1920 Kalgoorlie by-election

Australian federal by-election Australia parliamentary no 18 December 1920 Popular George Foley.jpg George Foley Nationalist Party (Australia) 8,382 51.4% 3.5pp Portrait of Hugh Mahon (cropped).jpg Hugh Mahon Australian Labor Party 7,939 48.6% 3.5pp MP Hugh Mahon Australian Labor Party George Foley Nationalist Party (Australia) 1920 Kalgoorlie by-election April 2024 April 2022 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 was the only federal by-election at which the government had won a seat from the opposition until the 2023 Aston by-election over 102 years later. Voting was not compulsory in 1920. Background thumb|upright|Campaign material used by the ALP 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, at an open-air meeting in Melbourne on 7 November, referring to it as "this bloody and accursed despotism". Subsequently, Prime Minister Billy Hughes moved to expel him from the House of Representatives.H. J. Gibbney Mahon, Hugh (1857 - 1931) A100372b 2007-08-12 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 thereby became the only MP to be expelled from the Federal Parliament. Under Section 8 of the Parliamentary Privileges Act 1987,Parliamentary Privileges Act 1987 http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/C2004C00584 Australian Government 2013-12-24 neither house of the Australian Parliament now has the power to expel someone from membership of the Parliament. Results Kalgoorlie by-election, 1920 By-Elections 1919-1922 Psephos http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/a/australia/1919/1919repsby.txt George Foley Nationalist 8,382 51.4 +3.5 Hugh Mahon Labor 7,939 48.6 -3.5 16,321 99.3 +0.6 113 0.7 -0.6 16,434 79.1 -0.2 Nationalist Labor +3.5 See also List of Australian federal by-elections References Category:1920 elections in Australia Category:Western Australian federal by-elections Category:1920s in Western Australia Category:December 1920 in Australia