United Australia Party

▪ political party, Australia

      (UAP; 1931–44), political party formed by a fusion of Nationalist Party and conservative erstwhile Australian Labor Party members, which alone or in coalition with the Country Party controlled the Australian commonwealth government for 10 years. Brought to power in the general election of 1931, the UAP sought to meet the Great Depression with deflationary policies. The UAP's conservative economic program gave Australians a sense of security and, along with factional strife within the opposition Australian Labor Party, allowed the UAP to stay in power despite the fact that no dramatic economic upsurge resulted from the UAP's governmental measures. With the death in 1939 of the UAP prime minister Joseph A. Lyons (Lyons, Joseph Aloysius), a power struggle within the UAP-Country coalition prepared the way for the Labor Party to take the reins of government in 1941. The UAP was dissolved in 1944 and was succeeded by the Liberal Party.

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