The 1922 Australian federal election was held in Australia on 16 December 1922. All 75 seats in the House of Representatives, and 19 of the 36 seats in the Senate were up for election. The incumbent Nationalist Party, led by Prime Minister Billy Hughes lost its majority. However, the opposition Labor Party led by Matthew Charlton did not take office as the Nationalists sought a coalition with the fledgling Country Party led by Earle Page. The Country Party made Hughes's resignation the price for joining, and Hughes was replaced as Nationalist leader by Stanley Bruce.
Future Prime Minister Frank Forde and future opposition leader John Latham both entered parliament at this election.
At this election, Hughes as the sitting prime minister made his second seat transfer, in this case, from Bendigo to North Sydney. Hughes had held Bendigo since transferring there from West Sydney at the 1917 election also as the sitting prime minister.
Hughes remains the only sitting Prime Minister to transfer to another seat, not once but twice.
Aside from the 1917 and 1922 elections, all other elections have seen the sitting prime minister recontest the seat that they held prior to the election.
The 1919 federal election had resulted in a hung parliament, with the newly formed Country Party holding the balance of power. Prime Minister Billy Hughes' Nationalist Party government was reliant on the support of the Country Party to pass legislation. Country Party leader Earle Page used the situation to his advantage, bargaining for concessions and refusing to guarantee support for confidence motions. A vote of confidence held in October 1921 on the government's budget passed by only a single vote, when Country MP Alexander Hay abstained from voting.[1]
ALP leader Frank Tudor died in office in January 1922, after a long period of ill health.[2] He was replaced as party leader and opposition leader by New South Wales MP Matthew Charlton, who had been acting leader for some time, although he was not formally confirmed in the position until May 1922.[3][4]
Charlton and the ALP presented "policies of national development under a unified government with regional devolution of powers, tariff protection and limited immigration". He was briefly hospitalised during the campaign.[5]
Page presented the Country Party platform in October 1922, which included decentralisation, reduction in government expenditure and public debt, tariff and agricultural marketing reforms, and rural credits (a form of government subsidy for primary producers).[6] He also supported placing the Commonwealth Bank under an independent board, tasked with supporting national development projects.[7] His speech was critical of Hughes, alleging broken promises and describing the prime minister as having "total disregard of the financial position of the country".[8]
