Kalgoorlie by-election, 1920

A by-election was held for the Australian House of Representatives seat of Kalgoorlie on 18 December 1920. It was triggered by the expulsion from the House of Labor Party MP Hugh Mahon.

The subsequent by-election was won by Nationalist Party candidate George Foley. It is the only federal by-election in Australian history at which the government has won a seat from the opposition. Voting was not compulsory in 1920.

Background

After the death of the Irish nationalist Terence McSwiney as the result of a hunger strike in October 1920, Mahon attacked British policy in Ireland and the British Empire as a whole, referring to it as "this bloody and accursed despotism", at an open-air meeting in Melbourne on 7 November. Subsequently, Prime Minister Billy Hughes moved to expel him from the House of Representatives^[1] and on 12 November, the House passed a resolution stating that Mahon had made "seditious and disloyal utterances at a public meeting" and was "guilty of conduct unfitting him to remain a member of this House and inconsistent with the oath of allegiance which he has taken as a member of this House." Mahon therefore became the only MP to be expelled from the Federal Parliament.

Under Section 8 of the Parliamentary Privileges Act, 1987^[2] neither house of the Australian Parliament now has the power to expel someone from membership of the Parliament.

Results

Kalgoorlie by-election, 1920[3]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Nationalist	George Foley	8,382	51.4	+3.5
	Labor	Hugh Mahon	7,939	48.6	-3.5
Total formal votes			16,321	99.3	+0.6
Informal votes			113	0.7	-0.6
Turnout			16,434	79.1	-0.2
	Nationalist gain from Labor		Swing	+3.5

See also

• List of Australian federal by-elections

References

1. Gibbney, H. J. "Mahon, Hugh (1857 - 1931)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Australian National University. Retrieved 2007-08-12.
2. "Parliamentary Privileges Act 1987". Australian Government. Retrieved 2013-12-24.
3. "By-Elections 1919-1922". Psephos.