Independent Labor Group

{{Short description|Former New South Welsh political party}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2019}}

{{about|the political grouping in New South Wales|the political affiliation used throughout Australia|Independent Labor (Australia)}}

The Independent Labor Group was a minor Australian political grouping in the New South Wales Legislative Council from 1959 to 1977. The group emerged when a number of Labor Party MLCs were expelled from the party for voting against the abolition of the Legislative Council, which was then party policy.{{cite NSW Parliament |id=1625 |former=Yes |title=Mr Cyril Joseph Cahill |access-date=9 June 2019}}

Eight Labor MLCs were expelled in 1959, and they were formally constituted as the Independent Labor Group on 22 August 1961, electing Thomas Gleeson as their leader. They held the balance of power throughout most of the early 1960s, increasing their numbers to ten in 1961, when the Coalition aided the election of Amelia Rygate.{{cite book|last1=Clune|last2=Griffith|first1=David|first2=Gareth|title=Decision and Deliberation: The Parliament of New South Wales 1856-2003|publisher=The Federation Press|pages=411–413}} In the late 1960s, however, the group's power began to diminish. Amelia Rygate rejoined the Labor Party in 1966; Anne Press joined the Liberal Party in 1967. The last Independent Labor representative, Cyril Cahill, died in 1977.