Lang, J. T. 1876-1975

John Thomas Lang (21 December 1876 – 27 September 1975), nicknamed "The Big Fella", was an Australian politician. He served two terms as premier of New South Wales, in office from 1925 to 1927 and from 1930 to 1932. He was the state leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) from 1923 to 1939 and his Lang Labor faction was an influential force in both state and federal politics, breaking away from the official ALP on several occasions. Lang was born to a working-class family in Sydney and grew up in the city's inner suburbs. He left school at the age of 14 and worked a variety of jobs, eventually establishing a real estate agency in the Sydney suburb of Auburn. Lang was first elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly at the 1913 state election and would hold several seats over the following 30 years. He remained loyal to the ALP following the 1916 party split over conscription and served as state treasurer from 1920 to 1922 in the governments of John Storey and James Dooley. In 1923, Lang replaced Dooley as state leader of the ALP, a position he would maintain for 15 years despite a confrontational and pugnacious leadership style and competing factional demands. He led the party to a narrow victory at the 1925 state election. His first term as premier saw the passage of social and industrial reforms, but was also marked by conflict with the conservative Legislative Council and by internal party conflict. He was forced to an early election in 1927, which saw the ALP defeated. However, Lang and the ALP were returned to office in a landslide victory at the 1930 election. During the Great Depression, Lang was a key figure in the ALP split of 1931, which saw the defeat of the federal Labor government led by James Scullin. He advocated economic populism and produced the "Lang Plan", which called for the repudiation or deferral of overseas debts to avoid the austerity measures in the Premiers' Plan. Lang's supporters in federal parliament supported a no-confidence motion in Scullin's government, with the ALP suffering a landslide defeat at the 1931 federal election. Lang's continued conflict with the new federal government led by Joseph Lyons, including defiance of federal laws, precipitated the 1932 New South Wales constitutional crisis. The crisis culminated with the dismissal of Lang by the governor Philip Game using his reserve powers, the only such dismissal of an Australian state premier. After his dismissal, Lang suffered a landslide defeat at the 1932 state election and led the ALP to further defeats at the 1935 and 1938 state elections. His faction rejoined the official ALP in 1936, but factional conflict continued and he was finally ousted as leader in 1939. Attributing his defeat to communists, in 1940 he formed the Australian Labor Party (Non-Communist), which achieved some electoral success but soon rejoined the official ALP in the interests of wartime unity. Lang was expelled from the ALP in 1943 and later served a single term in the House of Representatives from 1946 to 1949, representing the seat of Reid. He assumed the role of elder statesman in retirement and was re-admitted to the ALP in 1971 a few years before his death at the age of 99.