In February 1931 Campbell formed a militant breakaway organisation called the New Guard, which actively opposed the Lang government, the Communist party and left-wing unions.

The New Guard reached a peak membership of about sixty thousand by 1932, assisted by military-style recruiting methods and locally based units and organisers, co-ordinated by a centralised command structure.

These changes and Campbell's public expressions of admiration for Hitler and Mussolini, coincided with a rapid decrease in membership of the New Guard during 1933 (a process that had commenced after Lang's dismissal in May 1932).

Nine weeks before his death Wallace had been undergoing military training at Holsworthy camp where he was subjected to a punishment by being forcibly held beneath a cold shower in the middle of the night for thirty-five minutes.

[14] In October 1924 an apology was published in the Labor Daily explaining that Majors Rickard and Campbell were not in camp when "the incident was alleged to have taken place", nor was the trainee in any unit commanded by either of the officers.

[33][5] A month earlier, during the election campaign, Sydney's The Labor Daily had published a document, "secured... from an unimpeachable source", which detailed "the sinister and discreditable tactics" of the government in organising a secret force which the newspaper compared to the Fascists in Italy.

[35] The force assembled by Campbell and Scott had been a secret organisation reflecting the camaraderie of ex-servicemen from the officer class, ready to support and champion a conservative non-Labor federal government.

Labor had successfully depicted Bruce as seeking to adversely affect the wages and working conditions of Australian workers with his efforts to dismantle the conciliation and arbitration system.

[46] The counter-revolutionary group was directed towards the preservation of the existing order and devotion to the British Empire, prepared to mobilise to maintain essential services and defend property rights in the event of serious disorder.

[48][50] On 18 February 1931 Campbell and seven of his personal friends and business associates (most of them ex-officers) met at the Imperial Service Club in Sydney with the object of forming a breakaway organisation called the 'New Guard'.

In his words: "I had an almost princely income by the then standards from a thriving practice, which despite the Depression kept us busily engaged acting for receivers and liquidators instead of buyers and sellers as in boom days".

[58] On the night of 11 December 1931 a large contingent of New Guard members disrupted a meeting at King's Cross, in support of a Communist Party candidate for the Senate at the upcoming federal election.

Later the Guardsmen made successive charges against the speakers' platform, surrounded by communist supporters estimated to number two hundred who were being "protected by a strong cordon of police".

[63] In January 1932 Campbell was charged with using insulting words against the New South Wales premier, Jack Lang, during an address by the New Guard leader at Lane Cove Picture Theatre.

On 2 February 1932 in the Central Summons Court, the Chief Stipendiary Magistrate agreed that the word "scoundrel", applied by Campbell to the premier, was "clearly insulting" and imposed a fine of two pounds (with eight shillings costs).

[48] On the evening of 26 February 1932 about three hundred members of the New Guard, travelling in about fifty motor cars, disrupted "a Communist meeting" being held at Thompson Park in Bankstown.

[66] In early January 1932, in response to reports of out-of-control bushfires in central western New South Wales and encouraged by The Sun newspaper, the New Guard agreed to send two hundred volunteer Guardsmen to Cobar to assist with fire-fighting duties.

Five double-decker buses were provided by Federick Stewart, a bus proprietor and director of The Sun, and petrol, food and equipment was donated by oil companies and major Sydney retailers.

[69] In the early hours of Friday morning, 6 May 1932, the prominent trade union leader and Lang supporter Jock Garden was awakened from sleep at his Maroubra home and enticed into his backyard by eight men claiming to be police, when he was "brutally assaulted", possibly as a prelude to kidnapping him.

[72] After the dismissal of the Lang government by Sir Philip Game, the Governor of New South Wales, in May 1932 and its subsequent electoral defeat, "the New Guard lost much of its raison d'être".

Many members regarded the defeat of Lang's Labor government as signalling an end to "the period of social emergency", with the identity and purpose of the New Guard seeming to be "increasingly problematic".

Campbell's colleague, Francis de Groot, had a different view; his opinion was that the movement lost focus after Lang's departure so that "trifles were magnified and with no enemy to fight, we commenced to bicker amongst ourselves".

[77] In a broadcast address on 1 December 1932 Campbell described Australians as "weak, lazy, and unindustrious, incapable of holding their land against an invader", declaring that they "had failed miserably as trustees of Empire".

[84][87] After Campbell introduced fascist ritual to the New Guard, "including the salute by a bodyguard whenever he visited a locality, and continual requests for donations towards the maintenance of headquarters", a renewed undercurrent of discontent began to grow within the organisation.

[93][94] In April 1935, at a meeting of "several hundred supporters of the Centre Movement" in the Assembly Hall, Campbell announced that the organisation "would participate actively in the State election campaign".

The second proposal for political reform was a radical change to the electorates, converting the geographical areas to a system of vocational representation reflecting "the various industrial, professional and cultural associations which in their entirety make up the life of the nation".

[95] In the end the Centre Party contested only four seats in the New South Wales election held on 11 May 1935, in the electorates of Lane Cove (Eric Campbell), Hornsby (Fergus Munro), George's River (James Fowler) and Arncliffe (Enoch Jones).

[102] The prosecution alleged that a minute book had been falsified in order that the three men "could escape the payment of a large sum of money, representing calls on shares which they held in the company".

After a settlement was reached Judge Reginald Long Innes forwarded a report to the Attorney-General stating that he was satisfied that Campbell had "attempted to support the false evidence manufactured out of court by deliberate perjury".

When the letter was read at a meeting of branch members, the president, treasurer and secretary resigned in protest, but after a unanimous vote of confidence, they agreed to resume their offices.