However, he stayed in office for only six weeks before the two independents who held the balance of power joined Labor in voting down his budget.

Governor-General Lord Gowrie was reluctant to call an election for a parliament barely a year old, especially considering the international situation.

A number of groups also split away from the UAP prior to the election, the most prominent of which was the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

This election was significant in the fact that it resulted in the election of the first female member of the House of Representatives, the UAP's Enid Lyons for Darwin, Tasmania, and the first female Senator, Labor's Dorothy Tangney, in Western Australia.

The lack of effective opposition to the Labor party in the lead up to and following the election became the catalyst for the creation of the Liberal Party of Australia from the ashes of the UAP, and for George Cole, Keith Murdoch and other big business magnates to form the conservative think tank the Institute of Public Affairs.