known as the Labor Solidarity Committee based out of Trades Hall in Perth, and the other known as National Labor and based on the goldfields. The two merged in April–May 1917, with former Premier John Scaddan as their leader. However, by July he was without a seat in Parliament, and the party turned to Federal Senators Patrick Lynch, Hugh de Largie and George Pearce for leadership and guidance. Unlike its federal counterpart, it maintained its own distinct identity and structure and worked with the Nationalists as coalition partners. A number of Western Australian unions disaffiliated from the Australian Labor Federation to support the National Labor movement—most notably those representing the engine-drivers, railway employees, boilermakers and carpenters which were powerful in the goldfields. Organisationally, however, the party was believed to be over-dependent on its Senate patrons and struggled to build a genuine extraparliamentary organisation. The party scored six of 50 Assembly seats in each of the 1917 and 1921 elections, and held three of 30 Council seats during this period. However, in the 1924 elections, their representation was reduced to one in the Assembly and two in the Council—many through the defeat of sitting NLP members by Labor candidates—and later that year, what remained of the Party was subsumed by the Nationalists. See also Politics of Australia Political parties in Australia References Bibliography Australian Dictionary of Biography - Billy Hughes Robertson, John R. (1958). The Scaddan government and the conscription crisis, 1911-17 : aspects of Western Australia's political history (thesis). University of Western Australia. Accessed in Special Collections, Reid Library, UWA. Cusack, Danny. (2002). With an olive branch and a shillelagh: The political career of Senator Paddy Lynch (1867-1944) (thesis). Murdoch University. Accessed via Murdoch Digital Theses. Labour parties Defunct political parties in Australia Political parties established in 1916 Political parties disestablished in 1917 Australian Labor Party breakaway groups 1916 establishments in Australia