New Guard - Attempted Kidnapping and Civil Unrest

Attempted Kidnapping and Civil Unrest

Less well known than de Groot's exploits on the Harbour Bridge are the attempts to kidnap Jack Lang while he was being chauffeured home along the Parramatta Road from his Parliament House office at night. This attempt was foiled because Lang had switched to a cheaper, older car and driven himself home. The plan had been to detain Lang in an unused gaol at Berrima, a village approximately 100km south-west of Sydney, stage a coup d'état and place NSW under martial law.

On the evening of the dismissal of Jack Lang by Governor Sir Philip Game on 13 May 1932, a brigade of several hundred men of the New Guard were stationed in the basement of a department store building several hundred metres from Parliament House. They had threatened to march upon Parliament House and stage another coup attempt if he did not resign before seven o'clock. Lang was sacked at six o'clock. A civil war might well have ensued had they attempted the coup, as important government buildings throughout the city of Sydney were being guarded by members of the Australian Labor Army and the New South Wales Police (legally responsible to the Crown through Governor Game but allegedly loyal to Lang's ministers). Certain Army officers, loyal to the Federal Government, were also members of the New Guard and might have been expected to bring out their troops in support of a coup.