Editing Ben Chifley (section)

=== Wilderness years ===
During the Great Depression, with no parliamentary salary and no chance of returning to the railway, Chifley survived on his wife's family's money and his part-ownership of the Bathurst newspaper ''[[The National Advocate]]''.<ref name="adb"/><ref name=before>{{Cite web |url=http://primeministers.naa.gov.au/primeministers/chifley/before-office.aspx |title=Before office - Ben Chifley - Australia's Prime Ministers: National Archives of Australia |access-date=21 August 2017 |archive-date=13 August 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120813045429/http://primeministers.naa.gov.au/primeministers/chifley/before-office.aspx |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In 1938, Chifley and most other Labor supporters in Bathurst joined the [[Industrial Labor Party]] (ILP), a breakaway organisation formed by [[Bob Heffron]] and dedicated to thwarting the [[Lang Labor]] faction that controlled the ALP in New South Wales.{{sfnp|Day|2001|p=337–338}} He was a delegate to the party's annual conference in Sydney in April 1939. After a unity conference in August 1939, the ILP members rejoined the ALP and ended Jack Lang's dominance. Chifley was subsequently elected to the ALP state executive.{{sfnp|Day|2001|p=339}}

In 1935 the [[Lyons government]] appointed Chifley as a member of the Royal Commission on Banking, a subject on which he had become an expert. He submitted a minority report advocating that the private banks be nationalised. After an unsuccessful effort to win back Macquarie at the [[1934 Australian federal election]], Chifley finally won his seat back at the [[1940 Australian federal election]] on a swing of ten percent.<ref name="adb"/><ref name="before"/>