Editing John McEwen (section)

===Interior minister, 1937–1939===
McEwen's seat was abolished in a redistribution during his first term and he transferred to the seat of [[Division of Indi|Indi]] at the [[1937 Australian federal election|1937 election]].<ref name=adb/> He rose rapidly within the parliamentary Country Party and narrowly failed to win the deputy leadership after the 1937 election, losing to [[Harold Thorby]] by a single vote on the second ballot.<ref>{{cite news|newspaper=[[The Age]]|url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/205553498|title=Mr. Thorby Deputy Leader|date=29 November 1937}}</ref> He was subsequently appointed [[Department of the Interior (1932–1939)|Minister for the Interior]] in the [[third Lyons ministry]], a [[Coalition (Australia)|coalition government]] between the Country Party and the [[United Australia Party]] (UAP) led by Prime Minister [[Joseph Lyons]]. His new portfolio was "spacious in its command of broad policy issues and diversity of administrative functions" and included "Commonwealth public works, railways, immigration, the Northern and Australian Capital territories, Aborigines, electoral administration, mining, and oil exploration".<ref name=adb/>

As interior minister, McEwen instituted the [[New Deal for Aborigines]], a landmark policy statement on [[Indigenous Australians]] which described its aim as "the raising of their status so as to entitle them by right and by qualification to the ordinary rights of citizenship and enable them and help them to share with us the opportunities that are available in their own native land". The policy specified [[cultural assimilation#Australia|cultural assimilation]] as the basis on which civil rights would be extended to the Indigenous population. The policy was drafted by McEwen in conjunction with his adviser [[A. P. Elkin]].<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://kontur.au.dk/fileadmin/www.kontur.au.dk/Kontur_22/Silverstein_MOD1.pdf|title=From Population to Citizen: The Subjects of the 1939 Aboriginal New Deal in Australia's Northern Territory|first=Ben|last=Silverstein|year=2011|number=22|journal=Kontur|page=20}}</ref>

Following Lyons' death in April 1939, Country Party leader [[Earle Page]] withdrew his party from the coalition with the UAP and McEwen's first stint as a minister came to an end. Page's decision – largely due to his personal disdain for the new UAP prime minister [[Robert Menzies]] – proved controversial within his own party and four Country MPs left the parliamentary party.{{sfn|Golding|1996|pp=75-76}}