Treasurer of South Australia for eight months until the 1927 election when the Richard Layton Butler led Liberal Federation returned to power and Hill became opposition leader. The onset of the Great Depression in Australia, in combination with a serious drought gripping the state, cast shadows over the 1930 election as the Liberal Federation struggled to combat the resulting severe economic downturn. During the election campaign Butler cautioned voters to expect hardships ahead, while Hill promised a golden future under the slogan "Work for the Workless; Land for the Landless and Equitable Taxation for All" and was elected in a landslide, winning 30 of the 46 seats in the House of Assembly, the largest percentage of seats won by South Australian Labor in any election. Hill returned as Premier and treasurer but faced problems like high unemployment, a formidable state debt, a shrinking economy and a strike prone workforce. His cabinet found themselves in the unenviable position of being quite incapable of finding a solution to these problems and led to Hill accepting the contentious Premiers' Plan of 1931 which advocated reductions in spending (including aid to the unemployed), public works and wages. Such was the public outcry against the Plan, particularly from traditional Labor supporters, that the executive of the South Australian ALP expelled all of the MPs who supported it from the party, including Hill and his entire cabinet. After an unsuccessful appeal to the federal ALP, Hill and his followers organised as the splinter Parliamentary Labor Party, with Hill as leader. He was only able to remain Premier with the support of the Liberal Federation. The Hill government continued to stagger from crisis to crisis as riots and protests rocked the state and unemployment reached 35%. In the lead up to the 1933 election Hill continued to quarrel with his cabinet colleagues, leading to his resignation from parliament and the Premiership on 13 February 1933 to controversially assume the position of South Australian Agent-General in London, leaving his successor Robert Richards with the unenviable task of leading the state until the election. At that election, the Liberal and Country League—formed a year earlier from the merger of the Liberal Federation and the Country Party—won a sweeping victory. The three competing Labor factions—the PLP, the official ALP and the Lang Labor Party—were reduced to only 13 seats between them. Controversy and Hill remained on close terms as complaints