Page easily won his seat of Cowper in the 1929 election and settled back into opposition life. The Nationalist Party and the Country Party did not enter into another formal coalition agreement, but the two parties often united to support a common position against the Scullin government’s proposals. Curiously, despite Page’s good work as treasurer in taking steps towards a functioning central bank, he vocally opposed new treasurer Ted Theodore’s logical steps towards a more independent and powerful central bank.
Page used his time in opposition to progress the cause of the New State movement, pressing for constitutional amendments to make it easier for regions to secede from states to form their own jurisdictions. In particular, Page saw an opening for his cause in the community concern resulting from the radical economic approach of the Jack Lang Labor government in NSW, and he came close to getting agreement from the relevant conservative leaders to support constitutional amendments to allow new states—not only in regards to his own northern NSW region but also other, predominantly rural regions.
The so-called Lang Plan for dealing with the impacts of the Depression entailed the NSW Government refusing to make its due payments to British bond holders. In this, Page saw a golden opportunity for the New England region to set up a provisional government and secede from NSW:
Three days after Lang announced his plan on 10th February 1931, I came post haste to Sydney and informed my closest colleagues of the plans maturing in mind. I expounded the argument that if New South Wales defaulted on its legal obligations that state would place itself outside the Constitution and become an outlaw.28
In the end, however, the state governor stepped in and dismissed the Lang government, and Page’s plan lost momentum.
The devastating effects of the Depression and the impotence of the Scullin government, due to a combination of a divided Caucus and an obstructionist Senate (together with an uncooperative central bank), led to the administration’s overwhelming defeat in 1931. Labor’s defeat was so crushing that Joseph Lyons, who had formed the UAP after his defection from Labor, did not need the support of Page’s Country Party to form a majority in the House of Representatives. Accordingly, Page and his party stayed on the crossbenches—but not for long. The Lyons government lost enough seats at the 1934 election that it again needed Country Party support to stay in office. The UAP had gone from thirty-four seats to twenty-eight, while Labor had gone from fourteen seats to eighteen; the Country Party had lost a single seat to hold fourteen. This time, the coalition arrangements were negotiated much less tortuously due to Page being entirely comfortable with Lyons continuing as prime minister, unlike his attitude towards Billy Hughes eleven years previously.
Page returned to the government as its second most senior minister, although it was agreed that the UAP would continue to hold the Treasury portfolio—Lyons continued as both prime minister and treasurer before handing the latter portfolio to Richard Casey a short time later; former prime minister Bruce, having been re-elected to the seat of Flinders, served as assistant treasurer. Page also insisted on a reference (the referral of an issue for consideration) to the Tariff Board in an effort to reduce protection as a condition of joining the government.
As well as effectively being the deputy prime minister, Page took for himself the commerce portfolio. The minister for commerce role was a forerunner of the modern-day agriculture portfolio, at least as far as Page constructed the job, and he devoted himself to the promotion of the central agricultural marketing schemes that he had enabled when he was treasurer.
The biggest crisis of the Lyons–Page government came with the resignation of Robert Menzies as attorney-general. Menzies resigned on a point of principle, protesting that the government was not progressing a national insurance scheme to care for those made unemployed. Page was perplexed that Menzies had resigned over an issue that he had not expressed a strong view about internally, and the enmity that was thus created would have serious implications for Menzies, Page and the conservative forces in parliament.
Just as the coalition government established in 1923 between Bruce and Page set an important precedent for all such governments to follow, Page’s role in filling the void left by Lyons’ death in April 1939 was also a precursor of Australian political and constitutional procedure. Page was commissioned as prime minister by governor-general Lord Gowrie, despite the fact that he was the leader of the minority party in the Coalition. Calling upon the second most senior minister to be caretaker prime minister while the major party in the Coalition chose a new leader was a precedent that governor-general Paul Hasluck would draw upon after the death of Harold Holt three decades later.
Just as Page had used his influence as leader of the Country Party to force the selection of Bruce as Nationalist Party leader in 1923, so he attempted to exploit his political position to block the election of Menzies. He told his party room that while he would stand aside as prime minister after the UAP had decided on a replacement, he would refuse to serve as a minister if Menzies were that leader. He then attempted to manipulate the situation to get his old friend Bruce elected to another term as prime minister. Page was undeterred by the fact that Bruce no longer had a seat in parliament and had been in London for several years, offering to resign his seat of Cowper and endorse Bruce as the UAP candidate in the resulting by-election. Bruce declined Page’s offer, and said that given the seriousness of the global security situation—the world was on the cusp of another terrible war—he would be prepared to return to the prime ministership only as the head of a national government of unity, with all major parties represented. This, however, was not going
