Jack Lang (Australian politician)

Lang giving a speech

During his first term as Premier, Lang carried out many social programmes, including state pensions for widowed mothers with dependent children under fourteen, a universal and mandatory system of workers' compensation for death, illness and injury incurred on the job, funded by premiums levied on employers, the abolition of student fees in state-run high schools and improvements to various welfare schemes such as child endowment (which Lang's government had introduced). Various laws were introduced providing for improvements in the accommodation of rural workers, changes in the industrial arbitration system, and a 44-hour workweek. Extensions were made to the applicability of the Fair Rents Act while compulsory marketing along the lines of what existed in Queensland was introduced. Adult franchise for local government elections was also introduced, together with Legislation to safeguard native flora and to penalize ships for discharging oil. His government also carried out road improvements, including paving much of the Hume Highway and the Great Western Highway.

Lang also restored the seniority and conditions to New South Wales Government Railways and New South Wales Government Tramways workers who had been sacked or demoted after the General Strike of 1917, including Ben Chifley, a future Prime Minister of Australia.

Lang established universal suffrage in local government elections – previously only those who owned real estate in a city, municipality or shire could vote in that area's local council elections. His government also passed legislation to allow women to sit in the upper house of the New South Wales Parliament in 1926. This was the first government to do so in the British Empire and three years before the 'Persons Case' decision of the Privy Council in London would grant the same privilege to women throughout the Empire.

By contrast, his attempts to abolish the life-appointed upper house of the NSW Parliament, the Legislative Council, were unsuccessful. His attempts, based around requesting from the governor, Sir Dudley de Chair, enough appointees to swamp the council that would then vote for its abolition (the same approach his Queensland Labor colleagues had taken to their upper house in 1922), brought him into significant conflict with the governor. However, his government's agenda required more political support to pass than the upper house was able to give, and Lang and the Labor party sought to eliminate what they saw as an outdated bastion of conservative privilege through this approach. At the occasion of the laying of the foundation stone for the new Auburn Town Hall in November 1926, he declared: "If I have my way, the Upper House will not be there much longer. Such a condition cannot continue, and, in fact, will not prevail much longer; but, for the time being, it is there, and our laws must continue to suffer while it exists."[16]

After Labor's defeat at the 1927 election, Lang was Opposition Leader again from 1927 to October 1930. After New South Wales returned to single-member electorates, Lang was elected as the member for Auburn, a seat he held until he left state politics in 1946. In this period the Great Depression in Australia had begun in earnest with devastating effects on the nation's welfare and security.

Study of NSW Premier, Jack Lang, in his office

In 1930, more than one in five adult males in New South Wales were without a job. Australian governments responded to the Depression with measures that, Lang claimed, made circumstances even worse - cuts to government spending, civil service salaries and public works cancellations. Lang vigorously opposed these measures and was elected in a landslide in October 1930.

As Premier, Lang refused to cut government salaries and spending, a stand which was popular with his constituents, but which made the state's fiscal position more parlous, though the economic state of the six other various Australian governments fared little better during this same period. In the wake of the Great Depression, measures were taken to ease the hardships of evicted tenants together with the hardships facing householders and other debtors battling to meet repayments. He passed laws restricting the rights of landlords to evict defaulting tenants, and insisted on paying the legal minimum wage to all workers on relief projects.

At an economic crisis conference in Canberra in 1931, Jack Lang announced his own programme for economic recovery. The "Lang Plan" advocated the temporary cessation of interest repayments on debts to Britain and that interest on all government borrowings be reduced to 3% to free up money for injection into the economy, the abolition of the Gold standard to be replaced by a "Goods Standard" where the amount of money in circulation was linked to the number of goods produced, and the immediate injection of £18 million of new money into the economy in the form of Commonwealth Bank of Australia credit. The Prime Minister and all other state Premiers rejected the plan.

Lang was a powerful orator, and during the crisis of the Depression, he addressed huge crowds in Sydney and other centres, promoting his populist program and denouncing his opponents and the wealthy in extravagant terms. His followers promoted the slogans "Lang is Right" and "Lang is Greater than Lenin." Lang was not a revolutionary or even a socialist, and he loathed the Communist Party, which in turn denounced him as a social fascist.

On 19 March 1932, Lang opened the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Lang caused some controversy when he insisted on officially opening the bridge himself, rather than allowing the Governor, the King's representative in NSW, to do so. He delivered what has come to be regarded as a landmark speech in Australian political history during the Opening, citing the theme that the completion of the Sydney Harbour Bridge was analogous to the history, development and dreams of the Australian nation and its people. It may be inferred that this speech depicted Lang's personal vision of the past, present and future of New South Wales and Australia's place in the British Empire and world, (to read this speech, refer to 'Stirring Australian Speeches', edited by Michael Cathcart and Kate Darian-Smith). Just as Lang was about to cut the ribbon to open the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Captain Francis de Groot, a member of the paramilitary New Guard movement, rode up and broke the ribbon. The New Guard also planned to kidnap Lang, and plotted a coup against him during the crisis that brought Lang's premiership to an end.

Lang smoking his trademark pipe

Early in 1931, Jack Lang released his own plan to combat the Depression; this became known as "the Lang Plan". This was in contrast to the "Melbourne Agreement", later known as the Premiers' Plan, which all other State Governments and the Federal Government had agreed to in 1930. Key points of the Lang Plan included the temporary cessation of interest repayments on debts to Britain and that interest on all government borrowings be reduced to 3% to free up money for injection into the economy, the cancellation of interest payments to overseas bondholders and financiers on government borrowings, the injection of more funds into the nation's money supply as central bank credit for the revitalisation of industry and commerce, and the abolition of the gold standard, to be replaced by a "Goods Standard," whereby the amount of currency in circulation would be fixed to the number of goods produced within the Australian economy. The banks had indicated that if he paid the interest they would advance him an additional amount which was greater than the interest, thus giving him a positive cash flow.

Lang opposed the Premiers' Plan 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 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 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.

Since the Commonwealth Government had become responsible for state debts in 1928 under an amendment to the Constitution, the new UAP government of Joseph Lyons paid the interest to the overseas bondholders and then set about extracting the money from NSW by passing the Financial Agreement Enforcement Act 1932, which the High Court held to be valid. Lang then contended that the Act was rendered null and void by contravening the 1833 prohibition of slavery throughout the British Empire; the Premier held that the actions of the Lyons government deprived the State of New South Wales means of paying the wages of State employees and that this necessarily constituted an (illegal) state of slavery.

In response, Lang withdrew all the state's funds from government bank accounts and held them at Trades Hall in cash, so the federal government could not gain access to the money. The Governor, Sir Philip Game, a retired Royal Air Force officer, advised Lang that in his view this action was illegal and that if Lang did not reverse it he would dismiss the government. Lang stood firm, and on 13 May 1932, the Governor withdrew Lang's commission and appointed the UAP leader, Bertram Stevens, as premier. Stevens immediately called an election, at which Labor was heavily defeated.

Gerald Stone, in his book 1932, states that there is evidence that Lang considered arresting the Governor to prevent the Governor from dismissing him, (which Lang admitted in his own book, The Turbulent Years). The possibility was sufficiently high that the armed forces of the Commonwealth were put on alert. Andrew Moore and Michael Cathcart, among others, have put forward the possibility that such a clash would have seen the Commonwealth Armed Forces fighting the New South Wales Police.

This was the first case of an Australian government with the confidence of the lower house of Parliament being dismissed by a Vice-Regal representative, the second case being when Governor-General Sir John Kerr dismissed Gough Whitlam's government on 11 November 1975 (which Lang would not live to see by just 45 days). Game himself felt his decision was the right one, despite the fact that he had no personal animosity towards Lang. On 2 July 1932 Game wrote to his mother-in-law: "Still with all his faults of omission and commission I had and still have a personal liking for Lang and a great deal of sympathy for his ideals and I did not at all relish being forced to dismiss him. But I felt faced with the alternative of doing so or reducing the job of Governor all over the Empire to a farce."[17] Lang himself, despite objecting to his dismissal conceded afterwards that he too liked Game, regarding him as fair and polite, and having had good relations with him.[18]

• Lang, John Thomas (1944). Communism in Australia.
• Lang, John Thomas (1946). For Australia: Stirring Speech. New Zealand Worker Print.
• Lang, John Thomas (1956). I Remember. Invincible Press.
• Lang, John Thomas (1962). The Great Bust: The Depression of the Thirties. Angus & Robertson.
• Lang, John Thomas (1970). The Turbulent Years. Alpha Books.