the Labor Electoral League of New South Wales from 1891 to 1917, first won 35 of the 141 seats in the NSW parliament at the 1891 election. The initial caucus voted against appointing a leader and the party was directed by a steering committee of five members until, following a request from the party's extra-parliamentary executive, Joseph Cook was elected as the first leader in 1893. Cook left the party in the following year when he was obliged to sign a pledge that he would support all caucus decisions in parliament. James McGowen, who signed the pledge, succeeded Cook as party leader in 1894. At the 1894 state election Labor representation was reduced to 18. After the 1898 election, Labor held the balance of power with George Reid's Free Trade government being dependent on Labor to push through New South Wales' adoption of Federation. McGowen's support for Federation was critical to Labor maintaining its support for the adoption of measures to implement Federation, even though the party remained opposed to the adopted Constitution, which it saw as biased in favour of business interests. The 1904 state election saw Labor become the second largest party and the official opposition for the first time.First government in New South Wales and internal divisions
At the 1910 election, the Labor Party first won government in NSW with a slim majority of 46 of 90 seats; as a result, McGowen was premier from 1910 to 1913. But increasing success was accompanied by increasing tensions within the labour movement: from the 1890s the Australian Workers' Union attempted to assert its influence on the NSW parliamentary party, with little success for many years. Divisions also opened up between state and federal Labor after Andrew Fisher took office as Prime Minister of the first federal Labor government in 1908: William Holman, the NSW party's main parliamentary strategist at the time, presented a policy agenda at state party conferences which differed from that approved by the federal party, in particular in its opposition to the transfer of responsibilities for finance and industrial relations from the state to the Commonwealth government, a dispute in which the AWU sided with the ALP. Tensions continued to rise during McGowen's premiership, as McGowen and Holman refused to support the holding of the 1911 trade and commerce referendum favoured by the ALP: in addition Holman alienated extra-parliamentary Labor members and some of the NSW caucus by appointing a number of new members to the state's Legislative Council, including some who were not Labor members. This ran counter to the state party's platform, which advocated for the abolition of the Council, something which was not attempted by the state Labor governments of the 1910s, and which was a divisive issue in the party at the time.McGowen was deposed by his deputy Holman after McGowen attempted to break a gas workers' strike by threatening to replace strikers with non-union labour. Upon the outbreak of World War I, Holman announced a truce with the state Commonwealth Liberal Party which would take industrial reform off the agenda for the remainder of the war. In addition, the prospect of putting the economy on a war footing increased fears regarding job losses. These developments increased disillusion with Labor among unions and encouraged thinking about new political strategies. In November 1915 Labor affiliated unions in NSW, led by the AWU, formed the Industrial Section, the first formally organised Labor faction in Australia, with the aim of asserting control over the NSW parliamentary party. At the state party conference in April 1916, the Industrial Section, swept the party's internal elections, taking 31 out of 36 offices including the party's presidency. The Industrial Section became a model for later factional organisations in the ALP, both in New South Wales and nationwide.
Conscription split
The conscription issue divided the Labor Party and wider Australian community in 1916. While much of the Australian labour movement and general community was opposed to conscription, Australian Labor Prime Minister Billy Hughes and Premier Holman strongly supported conscription, and both crossed the floor to vote with the conservative parties, and both were expelled from the Labor Party. When Hughes met with the executive of NSW Labor in September 1916 to attempt to persuade them to back his conscription plan, he lost the vote 21–5 and was warned that he would be expelled if he continued to press the matter. Ernest Durack became state party leader, while Holman formed a coalition on 15 November 1916 with the leader of the opposition Liberal Reform Party, Charles Wade, with himself as Premier. Following the exodus of pro-conscription MPs from the party, many leaders of the Industrial Section took advantage of the new vacancies to secure selection for open seats. Early in 1917, Holman and his supporters merged with Liberal Reform to form the state branch of the Nationalist Party of Australia. While the merged party was dominated by former Liberals, Holman became its leader. At the 1917 state election, the Nationalists won a huge victory, presaging the equally massive federal Nationalist victory later that year.During his leadership of the Nationalist government, Holman vigorously defended the government-owned enterprises from the more conservative wing of his party. Durack's leadership lasted only for about three months, and he was succeeded by John Storey in February 1917. In April 1918 the Industrial Section changed its name to the Industrial Vigilance Council, a change in part prompted by a leftward shift in the union movement influenced by the Great War and the Russian Revolution. At this point it was increasingly beset by internal divisions, in particular between the relatively conservative AWU and smaller unions and radicals such as the syndicalist-influenced Sam Rosa. This came to a head during 1919 due to divisions over whether conscription should end following the closing of the First World War and whether the Australian union movement should adopt the syndicalist principle of the One Big Union. The faction was wound up in August 1919, with many of its radicals such as Albert Willis going on to form the Industrial Socialist Labor Party. This left the state party firmly in the control of the AWU At the 1920 election, Holman and his Nationalists were thrown from office in a massive swing to Labor. Storey became premier with a majority of one.
Dooley–Storey era
On Storey's death in October 1921, James Dooley became leader of the party and premier. His government was defeated on the floor of the House on 13 December 1921, but new Premier George Fuller lost a vote within seven hours of his appointment, and Dooley regained power. He lost the 1922 election to Fuller in a highly sectarian election campaign. As the result of a dispute with a party executive, dominated by the Australian Workers' Union, Dooley was expelled from the party in February 1923 and replaced by Greg McGirr as leader, but the Federal Executive intervened and appointed Bill Dunn as an interim leader until Jack Lang was elected by the caucus, with the support of more radical unions, most prominently Albert Willis and his Australian Coal and Shale Employees' Federation.Lang era
Lang led the ALP to victory in the 1925 election and became Premier. His support in the caucus was challenged in 1926 and in that year the party's annual State Conference, which strongly supported Lang, assumed the right to select the leader instead of caucus. The following year Lang and his extra-parliamentary allies drastically altered the party rules so that State Conference delegates and members of the Central Executive were elected in a complicated group system. The ALP was defeated at the 1927 election but won in a landslide at the 1930 election.Lang opposed the Premiers' Plan to combat the Great Depression agreed to by the federal Labor government of James Scullin and the other state Premiers, who called for even more stringent cuts to government spending to balance the budget. In March 1931, the NSW branch of the party was expelled by the Federal Executive in the Federal Conference.
In October 1931, Lang's followers in the federal House of Representatives crossed the floor to vote with the conservative United Australia Party and bring down the Scullin government.
This action split the NSW Labor Party in two – Lang's followers and the expelled NSW branch became known as Lang Labor, while Scullin's supporters, led by Chifley, became known in NSW as Federal Labor. Most of the party's branches and affiliated trade unions supported Lang. Furthermore, Lang's persistence with his plan led to the Lang Dismissal Crisis in 1931–32 which led to his dismissal as premier by the State Governor on 13 May 1932. The Governor appointed the UAP leader, Bertram Stevens, as premier and Stevens immediately called the 1932 election, at which Labor was heavily defeated. In February 1936, the NSW branch rejoined the Australian Labor Party and became the official NSW branch of the ALP again. Federal Labor was then abolished.
Lang's lack of success at state elections eroded his support within the labour movement. He had not won a state election since 1930. This led some members of caucus, including Bob Heffron, to break away to form the Industrial Labor Party. In 1939, following intervention by the Federal Executive, the two factions were reunited at a state conference. This gathering also reversed the "red rules" and returned the power of selecting the party leader to the caucus. Lang was deposed in 1939.