Dismissal of Jack Lang

Introduction

While Lang's peers have gone down in history with the title of Prime Minister of Australia (Scullin, Lyons, Chifley), Jack Lang will forever be remembered as being the only premier of an Australian State to have ever been dismissed by the State governor.

Who was he?

Born to an impoverished Irish-Scottish family as John Thomas Lang in 1876, 'Jack' Lang (or 'The Big Fella,' as he was later known), became one of the most controversial politicians in Australian history. Coming from a family with roots in Labor politics and being involved in producing newspapers and other publications for the Labor Party as a mere teenager, it is not surprising that Lang's adult career ended up in politics. See image 1

From 1925-1927 and 1930-1932, Jack Lang was Premier of New South Wales. In other words, he was the head of the executive government at State level, much in the same way that the Prime Minister is the head of the government for the Commonwealth and therefore at a national level. While he was Premier, Lang and his State government established revolutionary welfare and social legislation. It included the Family Endowment Act 1927 (NSW) which gave all mothers access to child endowment payments and the Workers' Compensation Acts 1926 (NSW) which was the State's first 'modern' compensation for death, injury or illness caused while at work. They introduced the Forty-four Hours Week Act 1926 (NSW) which reduced the average working week down from 48 hours. The Lang Government established the Widows' Pension Act 1926 (NSW), which provided pensions for widows with dependent children under the age of fourteen. They also removed fees for State high school students, as well as made improvements to a number of major roads including the Hume Highway and the Great Western Highway.

The numbers of reforms which Lang brought about during his first term in office were suggested to be among the most progressive that New South Wales had ever seen. However, his second term came amidst very difficult circumstances and his response was considered radical and very controversial.

The predicament

In October 1930 when Lang was elected as Premier of New South Wales for the second time, Australia was in the middle of the Great Depression (1929- 1935). It was a time when unemployment was high, prices for exports were low and countries such as Britain and the United States were requiring the large sums of money which had been loaned, to be repaid to alleviate the Depression in their own nations.

All of the Australian State Governments borrowed heavily after the First World War, particularly for the development of public infrastructure. For the New South Wales Government, which had the highest level of public expenditure in Australia, the situation did not look promising. Lang, who had revolutionised welfare during his first term as Premier, now found that social services payments were accounting for a large proportion of the State's expenditure. It did not take long until the State government's budget fell short of its interest repayments by a bitter margin than those of all of the other States of Australia put together. In addition to this, 21.7 percent of adult males in New South Wales were unemployed. His second term in office was not going to be an easy reign for Premier Lang.

The plans

The Commonwealth and State governments were searching for a solution and turned to the 1930 Melbourne Agreement which involved decreasing welfare payments, cutting salaries and wages and abandoning public works projects, all in an attempt to slash government spending. They also agreed to increase taxation in order to balance the budget, all under the advice of Niemeyer, an expert from the Bank of England. At the same time, Lang was the Leader of the Opposition in New South Wales. He believed that the Depression was essentially caused by overseas bankers who were greedy for even more money and that this deflationary plan would only secure their wealth. Lang vigorously campaigned in the August State election against the Commonwealth's intentions of deflation. Some people thought that was the reason he was elected in 1930 as State Premier by a landslide Labor victory.

In early 1931 he developed his unorthodox 'Lang Plan' to ease the Depression. Rather than abandon public works programs, as was being done by governments in other States, Lang maintained the State's level of spending, with the belief that it would create employment. Despite welfare payments being a large cost to the State, he refused to cut pensions or wages, out of particular concern that the working-class would be most adversely affected if he did so. He also supported that interest rates on Australian Government borrowings be reduced to 3 percent and passed laws which limited the power of landlords to evict tenants who failed to meet their financial obligations.

Perhaps most controversially, Lang decided that if the State could not find the money to implement his plan then it would postpone or even repudiate interest payments to British bondholders. He believed that when it came down to letting the citizens of the State starve because their government could not afford to assist them, or being unable to repay the interest to overseas bondholders, his allegiance was to the people of New South Wales. So when Lang announced in March 1931 that in order to meet the State's commitments to the dole, he would not pay interest due the following month in London, the Commonwealth Labor Government found itself meeting the State's debt.

In May/June 1931, an emergency conference was held, during which the Commonwealth government and the State premiers rejected the 'Lang Plan' of inflation and came to an agreement on the Premiers' Plan. This was essentially another deflationary policy which involved cutting spending by 20 percent by lowering pensions, wages, and interest rates, as well as increasing taxes to return more money to the government. Lang begrudgingly accepted the conditions of the plan, however, he did not put it into practice when he returned home to his State.

Lang was not content with the decision made by Scullin's Federal Government to reject his policy of inflation. The political tension came to a head in October 1931, when Lang's supporters (known as Lang Labour) voted with the opposition, the United Australia Party, to overturn the Scullin government whose supporters were led by Ben Chifley and were known in New South Wales as Federal Labour.

When the federal elections were called for December 1931, the Labor Party was unable to unite to achieve victory against the successful Joseph Lyons, who was formerly Labor's Treasurer, and the United Australia Party. On 6 January 1932, Lyons became Prime Minister of Australia.

With Lyons as Prime Minister, Lang still refused to conform to the requirements of the Premiers' Plan. When the new Lyons government discovered that Lang had not curbed State government spending and had refused to repay loans to the British they went about passing the Financial Agreements Enforcement Act 1932 (Cth). Prime Minister Lyons declared that the Lang government would be forced to repay £958 763 towards Australia's overseas debt. However, Lang not only refused to repay the money, but to prevent the Commonwealth from seizing the funds, he withdrew more than £1 million of New South Wales Government money from the bank. In addition to this, Lang ordered State public servants to disregard their legal obligation to the Commonwealth by not paying money into the Federal Treasury.

After advising a stubborn Lang that his radical actions were illegal, the New South Wales Governor Sir Phillip Game dismissed him on 13 May 1932 and appointed the position of premier to the United Australia Party leader Bertram Stevens. A State election was held on 11 June, but Lang was defeated.

The public's response to Lang

As with most controversial yet powerful figures, who usually have a number of very strong supporters and a number of equally strong opponents, Lang was no exception. To particularly the poor and the working-class, Lang was a man who was willing to fight for them when no one else wanted to. He put their interests first, when the Commonwealth government preferred to heed advice from Niemeyer who was more concerned about investors from his own country, Britain. Having proved his allegiance to the working class of New South Wales in his first term as Premier, through the introduction of a number of social and welfare reforms, there were a number his supporters who promoted a 'Lang is Right' or 'Lang is better than Lenin' campaign. See image 2

However, there were a number of people who believed that Lang merely used concern for the working class as a ploy to maintain personal power. Others, particularly many members of the middle class felt that by refusing to make repayments, Lang was bringing shame to the State of New South Wales and in turn, to the reputation of Australia. Among them the patriots were particularly mortified by the fact that their nation was reneging on a contract with their motherland, Britain, whom they deeply respected and admired. See animation

With Lang's supporters even using his name in the same context as Lenin, a Communist Revolutionary of Russia, the New Guard and other extreme opponents of Lang concluded that it supported their belief that Lang was a communist himself. The New Guard feared that Lang was attempting to introduce communist policies into Australian government by targeting the support of unemployed workers, who would, in such severe times as the Depression, allow the idea to quickly gain widespread popularity in Australia. The anti-Labor political organisation made a symbolic and public statement against Lang during the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in March 1932, by slashing the ribbon before he had the chance to do so.

Whether communism was his true motive or whether he was indeed a politician for the people, we are not sure. Even after his death at the age of 98 in 1975, Lang still continues to create controversial discussion at the mere mention of his name.