The electoral poetics of james scullin’s campaign against alfred deakin, 1906: Anticipating “fusion”

Abstract

In the 1906 federal election James Scullin, then an unknown grocer, challenged the sitting Prime Minister, Alfred Deakin, for his seat of Ballaarat. This article examines this important event in Scullin’s under-researched life story to consider the “electoral poetics” of electioneering in the early federation. Scullin’s challenge to Deakin prefigured the defining realignment of Australian politics to come, the “Fusion” of 1909, and is indicative of Labor’s new self-conceptualisation as a potential government with a mission to fundamentally restructure Australian democracy. This article explores Scullin’s work as an expositor of this mission, and its significance for his political life.