Editing Joseph Lyons (section)

===Elections and government formation===
At the [[1931 Australian federal election|1931 election]] Lyons and the UAP offered stable, orthodox financial policies in response to what they branded as Scullin's poor stewardship of the economy. While Labor remained split between the official party and the Langites, the UAP projected an image of putting national unity above class conflict.  The result was a huge victory for the UAP, which took 34 seats against 18 seats for the two wings of the Labor Party combined.<ref name=elections>{{cite news|url=http://primeministers.naa.gov.au/primeministers/lyons/elections.aspx|title=Australia's PMs > Joseph Lyons > Elections|publisher=National Archives of Australia|access-date=29 March 2019|archive-date=11 March 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190311155238/http://primeministers.naa.gov.au/primeministers/lyons/elections.aspx|url-status=dead}}</ref>

At the outset, the UAP did not renew the traditional [[Coalition (Australia)|non-Labor Coalition]] with the [[National Party of Australia|Country Party]], then led by Sir [[Earle Page]]. While the two parties ran separate House campaigns, they presented a joint ticket for the Senate. The massive swing to the UAP left it only four seats short of a majority in its own right. The five MPs elected for the [[Emergency Committee of South Australia]], which stood for the UAP and Country Party in South Australia, joined the UAP party room, giving the UAP a bare majority of two seats. While Lyons was still willing to take the Country Party into his government (which would have commanded over 70 percent of the seats), negotiations stalled, and Lyons decided to govern alone.<ref>[http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/page-sir-earle-christmas-7941 Page, Sir Earle Christmas (1880–1961)], ''[[Australian Dictionary of Biography]]''</ref> The new government was sworn in January 1932. Lyons became the third former federal or state Labor leader (after Hughes and [[Joseph Cook]]) to become a non-Labor Prime Minister.

After the UAP suffered an eight-seat swing in the [[1934 Australian federal election|1934 election]], Lyons was forced to invite the Country Party into his government in a full coalition, with Earle Page as Deputy Prime Minister. The government won a third term at the [[1937 Australian federal election|1937 election]], with 44 of 74 seats and 50.6 percent of the [[two-party-preferred vote]] against a reunited Labor Party led by [[John Curtin]].<ref name=elections/>

While campaigning, Lyons made extensive use of the new technologies of radio, film, and air travel.{{sfn|Hawkins|2010|p=91}} He held frequent press conferences and personally briefed journalists, editors, and newspaper proprietors to gain favourable publicity.<ref name=adb/>