1920 Kalgoorlie by-election

A by-election was held for the Australian House of Representatives seat of Kalgoorlie on 18 December 1920. It was triggered by the expulsion from the House of Labor Party MP Hugh Mahon.

The subsequent by-election was won by Nationalist Party candidate George Foley. It is the only federal by-election in Australian history at which the government has won a seat from the opposition. Voting was not compulsory in 1920.

Background

After the death of the Irish nationalist Terence McSwiney as the result of a hunger strike in October 1920, Mahon attacked British policy in Ireland and the British Empire as a whole, referring to it as "this bloody and accursed despotism", at an open-air meeting in Melbourne on 7 November. Subsequently, Prime Minister Billy Hughes moved to expel him from the House of Representatives[1] and on 12 November, the House passed a resolution stating that Mahon had made "seditious and disloyal utterances at a public meeting" and was "guilty of conduct unfitting him to remain a member of this House and inconsistent with the oath of allegiance which he has taken as a member of this House." Mahon therefore became the only MP to be expelled from the Federal Parliament.

Under Section 8 of the Parliamentary Privileges Act, 1987[2] neither house of the Australian Parliament now has the power to expel someone from membership of the Parliament.

Results
Kalgoorlie by-election, 1920[3]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Nationalist George Foley 8,382 51.4 +3.5
Labor Hugh Mahon 7,939 48.6 -3.5
Total formal votes 16,321 99.3 +0.6
Informal votes 113 0.7 -0.6
Turnout 16,434 79.1 -0.2
Nationalist gain from Labor Swing+3.5

See also

References
  1. Gibbney, H. J. "Mahon, Hugh (1857 - 1931)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Australian National University. Retrieved 2007-08-12.
  2. "Parliamentary Privileges Act 1987". Australian Government. Retrieved 2013-12-24.
  3. "By-Elections 1919-1922". Psephos.
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