Victorian state election, 1955

Victorian state election, 1955

← 1952 28 May 1955 (1955-05-28) 1958 →
65 (of the 66) seats in the Victorian Legislative Assembly
First party Second party Third party   Leader Henry Bolte John Cain Herbert Hyland Party Liberal and Country Labor Country Leader since 3 June 1953 18 October 1937 1955 Leader's seat Hampden Northcote Gippsland South Last election 11 seats 37 seats 12 seats Seats won 33 seats 20 seats 11 seats Seat change 22 17 1 Percentage 37.78% 37.57% 9.53% Swing 12.93 16.50 1.19
Premier before election John Cain Labor Elected Premier Henry Bolte Liberal and Country

John Cain
Labor

Henry Bolte
Liberal and Country

The 1955 Victorian state election was held in the Australian state of Victoria on Saturday 28 May 1955 to elect 65 (of the 66) members of the state's Legislative Assembly.

John Cain had led the Labor Party in Victoria since 1937, and had been Premier since defeating John McDonald's Country Party government at the 1952 election, forming the first majority Labor government in Victoria's history. Leader of the Liberal and Country Party, Trevor Oldham, had died on 2 May 1952 in a plane crash on his way to attend the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Henry Bolte was elected leader of the party a month later.

The election was triggered by events related to the Australian Labor Party split of 1955, in which followers of B. A. Santamaria's "Movement"—Catholic, anti-Communist, right-aligned members of the Australian Labor Party—were accused by federal leader H. V. Evatt of contributing to his loss of the 1954 federal election to Robert Menzies. The federal executive set about expelling "disloyal" members who supported the Movement.

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