Editing Chris Watson (section)

==Colonial parliament==
In the months prior to the [[1891 New South Wales colonial election]], Watson was a founding member of the [[Australian Labor Party (New South Wales Branch)|Labour Electoral League of New South Wales]] which stemmed from the nascent [[Australian labour movement]] and would later develop into the Australian Labour (later Labor) Party. In the election, Labour won the [[Balance of power (parliament)|balance of power]] and provided [[confidence and supply]] to the [[Protectionist Party]] [[minority government]] led by [[Premier of New South Wales|Premier]] [[George Dibbs]] which brought down the incumbent [[majority government]] of the [[Free Trade Party]] led by Premier [[Henry Parkes]]. Watson was an active trade unionist, and became vice-president of the [[Labor Council of New South Wales|Sydney Trades and Labour Council]] in January 1892.  In June 1892, he settled a dispute between the Trades and Labour Council and the Labour Party and as a result became the president of the council and chairman of the party.  In 1893 and 1894, he worked hard to resolve the debate over the solidarity pledge and established the Labour Party's basic practices, including the sovereignty of the party conference, caucus solidarity, the pledge required of parliamentarians and the powerful role of the extra-parliamentary executive. At the [[1894 New South Wales colonial election|1894 colonial election]] which saw the defeat of the Protectionist Party government, Watson was elected to the [[New South Wales Legislative Assembly]] for the country seat of [[Electoral district of Young|Young]].<ref>{{cite NSW Parliament |title =Mr (Chris) John Christian Watson (1867–1941) |id=1183 |former=Yes |access-date=21 May 2019}}</ref>

At the [[1895 New South Wales colonial election|1895 colonial election]] the incumbent Free Trade Party minority government led by Premier [[George Reid]] increased their support  but remained several seats short of a majority. Labour at this time had a policy of "support in return for concessions", and Watson voted with his colleagues to strategically provide such legislative support to the incumbent government. Following the [[1898 New South Wales colonial election|1898 colonial election]], despite a significant swing against the incumbent government, Watson and Labour leader [[James McGowen]] decided to allow the incumbent government to remain so that it could complete the work of establishing the [[Federation of Australia]].<ref name=adb/>