 During the Great Depression, with no parliamentary salary and no chance of returning to the railway, Chifley survived on his wife's family's money and his part-ownership of the Bathurst newspaper "The National Advocate".In 1938, Chifley and most other Labor supporters in Bathurst joined the Industrial Labor Party (ILP), a breakaway organisation formed by Bob Heffron and dedicated to thwarting the Lang Labor faction that controlled the ALP in New South Wales.He was a delegate to the party's annual conference in Sydney in April 1939.