The Great Depression.

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The Great Depression

The Depression, set off by the October 1929 Wall Street stock market crash, hit the New South Wales economy with great severity. Unemployment, already high at 10% in mid 1929, was 21% by mid 1930 and rising, hitting almost 32% in mid-1932. Factory output fell almost 10% in 1929-30 and another 30% in 1930-31. The Government, which had borrowed heavily for public works, also had the highest level of public expenditure in Australia, especially because of social services payments. In 1930 the budget rapidly went from a surplus to a deficit greater than all the other Australian states put together.

Accompanying this economic collapse, of course, was great social disruption and distress. Many struggled on part-time work, or depended on charity or the dole. For thousands, unemployment also meant eviction, with shanty towns of homeless people springing up in many areas. It was a crisis that governments throughout the world did not seem to how to deal with. One result of disillusionment was the rapid growth of radical or extremist political organisations claiming to defend the interests that more and more people believed democratic institutions could not provide. In NSW, some Communist, socialist, workers' and unemployed