A by-election was held for the Australian House of Representatives seat of Kalgoorlie on 18 December 1920. This was triggered by the expulsion of Labor Party MP Hugh Mahon.
The by-election was won by Nationalist Party candidate George Foley. It is the only federal by-election in Australian history where the government has won a seat from the opposition. Voting was not compulsory in 1920.
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After the death of the Irish nationalist Terence McSwiney in a hunger strike in October 1920, Mahon attacked British policy in Ireland and the British Empire, referring to it as "this bloody and accursed despotism", at an open-air meeting in Melbourne on 7 November. Prime Minister Billy Hughes moved to expel him[1] and on 12 November, the House of Representatives passed a resolution that he had made "seditious and disloyal utterances at a public meeting" and was "guilty of conduct unfitting him to remain a member of this House and inconsistent with the oath of allegiance which he has taken as a member of this House." As such, Mahon became the only MP to be expelled from the Federal Parliament. (Under Section 8 of the Parliamentary Privileges Act, 1987[2] neither house any longer has the power to expel a member from membership of the house.)
| Kalgoorlie by-election, 1920[3] | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
| Nationalist | George Foley | 8,382 | 51.4 | +3.5 | |
| Labor | Hugh Mahon | 7,939 | 48.6 | -3.5 | |
| Total formal votes | 16,321 | 99.3 | +0.6 | ||
| Informal votes | 113 | 0.7 | -0.6 | ||
| Turnout | 16,434 | 79.1 | -0.2 | ||
| Nationalist gain from Labor | Swing | +3.5 | |||