In the early Labour Party a significant sub-set of the party promoted what one might call "Christian socialism", New Zealand's first Labour Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage is said to have personified Labour's "Applied Christianity." Labour won an overwhelming victory by presenting itself as the party of practical Christian compassion, in contrast to the "anti-family" depression-era coalition government. It was in this context that Savage – who would later return to his Roman Catholic roots – described Labour's Social Security Act (1938), intended to afford security for all New Zealanders 'from cradle to grave', as ‘applied Christianity’.