Page took the first steps towards single-desk marketing mechanisms in 1925 when he established the innocuous-sounding Rural Credits Department in the Commonwealth Bank. He had travelled to the United States and Canada and had been impressed by the government-run marketing mechanisms set up to deal with gluts in the market and ensure a steady stream of income for farmers. Page’s department was designed to assist farmers in managing very lumpy cash flow, but the more formal and stifling single-desk arrangements that were the logical extension of the establishment of the department, and which Page would champion when he returned to Cabinet years later as the minister for commerce, damaged the economic performance of the agricultural sector and were an unfortunate brake on the sensible operation of the free market.
Industrial-strength Trouble
Page made some moderate but notable reforms to budgetary practice during his time as treasurer. He rearranged the budgetary accounting method, sensibly separating government business enterprises from departmental expenses.20 He also brought forward Budget day to July or August, on the basis that it made more sense to bring down the Budget earlier in the fiscal year than had traditionally been the case. Treasurers followed Page’s precedent until Paul Keating made the even more sensible change to May, so that the Budget preceded the beginning of the fiscal year.
Page’s first Budget in 1923 saw him attempt to rein in expenditure, with the treasurer telling the House, ‘An effort has … been made to cut out all proposals which are not considered essential.’21 The Budget entailed a significant—though not extraordinary—reduction in spending of around £1.8 million, down from £63.7 million to about £61.9 million.
The 1925 federal election saw the Bruce–Page government comfortably re-elected, with an increased majority. The Nationalist Party won an additional eleven seats to give it thirty-seven, while the Country Party lost a seat and retained thirteen, and the Labor opposition lost six seats. This meant that if he had chosen to, Bruce could have governed alone, no longer needing the support of Page’s Country Party. Indeed, there was pressure from his own party to do this. But it is significant that at the end of this first term of a conservative coalition government, Bruce decided to keep the Coalition going. There is no doubt that his decision was due in no small measure to the warm working relationship he had built up with Page. Bruce explained it to Page this way: ‘We are working successfully together. We can carry on or we can fight one another. We have complementary personal qualifications and we have gained our achievements as a harmonious government. If we divide and fight, we will have no time for constructive work.’22
The Bruce–Page government’s second term was dominated by the issue that would eventually bring it down: industrial relations. In 1926 the government put a referendum to the people seeking approval for Commonwealth control over industrial relations, in place of the shared federal–state control stipulated in the Constitution. Industrial disputation had been on the rise, and the referendum was the government’s attempt to take control of the situation. This was the fifth referendum since Federation seeking to bring more clarity to the industrial relations sphere. And like the previous four, despite the support of at least some parts of the Labor Party, it was defeated. Having failed at the referendum, the government struggled to assert its will in industrial relations, and as Page said, ‘the next four years suffered from great industrial disruption’.23
In March 1927, the government tried again, introducing the Conciliation and Arbitration Bill. It did this after considering, and rejecting, the idea of ceding all power over industrial relations to the states. The Bill was passed, but industrial harmony did not ensue. In fact, that same year, the Waterside Workers Federation embarked on a major strike in protest at an Arbitration Court determination on wages. The extended dispute caused considerable disruption to Australia’s export industries and would be a major issue in the federal election the following year.
Also in 1927, for the first time on Page’s watch, the Budget went into deficit. This was also the first ever federal Budget delivered in Canberra, as the provisional Parliament House had opened earlier that year. Unlike his earlier budget speeches, Page did not highlight the deteriorating bottom line in his presentation to parliament. However, the deficit did not escape the notice of the House, with one Nationalist backbencher, Henry Gullett, calling the Budget ‘spendthrift’ and describing Page as ‘the most tragic treasurer Australia has ever known’.24
The Bruce–Page government was returned in the 1928 election, but with a considerably reduced majority, having lost nine seats. The rejuvenated Labor opposition, under the new leadership of James Scullin, picked up eight extra seats, including the addition of two future Labor prime ministers: John Curtin and Ben Chifley. The government still held forty-two out of seventy-five seats, and it should have been secure on those numbers. However, it was vulnerable if enough government members crossed the floor to support the opposition, which was more vulnerable than it needed to be.
The Country Party member for the Victorian seat of Indi, Robert Cook, decided not to nominate for the 1928 election until the last minute, in order to save money in interest payments on the overdraft he had taken to cover his nomination fee. Unfortunately for him, he was under the misapprehension that the nominations closed at 8 p.m. on the final day, whereas in fact they closed at noon. Cook’s failure to lodge a valid nomination meant that the Labor candidate Paul Jones was elected unopposed, the first (and so far only) Labor member for Indi. Later, as we will see, the Bruce–Page government was defeated by one vote on the floor of the House in a crucial ballot. Page would have cause to be angry with the Country Party candidate who
