NSW Premier Bavin at Bay
Cartoon by John Frith
The Bulletin, December 1929
Reproduced courtesy of the National Library of Australia
The period from 1925 to 1934 in New South Wales was one of tumultuous economic and constitutional conflict. The Labor Government of Jack Lang came to office in 1925 with a program of radical social and economic reform, which included the proposed abolition of the the upper house in the New South Wales Parliament (the Legislative Council), whose members were appointed by the Governor. Unable to achieve this aim, Lang resigned as Premier in 1927.
The Nationalist Party Government of Premier Thomas Bavin took over from Lang and moved to safeguard the existence of the Legislative Council. A law was passed which provided that the Legislative Council could not be abolished unless it had been approved in a referendum and by Parliament. This cartoon shows Premier Thomas Bavin, in Frith’s earliest known published cartoon.
