defeated for re-election in Encounter Bay at the April 1899 general election, with William Carpenter outpolling him by 14 votes and Charles Tucker outpolling both. The election was fought largely on the temperance issue, with Tucker enjoying the support of the Licensed Victuallers' Association. Their supporters clashed on a number of occasions, culminating in a "near riot" at Goolwa the day after the election. A petition was subsequently lodged against Tucker's return, on the grounds that he had attempted to bribe electors. The result was declared void in July 1899 and another election ordered, which was equally acrimonious but resulted in a clear victory for Tucker against O'Malley. Federal politics Beginnings O'Malley was defeated at the 1899 election, and the following year he moved to Tasmania, the smallest of the Australian colonies. There, a tall, fashionably-dressed American preaching the Gospel and radical democracy drew immediate attention, and he was elected at the 1901 federal election as a member for Tasmania, along with four others. In 1903 he was elected as the member for Darwin. Although there was no Labour Party in Tasmania at this time, he joined the Labour Party Caucus when the Parliament assembled in Melbourne. Historian Gavin Souter describes O'Malley at this time: O'Malley's monstrously overgrown persona seemed to be inhabited simultaneously by a spruiker from Barnum's three-ring circus, a hell-and-tarnation revivalist, and a four-flushing Yankee Congressman. He was a moderately big man, auburn-haired with watchful grey eyes and a red-brown beard, wearing a wide-brimmed felt hat, blue-grey suit with huge lapels and a low-cut vest, loose cravat with a diamond collar stud, and in the centre of his cream silk shirt-front a fiery opal. Reputation O'Malley was clearly one of the more prominent and colourful members of the Parliament, but his radical ideas were not widely accepted, and many regarded him as a charlatan. He became a prominent advocate of a national bank as a means of providing cheap credit for farmers and small businessmen. He was not a member of Chris Watson's first Labour ministry in 1904, or of Andrew Fisher's first ministry in 1908. But in April 1910, the Caucus elected him to the ministry of Fisher's second government. Ross McMullin, who wrote an official history of the ALP, suggested "his election as minister was probably attributable in part to the fact that several caucus colleagues owed him money". Canberra O'Malley is well known for