Content deleted Content added
m →Honours: Australian spelling |
No edit summary |
||
Line 73:
After his electoral defeat, Chifley remained involved in politics as a party official, siding with the federal Labor leadership against the [[Lang Labor]] faction. He served on a [[royal commission]] into the banking system in 1935, and in 1940 became a senior public servant in the [[Department of Munitions]]. Chifley was re-elected to parliament later that year, on his third attempt since 1931. He was appointed [[Treasurer of Australia|Treasurer]] in the new [[Curtin government]] in 1941, as one of the few Labor MPs with previous ministerial experience. The following year Chifley was additionally made [[Minister for Postwar Reconstruction]], making him one of the most powerful members of the government. He became prime minister following Curtin's death in office in 1945, defeating caretaker prime minister [[Frank Forde]] in [[1945 Australian Labor Party leadership election|a leadership ballot]].
At the [[1946 Australian federal election]], Chifley was re-elected with a slightly reduced majority – the first time that an incumbent Labor government had won re-election. The war [[Victory over Japan Day|had ended]] a month after he took office, and over the following three years his government embarked on an ambitious program of social reforms and nation-building schemes. These included the expansion of the [[welfare state]], increased the [[
Some of Chifley's more interventionist economic policies were poorly received by Australian business, particularly an attempt to nationalise banks. His government was defeated at the [[1949 Australian federal election]], which brought [[Robert Menzies]]' [[Liberal Party of Australia|Liberal Party]] to power for the first time. He stayed on as [[Leader of the Opposition (Australia)|Leader of the Opposition]] until his death, which came a few months after the [[1951 Australian federal election]]; Labor did not return to government until 1972. For his contributions to post-war prosperity, Chifley is often regarded as one of Australia's greatest prime ministers. He is held in particularly high regard by the Labor Party, with his "[[light on the hill]]" speech seen as seminal in both the history of the party and the broader [[Australian labour movement]].
| |||