The National Labor Party was formed by Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes in 1916. Hughes had taken over as leader of the Australian Labor Party and Prime Minister of Australia when anti-conscriptionist Andrew Fisher resigned in 1915. He formed the new party for himself and his followers after he was expelled from the ALP a month after the 1916 plebiscite on Conscription in Australia. Hughes held a pro-conscription stance in relation to World War I.
On 15 September 1916 the executive of the Political Labour League (the Labor Party organisation in New South Wales at the time) expelled Hughes from the Labor Party. When the Federal Parliamentary Labor caucus met on 14 November 1916, lengthy discussions ensued until Hughes walked out with 24 other Labor members and the remaining (43) members of Caucus then passed their motion of no confidence in the leadership, effectively expelling Hughes and the other members. Hughes and his followers formed a minority Government. Believing the Labor Party was no longer sufficiently nationalist, they began laying the groundwork for a new party that would be both socially radical and nationalist.
The National Labor Party had to depend on support from the Commonwealth Liberal Party, led by another Labor dissident, Joseph Cook. In 1917, Hughes and Cook turned their confidence-and-supply agreement into a formal party, the Nationalist Party of Australia, with Hughes as leader.
The National Labor Party was never formally constituted a party and had no organisational structure, although some trade union officials and Labor Party branches, particularly in Western Australia and Tasmania, supported it.
Read more about National Labor Party: Western Australia
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