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'Jim' Toohey (1909–1992): the 'Father' of the Labor Party in South Australia

Malcolm Saunders

In the decades after World War II, the two leading members of the South Australian branch of the Australian Labor Party — Clyde Cameron and Jim Toohey — formed a unique partnership and played a pivotal role in determining its character. From the late 1940s to at least the mid 1970s the branch was, unlike its counterparts in the eastern states, not only ideologically left-of-centre but also remarkably united. Through it Cameron and Toohey influenced the course of Australian labour history. Cameron has always been seen as the more prominent and controversial partner and little attention has been paid to Toohey. By focussing on 'the other half' of this duumvirate we better understand not only why relations within the branch were so harmonious during this period but also why in the mid 1950s the New South Wales branch did not split in two and why the 1960s and 1970s are known in South Australia as the Dunstan era.

 1
Historians have always been ambivalent about biography. To some, it is a form of enquiry apart from history in which historians might from time to time engage but not something which is an integral part of the discipline in the same way as (say) political history or military history. To others, it belongs as much to several other disciplines as it does to history. Thus, a few years ago a writer on biography (or 'life writing') claimed that as well as the historical perspective on biography, there are literary, anthropological, psychological, sociological, feminist, minority and arguably other perspectives.1 To still others, biography is something which historians might attempt, but only after many years of having written more conventional history. The right to write biography is something you earn. It is not something to which postgraduate research students or relatively inexperienced academic historians ought to turn their hand. All in all, historians who want to write biography have had a harder time defending their choice of subjects — let alone the time, money, and effort they inevitably expend — than most others engaged in the craft. 2
      But the task here is to defend neither biography in general nor even biography's role in labour history. That has been attempted — I believe successfully — in numerous scholarly and other publications over the last 10 to 15 years.2 Here it must be enough to say that biography is — and has long been — a valuable and highly respected part of labour history. Who could begin to assess the historiography of the Australian labour movement without considering Fitzhardinge's two-volume study of William Morris Hughes, Robertson's substantial work on James Scullin, or the many biographies of varying quality on John Curtin, Gough Whitlam, Robert Hawke, or Jack Lang? Historians who have written about these subjects, and placed them in 'the context of their social, economic and political environment',3 have given us not only fresh perspectives on Australian labour history but also — and this should not be belittled — a growing number of enjoyable 'reads'.4 3
      But we need to take two further steps. One is to recognise that labour historians interested in biography should not be confined to writing about Labor prime ministers and premiers. There is, surely, a place in this country's labour historiography for lesser mortals such as trade union leaders, party officials and apparatchiks, and working-class and radical agitators both in and out of the left-of centre political parties. In a recent essay in a book honouring a still practising labour historian (that is, Duncan Waterson), Harry Knowles singled out Australian Workers Union (AWU) 'boss', Tom Dougherty, as an example of a labour figure whose biography ought to be but as yet has not been written.5 Dougherty was never a parliamentarian, but no one who appreciates the role of the Australian Workers Union in labour history could doubt that a substantial biography of the man could be a worthwhile contribution to the field. 4
      The other step is that we should appreciate that there are any number of labour leaders who might warrant some, albeit lesser, attention. Indeed, when historians and others discuss biography or life-writing, they almost always implicitly assume that a biography is at least a book-length work. But, should we assume that if an historical figure is worth writing about, he or she is worth nothing less than a book? The assumption is ridiculous. There are numerous labour leaders in Australia's past about whom one would like to write a book if only it were possible. (Among other things the sources might be inaccessible or non-existent). And there are even more labour leaders who might deserve something less than a book but something considerably more than a few short obituaries in the daily newspapers. The subject of this article — James Philip Toohey — is an excellent case in point. 5
      Throughout the twentieth century there were many parliamentarians in this country who made a far greater contribution to their party than they did to the federal parliament. In the Australian Labor Party (ALP), in particular, a prominent and therefore safe place on the Senate ticket was very often a reward for services rendered in the past rather than a promise of performance to come.6 Jim Toohey does not entirely fit this well-known mould. When he entered the Senate as a representative of the Labor Party in South Australia in July 1953, much was expected of him. However, throughout his three terms and 18 consecutive years in that house he was only able to display his talents as a member of the opposition and never as a minister in the government. Moreover, even after he had gone into parliament it was the work he did within the Party rather than that inside the Senate which earned him a hallowed place in the annals of the state branch of the Labor Party and made him a highly-regarded and much-loved figure in the ALP in all states and at all levels. That reputation is enshrined in 'Tooheyism'7 the term coined by 'Mick' Young8— one of Toohey's most famous protégés — to describe the approach taken within the South Australian branch of the Party to minimise faction-fighting and to avoid a repetition of the internal struggles which had split the branch in the early 1930s and threatened to do the same in the mid-1950s. Few if any senators before him or since have been accorded such an honour. 6
   

Family Background

 
James Philip Toohey was born into a thoroughly working-class Catholic family in Adelaide on 11 July 190 9 His father, James Patrick Toohey, was of Irish extraction; his mother, Lilian Maud Morgan, was of Welsh descent. They had 12 children. Toward the end of his life, James Philip, who was partly named after his father, reflected that he came in 'I think at number six position'. 10 James senior was a tough, hardworking, and dependable builder's labourer. Life in the Toohey family, especially for the children, was overcrowded, very frugal, and strictly disciplined. Perhaps, more importantly, it was stable and supportive. Toohey was greatly influenced by his father, who required him to go to church — a Catholic church —until he was 15, yet at the same time encouraged the young James Philip and his siblings to engage in discussion within the family. He was also influenced by an older brother who inspired his interest in the trade union movement and in the mid 1920s persuaded him to join the local branch of the Labor Party. His years at school were untroubled and apparently interesting. The family moved around Adelaide's western suburbs — which were at that time still not fully developed — and he attended several schools over a number of years (both Catholic and government) before settling down at the new and much closer Cowandilla Primary School. His education, albeit limited, was remarkably successful. In his final year he was dux of the school and among the top 50 students in the state who took the Qualifying Certificate (or secondary-school-entrance) examination. 7
   

A Political Education

 
Despite young James's impressive academic success, his father was adamant that as soon as his son could leave school — which in those days was when one reached 14 — he must get a job and earn some money. Indeed, until he was 18 he did not pay board but simply handed all his wages over to his parents. In the 1920s he had several jobs with some of the best-known and remembered firms in Adelaide — Holden and Frosts, Harris Scarfes, and Scott Bonnar — before completing an apprenticeship with a building firm in Richmond which made joinery. But, with the onset of the Great Depression in 1929–30, the firm collapsed, and young Jim was unemployed for most of the next three to four years. Like millions of others in Australia in these years he suffered a little hunger, a lot of humiliation, and at least some hardening. Unlike most others, however, he experienced a rapid growth in his political awareness. At the same time as he searched for full-time work, he stepped up his involvement in the Labor Party. By the mid 1930s he had obtained a job in the body shop of the motor-body building firm, T.J. Richards. At least by this time he had become chairman of the Richmond branch of the Labor Party and secretary of the neighbouring Glenelg Labor Electorate Committee.11 8
      A turning-point in Jim Toohey's life took place in the late 1930s when the motorcar-parts manufacturers in South Australia began to conduct what Toohey called a 'time study operation', or what today might be called a time-and-motion study. While Toohey's fellow workers at T.J. Richards panicked and intensified their efforts, he carried on at the normal pace, was confronted by his superintendent, and eventually demoted. He gave notice, and was soon after taken on to do similar work at Holden. Equally important in his career, Holden merged with General Motors, World War II broke out, the firm began to manufacture aircraft rather than automobiles, and, above all, Toohey was told he was in a reserved occupation and would not be allowed to enlist. Another time-and-motion study and wartime government intervention into manufacturing industry — especially the 'cost plus' system which worsened conditions and increased wastage — did much to radicalise the already unionised and politically conscious Toohey. Always a steward or official, in 1944 he was elected assistant secretary of the Vehicle Builders Employees Federation (VBEF).12 9
      By this single step Toohey was elevated to one of the powerful positions in the organised labour movement in South Australia. Since World War I, the motor-body industry — the core of the state's rapidly developing secondary industry — had increased by leaps and bounds. In fact, by 1936 Holden and Richards between them produced more than 80 per cent of all motor bodies manufactured in Australia.13 Unionisation followed industrialisation, and at least by the end of World War II the VBEF was one of the largest unions in the state, second only to the AWU. Like the AWU, the VBEF was essentially a conservative union, noted more for its hostility toward communists than its militancy toward employers. Communists sneered at it as 'a tame-cat organisation'.14 That the AWU and the VBEF joined forces at about this time to maximise their influence over the Labor Party in South Australia is readily understandable; that Toohey rose to one of the highest posts in such a union as the VBEF is not. His militancy alarmed the more staid officials in the union, but his combination of energy and tact seemed to have won over the bulk of those members interested in union affairs. And, as a result of the VBEF's affiliation with and heavy involvement in the Labor Party, Toohey became a delegate to the party's state council and state convention. 10
   

State Secretary

 
If the time-study on the factory floor was one turning-point in his career, another occurred at the state convention in 1946. Clyde Cameron was in the chair. Since about 1940 Cameron had been the leading figure in the AWU, and had just become the youngest president the state branch had ever had.15 Not knowing Toohey and mistaking him for a trouble-maker, Cameron refused to give him 'the call', that is, allow him to speak from the floor.16 During a break, Toohey confronted Cameron, identified himself and the union he represented, and demanded to know why he was being ignored. It was the beginning of one of the closest friendships in Australian politics, one of the most remarkable duumvirates in Australian labour history, and a new era in the history of the Labor Party in South Australia. Impressed with Toohey, Cameron some time later approached the secretary of the VBEF (Samuel Lawn) and asked him whether that union would mind giving up its assistant secretary so that he might become secretary of the state branch of the Labor Party.17 Lawn, disturbed by Toohey's militancy over the 'time study' issue and aware that the assistant secretary would soon want to be secretary, was 'only too happy' to agree. With the support of the state's two biggest unions, in September 1947 Toohey defeated 15 other candidates to be elected state secretary of the ALP by an overwhelming majority.18 11
      With Toohey's help, Cameron set about reforming the state branch of the Party. After disintegrating into three distinct wings in the early 1930s — the official Labor Party centred around Trades Hall; the Parliamentary Labor Party (whose members had supported the controversial Premiers' Plan); and the Lang Labor Party — what was left of the state branch remained in a sorry state. The Labor Party in South Australia had lost government in 1933 and by 1947 had been in opposition for 15 years. In 1946 Cameron had already begun a programme of reform by reintroducing the use of 'the card vote' at state conferences whereby sub-branches with only a few dozen members were not overly represented vis-a-vis trade unions with many thousands of members.19 As a result the two biggest unions in the state, with the aid of one or two of the smaller but still significant unions (such as the Australian Railways Union and the Australian Society of Engineers), could almost always dominate Party forums.20 But while Cameron was 'a numbers man', Toohey provided what are today called 'people skills'. Although Toohey was intelligent, highly articulate, and gifted with a deep and impressive voice, he was also physically small, mild-mannered, oftentimes quiet and even meek. Above all, however, he was personable, tactful, and trustworthy. Together, Cameron and Toohey were able to more or less satisfy all factions within the branch. Whenever the votes were needed, Cameron would rally the Left, Toohey would marshal the Centre, and the Right would at least not oppose Toohey because its members certainly respected him and very likely trusted him. 12
      It was less that Cameron and Toohey between them controlled the state branch of the Labor Party than that for many years they had more power within it than any other two of its leading figures. They very soon established what became known in the branch as 'the troika', so called because it was usually a small group of three which got together and effectively made decisions about who would be selected for Party jobs and preselected for parliamentary seats. Cameron and Toohey were permanent members of this group which at different times included Geoff Virgo, Fred Birrell, 'Mick' Young, Clem Ridley, and Cameron's younger brother Don. Clyde Cameron later recalled that :
We would meet at Jim's home for dinner just before each Annual Convention and over our meal, quietly and objectively decide how to allocate positions on our ticket ... We saw to it that every faction was given representation in strict accordance with its floor strength ... Jim would convey our decision to the Right and invite it to nominate the ones it wished to fill the Right Positions on our ticket. I would tell the Left of the places we had allocated to it and invite it to nominate its candidates. And, between the three of us, we would set out to make an objective assessment of the non-aligned sections ... That ticket wasnever defeated.21
 Although it had no official sanction or standing, 'the troika' was effectively the principal power-broker and real decision-maker in the South Australian Labor Party.		 13
      A major stepping-stone was reached very early in their partnership. In 1951 Cameron and Toohey used the power of the AWU, the VBU, and other unions they could bring 'onside', to have the state convention disband the Industrial Groups.22 It was not an especially difficult task, even though, the Right — and within it many Catholics — had enjoyed a brief ascendancy over the branch after World War II.23 But this was an aberration and could not last. In South Australia the Labor Party itself had almost always been dominated by Nonconformists rather than Catholics.24 In this respect Cameron (a Presbyterian) was more typical of the branch's leadership than Toohey (at least in his youth a Catholic). Moreover, there had always been a smaller proportion of Catholics vis-a-vis Protestants in South Australia than in any other state.25 Consequently it was simply a less fertile ground for the Catholic Social Studies Movement ('The Movement') — which supplied the Industrial Groups with their most fervent workers — than the eastern states. Nevertheless, Cameron and Toohey's action was a watershed event in the history of the branch and had far-reaching effects. As a result of their decisive action, whether or not the state branch was doing enough to combat communism in the labour movement hardly became an issue in South Australia in the 1950s. 14
      The disbandment of the Industrial Groups pre-empted the opposition, and from then on the task was to appease it. The troika did this by establishing and perpetuating the tradition commonly known as 'the consensus approach'.26 Threats from both Right and Left were prevented or eliminated by ensuring that all interests were represented. Developing in the late 1940s, it enjoyed its heyday in the 1950s and 1960s, and continued for most of the 1970s.27 Faction-fighting was minimal, few unions disaffiliated, and hardly any parliamentarians became disaffected and left the Party. Significantly, South Australia avoided the horrific split in the Party which crippled and demoralised branches in some other states in the mid 1950s. Yet the branch confirmed itself as moderately Left. Under the auspices of Cameron and Toohey, it fiercely protected its socialisation objective, on one occasion dissolving a sub-branch because it wanted the doctrine jettisoned.28 If Cameron was occasionally too forceful and ruthless, Toohey was always accommodating and conciliatory. Between them they helped forge a branch whose unity and stability were envied by its counterparts in the eastern states. Even when Cameron was elected to the House of Representatives in December 194929 and Toohey was elected to the Senate in May 1953,30 the two continued to exercise an enormous influence over the branch. 15
   

Senator, 1953–71

 
Toohey's career in the Senate, while long, was little out of the ordinary. A confident and competent although not an obviously compelling debater, he rose to speak neither too often nor too infrequently. Like all senators he paid close attention to the economic interests of his state. He frequently pressed the Menzies government to reduce sales tax, particularly on automobiles, foodstuffs containing dried fruits, and canned fish.31 For the same reasons he urged, in the 1950s, standardising the railway gauge between Broken Hill and Port Pirie32 and, in the 1960s, building the Chowilla and Dartmouth Dams.33 He constantly pursued the interests of the state's wine industry34 and urged greater support for towns devastated when the River Murray burst its banks in the winter of 1956 — an event he described as perhaps 'the greatest disaster in South Australian history'.35 Insofar as he specialised it was in social service matters.36 When he spoke on such things as old-age pensions, widows' pensions, invalid pensions, child endowment, pharmaceutical benefits, and war-service homes, it was with some authority and much greater credibility than his occasional forays into (say) foreign affairs.37 Insofar as his contributions to the Senate were memorable, it was because of his persistence in demanding liberalisation of and amendments to the slowly expanding welfare system in Australia. 16
      Moreover, while his speeches were pedestrian, the positions which he took and the behaviour he displayed were generally moderate. Although discernibly Left-of-Centre, he was not particularly radical. Inside the Senate, the militant who had stood up to two of the biggest employers in South Australia over the introduction of the 'time study', the assertive trade union official who had been too Left-wing for his own union, and the energetic ALP secretary who had helped rid the state branch of the Industrial Groups, was hardly a firebrand. The senator who urged the recognition of communist China38 had no hesitation in expressing his Party's affectionate loyalty to the Queen.39 The parliamentarian who attacked the government for favouring big business did not hesitate to urge it to go to the aid of car manufacturers,40 albeit in the interests of their employees. Indeed, he spoke up for the interests of particular industries as frequently as he did for those of the workers, the poor, and the underprivileged generally. 17
      Moreover, he seldom if ever got 'under the skin' of his political opponents. It was in his nature to counsel, conciliate, and compromise. After he had delivered his maiden speech a government senator rose to his feet and congratulated him not only on the 'considerable thought' he had given to his speech but also his 'moderation' and 'manner of delivery'.41 Toohey never took the conflict in the Senate as seriously as he did intra-Party relations, those within his own branch and at the federal level. In subsequent years he often acknowledged that the government should be praised (For example, 'We agree with the Government that it is already doing great things in developing the rural industries of Australia')42 and that the opposition was only opposing it because it had to (For example, 'There is validity in the argument that the Opposition is partisan. It is the job of an opposition to be partisan').43 Toohey was a frequent and vigorous critic of the government but never an especially harsh or wounding one. 18
   

Returning Labor to Power in South Australia

 
However, to the Labor Party in his home state he was indispensable. Indeed, the popularity Toohey enjoyed and the high regard in which he was held within the branch were remarkable. In 1948, only a year after becoming its secretary, he was elected one of its two representatives on the ALP's federal executive, a position he held continuously until 1959.44 After his first three-year term as state secretary ended in September 1950 he was elected for another unopposed.45 One of the state branch's six delegates to the Party's biennial federal conference, he attended every such meeting between 1948 and 1969 — possibly a record never achieved before.46 Totally immersed in Party affairs before and after becoming a senator, he was the secretary of the Fabian Society in South Australia (a group, launched in July 1951, which affiliated with the state branch)47 a member of the board of the Workers' Weekly Herald (the state branch's newspaper)48 and frequently a director of state election campaigns (as well as federal election campaigns in South Australia).49 In 1954–55 — at a time when the unity of the Party throughout Australia was being threatened as never before — he served a single term as president of the state branch.50 Perhaps more than anyone else, Toohey insulated the ALP in South Australia from the forces and ructions which tore the Party apart in the mid 1950s. In 1956 he was awarded the President's Medal for services to the Labor Party in his home state.51 19
      Both Cameron and Toohey were well aware that keeping the branch united and stable was not enough. Their ultimate goal was to restore Labor to the Treasury benches in South Australia. In the late 1940s and early 1950s their prospects looked bleak. There had not been a Labor government in South Australia since 1933.52 The Liberal and Country League (LCL) — led by Sir Richard Butler until 1938 and by Thomas Playford thereafter — governed the state.53 Aided by an electoral system which favoured the non-Labor parties, a remarkably successful policy of industrialisation, and an exceptionally politically astute premier, the LCL seemed to strengthen its hold over the government with each passing year. Even though more electors consistently voted Labor rather than LCL, the latter came to be seen as South Australia's 'natural' government, and Playford was clearly, as Adelaide's best-known political scientist later put it, 'the dominant personality of the period'.54 By contrast the state branch of the Labor Party remained very weak. While the Party organisation struggled to stay alive financially, its parliamentary wing seldom presented itself as an alternative government. In 1950 a correspondent to the Adelaide Advertiser commented that until the appearance of recent full-page ALP advertisements in that paper 'many South Australians were unaware that the Playford Government had opposition in the State Parliament'.55 In a sardonic comment that suggested the enormity of the task confronting Cameron and Toohey, the same commentator remarked that '[f]or the benefit of New Australians I should like to point out that elderly people can remember the time when the Labor Party actually governed South Australia'. 20
      While the card vote, the disbandment of the Industrial Groups, and the pursuit of 'the consensus approach' stabilised the state branch, they did no more than lay the foundations for its revival. The road from the Party disasters of the past to the electoral victories of the future was a long and hard one. With Party stability accomplished, two major problems stood in the way of electoral success. One was the weakness and ineffectiveness of the state parliamentary Labor Party. There was a dearth of talent and experience in the parliamentary wing, and its leader from 1949 to 1961, 'Mick' O'Halloran, became notorious for agreeing with rather than criticising his counterpart on the government benches.56 Some even referred to O'Halloran as Playford's 'junior partner'.57 In response, whether by accident or design, the Labor federal parliamentarians from South Australia became the real opposition to the Playford government. Certainly, as leader of the Labor's Senate team, Toohey passed up few opportunities to attack the LCL premier both from within that house and through the national and state newspapers.58 The other problem was the maldistribution of the electoral system in South Australia which over-represented rural and under-represented urban areas to the benefit of the LCL and the detriment of the ALP. However 'the Playmander', as it became known, was being progressively eroded by the drift of population from the country to the city and the expansion of Adelaide's population into former rural areas.59 In the 1950s Labor set out on a long-term plan of attrition to wrest from the LCL at each state election one or two more of its 12 marginal seats.60 As campaign director for most state elections throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, Toohey played a major part in inaugurating and developing this strategy. In March 1965 the strategy finally came to fruition when Labor not merely won its first state election since 193061 but also ended one era and began another.62 21
   

Containing 'The Split'

 
During the same period Toohey acted as a trouble-shooter and negotiator in the federal as well as in the state sphere. In 1955, when the conflict within the Labor movement between the 'groupers' (who were strongest in Victoria) and their opponents (led by the leader of the federal opposition, Dr H.V. Evatt) was fast approaching its climax, Toohey was the Party's senior federal vice-president. Because Evatt and the 'groupers' were implacable enemies, the responsibility for holding the Party together fell almost as much on Toohey's shoulders as it did on those of the federal president, Frank ('Joe') Chamberlain. It is difficult to assess Toohey's role in the third and worst of the Labor Party's great splits, but two preliminary points ought be made. One is that, while by that stage neither he nor anyone else could have saved the Victorian branch from splitting, Toohey played a part in bringing the struggle to an end in that state and in re-establishing the branch. The other and more important point is that he undeniably helped prevent the branch in New South Wales going the way of that in Victoria. 22
      In regard to Victoria, Toohey's role was important both on the federal executive and at federal conferences. In March 1955 the Western Australian and South Australian members of the federal executive proposed a resolution which recommended that the next federal conference
endorses the decision of the Federal Executive in removing political recognition of Industrial Groups in Victoria ... [and] In respect of the question of Group organisation generally official ALP recognition shall be withdrawn by all State Branches.63
 Toohey helped to draw up the recommendation, resist attempts by 'grouper' sympathisers on the executive to emasculate it by amendment, and move that it be adopted for submission to the federal conference. An equally crucial event in the struggle for control over the Party was its now-famous federal conference held in Hobart in March 1955. Probably no other delegation to that conference was as united as the six-man team from South Australia.64 Toohey was their effective leader. Clyde Cameron claims that, prior to leaving Adelaide, each of the six was given a letter from the state executive directing him to follow Toohey's lead and vote the way he did.65 'Nothing like that had ever before occurred in the Labor Party', reflected Cameron, 'and the fact that each delegate gladly accepted that directive was because we could safely trust Jim's judgement and integrity throughout those proceedings'. What followed is well-known. The 'groupers' and their sympathisers boycotted the conference leaving all decisions to be taken not by the usual 36 delegates but by a mere 19.66 Cameron and Toohey arranged for one of the Catholic members of the South Australian delegation to move the recommendation to the conference to withdraw Labor Party support for the Industrial Groups — a motion which, not surprisingly, was passed unanimously.67 As a result, wrote Robert Murray in his seminal work, the Industrial Groups were 'finished'.68 But Murray qualified this, adding that 'It was now the turn of their last remaining strong supporter, the New South Wales Executive'.		 23
      Toohey played an even more obvious role in the New South Wales dispute, heading a committee appointed by the federal executive to organise a special conference to elect a new state executive and hear charges against two of the state's leading 'groupers' (Jack Kane and Frank Rooney).69 It was a daunting task which Toohey approached with optimism, loyalty, and tact — doubtless the qualities for which he had been chosen. The situation in the New South Wales branch, he told a meeting of the state council in Adelaide a fortnight later, was 'explosive', but there 'was a good chance of it being resolved', and, if it were, the Labor Party would 'level out of its tailspin'.70 Toohey and Chamberlain, in particular, laboured throughout 1955 to bring about a settlement between the factions (in effect, the 'groupers' and their opponents) without obvious success. The federal executive took over the state branch and began restructuring it. For about two months Toohey virtually absented himself from the Senate and ran the New South Wales branch on a day-to-day basis.71 The strain on all parties, not least of whom Toohey, must have been enormous. In February 1956 he was admitted to the Canberra Community Hospital for 'a rest and observation'.72 24
      But the strife in New South Wales continued. In April 1956 the federal executive again intervened in the state branch and appointed Chamberlain and Toohey to investigate it.73 In June they reported that 'a serious situation' existed in New South Wales, after which the federal executive simply 'over-ruled' the state executive and declared that it 'no longer exists'.74 Eventually a new state executive — on which the 'groupers', while no longer in a majority, were well-represented — resumed control. By the end of September the long crisis was over. The lengthy investigations and negotiations had a very different outcome from that in Victoria. 'There was no split in NSW', recalled Gil Duthie, a Tasmanian delegate on the federal executive.75 That only a few members of the branch were effectively expelled, that the Democratic Labor Party which broke away from the ALP in New South Wales always remained small, and that the new state executive which emerged was much more 'balanced' than the Left-dominated regime in control in Victoria76 almost certainly owed something to Toohey. 25
      Of course, it must be conceded that whether or not Toohey played a decisive role in preventing the disintegration of the New South Wales branch — as he had earlier in excising the 'groupers' from the Victorian branch — is impossible to ascertain. Most accounts of the events in New South Wales make little mention of him. Murray merely acknowledges his presence.77 Jack Kane, the former assistant secretary of the ALP in New South Wales and later leader of the DLP in that state, represents Toohey more as Chamberlain's right-hand man than anything else.78 Ross McMullin ignores Toohey's role in New South Wales while claiming that Chamberlain 'conducted the inquiry (in 1956) in an authoritarian manner which enraged the Groupers'.79 Yet Graham Freudenberg, the official historian of the New South Wales branch, was unequivocal about Toohey's role. To him 'the fairness, patience and commonsense with which Jim Toohey conducted all his dealings with New South Wales on behalf of the Federal Party (in this crisis, and again in 1970) was another important factor in containing the split there'.80 26
      Several points are irrefutable. The obvious one is that, as a senior member of the federal executive, Toohey was deeply involved in both series of events, although more so in those in New South Wales than in those in Victoria. Much of his time and most of his emotional energy between 1954 and 1957 were spent in the service of the Party at the extra-parliamentary and federal levels. Neither the South Australian branch, where the fight against the Industrial Groups had virtually been won before it had begun, nor the Senate, whose debates and proceedings must in retrospect have seemed quite orderly and gentlemanly, consumed him nearly as much. Another point is that these events made him a prominent national figure. Indeed in September 1957 there were reports that he had aspirations to become the leader of the federal Parliamentary Labor Party!81 At least two Sydney newspapers suggested that at the next federal elections he would contest the seat of Adelaide, then held by Cyril Chambers, a Catholic and a vocal critic of Evatt.82 But Toohey emphatically denied the claims and it is doubtful whether he had ever harboured such ambitions. 27
      In any case, and as suggested before, these years circa 1960 seem to have permanently damaged his health. Just before Christmas 1959 he suffered a major heart attack and was out of public life for several months.83 In January 1962 he suffered another.84 He recovered, and by following doctors' orders and adopting a highly disciplined regimen, lived another 30 years.85 In fact, in the early 1960s, as Hansard suggests, he was as energetic as ever. But, from about 1964–65, the drive and ambition he once had were never the same. 28
   

Moderator and Mentor

 
Nevertheless, he was a far from spent force. At the federal level he retained some influence for at least another ten years. He had the knack of pouring oil on troubled waters and making people, particularly Party colleagues, see commonsense. Clyde Cameron believes that his 'mate' saved two federal leaders — Evatt and Whitlam — from expulsion from the Party.86 In March 1955, Industrial Groupers in the eastern states tried to depose Evatt from the leadership of the federal Parliamentary Labor Party on the ground — which was technically correct — that he had let his membership lapse and was no longer a financial member of the Party.87 According to Cameron, Toohey's influence on the federal executive was important in preventing 'the Doc' from being deposed as the Party's federal leader.88 Eleven years later, the federal executive moved against Gough Whitlam because he had criticised its decision to mount a High Court challenge against the constitutionality of Prime Minister Menzies' reintroduction of state aid for non-government schools.89 Cameron believed that, although it was the Queensland branch which did an about-face and swung its support behind Whitlam, 'the big man's'90 career in the Party might have ended there and then had not Toohey persuaded him and the South Australian delegates to vote against expulsion.91 Yet another feat Cameron attributes to Toohey is persuading him to support federal intervention into the Left-wing dominated Victorian branch in 1970.92 Cameron recalled that :
I told him I would only support the Victorian intervention if he could persuade the rest of the Party to support a similar intervention in New South Wales, where the Right was just as unreasonable as the Left were in Victoria. It was because of that, that we finally moved into Victoria, and as a consequence, we won the Federal Election of 1972.93
 Toohey also played a major role in nurturing future Labor leaders, all of whom made major contributions to the Party at the federal as well as the state level. Foremost among these was Donald Allan Dunstan, who led Labor in South Australia to a string of electoral victories during the 1970s and is still revered as its most successful and innovative leader. 'The person who influenced me most in local (ie state) politics was Senator Jim Toohey', claimed Dunstan in an interview on the eve of the toughest state election he ever fought.94 The entry of Dunstan into the ranks of Labor's most promising parliamentarians owed much to the Toohey-Cameron partnership. It was Toohey who used his charm to persuade the young barrister to stand for state parliament in the early 1950s and Cameron who used his very different influence to win him Labor preselection for the seat of Norwood at the state elections in 1953.95 Other notable Labor figures whose careers were boosted by Toohey and Cameron included state secretaries 'Mick' Young, David Combe, and Chris Schacht, all of whom went on to become well-known as federal secretaries or parliamentarians. Young subsequently became federal secretary of the Labor Party and is widely acknowledged as having been the architect of the federal election campaign which won the Party its historic victory in December 1972.96 Another notable persuaded by Cameron and Toohey to stand for parliament was the former Rhodes Scholar and political scientist, Neal Blewett, who later became a leading minister in the Keating Labor governments in the early 1990s.97		 29
   

Retirement and Death

 
In May 1969, two years before the end of his third term as a Labor senator for South Australia, Toohey announced that he would not be seeking another six years in federal parliament.98 Had he wanted one he would certainly have got it. Not yet 60, he was several years short of the age at which the Labor Party compelled its parliamentarians to retire. Since 1958 he had been number one on Labor's Senate ticket for South Australia and had never been in danger of losing that safe and coveted spot.99 While his influence in the state branch was less than it had been in the 1950s, it was still considerable. Admitting that his health had been impaired and that he could no longer give '100 pc service to the community', he was simply making way for a younger if necessarily less experienced member. When Jim Toohey retired from the Senate in June 1971 he left parliamentary life a by no means bitter man. Nevertheless, there was at least a trace or two of disappointment and disillusionment in his statement that 'we were always in opposition, so there were no real high points in my stint in Canberra'.100 Toohey's entire time in the Senate was spent during Labor's 23-year spell in the political wilderness. Toohey doubtless sensed that Labor would win the federal elections scheduled for 1972. It must have seemed to him a little cruel that fate, in the form of his health, had prevented him from being part of the first Labor government in Canberra since 1949. In 2002 several former Labor notables were unanimously of the view that Toohey would have been 'a shoo in' for a ministry in the new government.101 30
      After leaving federal parliament Toohey neither forgot nor was forgotten by the Labor Party. In September 1971 the Dunstan Labor government appointed him chairman of the South Australian Lotteries Commission — a job he held for the next four years.102 For a week in 1973, when both the secretary and acting secretary were overseas, he one last time took over the day-to-day running of the state branch of the ALP.103 In later years he continued to meet with Cameron and other members of 'the troika', although his attendance at meetings was less regular and predictable.104 In June 1978, he was made a Member of the Order of Australia 'for services to trade unionism and politics'.105 One wonders whether those who proposed him — the initiative must have come from within the state branch — also had in mind those services he had rendered the Party beyond South Australia. Certainly Toohey was best known in and most identified with South Australia. When the leader of the federal Parliamentary Labor Party, 'Bill' Hayden, addressed the state conference a couple of days later he referred to Toohey as 'the father of the SA branch of the ALP', a branch which 'owes much to his wisdom, patience and guiding counsel'.106 Some might have thought that Cameron deserved this description as much as — if not more so than — Toohey, but no one, least of all Cameron himself, would have said so. 31
      Nor, after he retired, could Toohey leave the Party behind him.107 Besides playing golf, going to the races, and reading books, he continued to attend state councils and conventions as well as sub-branch meetings. He was also active in the local residents' association. In early 1981 he organised and acted as master of ceremonies at a farewell dinner for Cameron who had retired from federal parliament at the end of 1980, having been the Labor member for Hindmarsh for more than 30 years. After the speeches Toohey told the large gathering of Labor notables, many of whom had come from other states, that knowing Cameron had been for him 'a very rewarding experience'. There was certainly admiration and perhaps some envy in his statement that:
it is only a man of extraordinary intellect, and a man of tremendous energy who could make his contribution to both the organisational side of the Party's activities and to the Parliamentary sphere as well ... Clyde Cameron has bridged those gulfs. He performed notably in both areas.108
 At the same time that Toohey was acknowledging Cameron's versatility, he was implicitly admitting his own failure, partly of course due to lack of opportunity, to make the impact on parliament that he had on the Party. He was also paying tribute to Cameron's literary qualities. While Toohey never wrote a book, Cameron had already written one by that stage, and was to write several more during his years in retirement.109		 32
      Over the following decade Cameron was able to repay these compliments many times over. In a 'Thank you' letter in the early 1980s Cameron acknowledged his personal debt to Toohey as well as implying his own failings.
Jim, you have always been my best friend. And, although I haven't deserved it, your loyalty to me has never wavered. True loyalty, as dear old Chif. used to say, is to support a person even in times when you believe his judgement has been wrong. You've had to do that a lot in my case and I want you to know that I have loved you for it110
 Ten years later the Labor Party in South Australia renamed its executive room in the large Trades Hall on South Terrace 'The Jim Toohey Executive Room'.111 In a long and at times fulsome dedication speech, Cameron minimised his own role in the post-war reconstruction of the Party by declaring that 'Jim Toohey has a record without parallel in the South Australian Branch'. Eight months later Toohey died in the Western Community Hospital.112 The decline in his faculties in the last two or three years of his life had been rapid. The bright, cheerful, and energetic man I interviewed in 1988113 showed no signs of becoming the frail and withered figure who unveiled the plaque dedicating a room in his honour in December 1991.114		 33
      It is not difficult to assess Toohey as a person. There was a remarkable degree of unanimity among relatives and friends and even former enemies about the qualities he possessed. He and his wife of more than 60 years — they had married in 1937115— had had no children, so the tributes came from outside his immediate family.116 'A kind and gentle man' said one; 'kind, generous and loving' said another. The Port Adelaide sub-branch of the Party expressed its sadness at the passing of 'Gentleman Jim', calling him 'a true and dedicated worker for the Labor movement'. The Hindmarsh Federal Electorate Council, noting that he had been 'much loved and honored during his life', said that 'this life long Servant of the Party' would always be remembered with gratitude. In the Senate117 the minister for administrative services, Nick Bolkus — who lived in and represented the same part of Adelaide Toohey once had — described him inter alia as 'this very meek and gentlemanly person'. He was, he recalled, 'a person who was liked and trusted ... someone on whom people could always rely for a calm head, a calm voice, and a calm dose of advice'. Another senator from South Australia and a former secretary of the state branch, Chris Schacht, stressed his reasonableness and commonsense. Rosemary Crowley, the first female parliamentarian the state branch ever sent to Canberra, acknowledged his 'commonsense and friendly, generous calm in all sorts of forums'. 34
      No one was more likely to agree with these assessments than Cameron. However, in his many tributes to Toohey it was clear that what Cameron most valued in his former friend and colleague was what the Party always demanded, above all else, from its leading members. To him, Toohey was 'a very special person to all who knew him', largely because he was a man 'whose loyalty knew no bounds'.118 But loyalty to what or whom? To the Party or to Cameron? There is no doubt that Toohey was loyal to both. In the 1950s he derived little enjoyment from fighting and if necessary blighting the careers of people who were not only as devoted to the Labor Party as he but whose credentials as former working-class Catholics were as impeccable as his. But to Toohey these people were damaging the Party and, if necessary, had to be expelled from it. 35
      Toohey had written little, but what he had published clearly showed his willingness to avoid saying anything that might embarrass the Party. Nothing better illustrates this than his response to the changes the Party made to its longstanding and deeply felt 'White Australia' and immigration policies at its federal conference in Launceston in June 1971. A brief article he wrote for the branch's journal was a masterpiece of equivocation.119 Although he generally supported the 'White Australia' policy and was undeniably uneasy about its abandonment as a result of Dunstan's and others' passionate insistence, he was concerned to reassure 'old style' Labor members that the changes were minimal. 36
      And in the 1980s he refrained from criticising the Hawke-Keating governments as they progressively abandoned some of the positions he had spent most of the previous 30 years defending.120 Instances in which his loyalty to Cameron was exhibited would be too many to enumerate.121 But when the federal caucus held a ballot for inclusion in the shadow cabinet, Toohey, although ill and exhausted, stayed up until the early hours of the morning acting as a scrutineer for Cameron. On another occasion, when there was a move afoot in the state branch to force sitting members to retire at 65, Toohey, already retired, successfully opposed it, thus allowing Cameron to complete his final three-year term as the member for Hindmarsh. 37
   

Jim Toohey: an Assessment

 
The question that inevitably arises, then, is not so much 'What sort of person was Jim Toohey?' but 'What was his importance to the Labor Party in South Australia in the post-war period vis-a-vis Clyde Cameron?' With respect to the first question, Toohey was clearly neither an ideologue nor a particularly charismatic figure within the Labor Party. He was not regarded as 'a thinker' and he never enjoyed a large personal following. He was respected and appreciated rather than revered. But he was undeniably important to the Party in both the federal and state spheres. 38
      But, with respect to the second question — the one regarding his association with Clyde Cameron — there are at least three views one could reasonably accept. 39
      The first is that Toohey was, as his fondest admirers claimed, 'the father' of the Labor Party in South Australia. This view, as mentioned before, was expressed by Hayden in 1978 and has been echoed by many others since. A few years later Dunstan recalled that when he joined the Labor Party in South Australia in the early 1950s 'Jim Toohey, the secretary ... was the rock on which the strength of the branch, then and through later years of struggle, was built ... [H]e is a man of principle, determination, and sound good sense'.122 Cameron was not even so much as mentioned on the same page, although Dunstan's admiration for him is obvious on the next. In 1992 Bolkus described Toohey as having been 'the pivotal part of the troika consisting of himself (Toohey), Clyde Cameron and Geoff Virgo'.123 At the same time a younger senator referred to Toohey as someone who had 'cast a giant shadow over the Labor Party and the affairs of the state for many decades' and Schacht claimed that 'the success of the Labor Party in South Australia over nearly 50 years since the Second World War' was 'overwhelmingly' due to Toohey. While the last declaration exaggerates Toohey's importance, it is restrained compared with Cameron's claim that Toohey 'was easily the most loved, respected and influential member of the ALP this century'.124 That claim, at least, can be readily dismissed. 40
      The second view is that Toohey was never 'his own man', that he was really only 'a front' for Cameron. Indeed the view of the hostile Right was that Cameron was the real power in the branch and Toohey little more than his puppet. For instance, the National Civic Council always held this view. In 1981 its leader, arguably Australia's most famous Catholic layman, B.A. Santamaria, recalled that 'it was no secret that the withdrawal of the charter (for the Industrial Groups in South Australia) was due entirely to the opposition of Clyde Cameron'.125 Any role Toohey played in this event was hardly worth mentioning. Even some far less partisan works present the same picture. In 1970 Murray referred to Cameron as 'the dominating figure in South Australian Labor politics' in the post-war period while Toohey was but one of two 'lapsed Catholics' influenced, among other things, by 'Cameron's power'.126 A few years later, John Warhurst — a Catholic (but by no means a sympathiser with 'the Movement'), a former South Australian, and already one of the most promising political scientists in Australia — implied that the disaffiliation of the Industrial Groups in South Australia was brought about solely 'through the efforts of Cameron'.127 Like Santamaria, Warhurst seemed to think that Toohey had little to do with it. 41
      The third view is that the two forged a remarkably symbiotic and successful partnership. It was not that Toohey was more important to the branch than Cameron, nor that Cameron dominated or manipulated Toohey. Rather, they complemented one another. Hetherington and Reid's account of the 1959 state elections — really a comprehensive study of post-war politics in South Australia — suggests that it was as equal partners that Cameron and Toohey established the Centre-Left's control over the branch in the late 1940s.128 Ten years later Blewett and Jaensch referred to 'the mass party organisation dominated in the late 50s and early 60s by the two able Federal Members' (Cameron and Toohey).129 Jim Moss, probably the best-known communist in Adelaide throughout the 1960s and 1970s, referred to 'the Cameron-Toohey leadership of the ALP' in the early 1950s.130 Cameron actually claims that it was not he but Toohey who initiated the move against the Industrial Groups.131 According to him, one day in 1951 they were driving back to the city from Port Adelaide when Toohey suggested that Cameron and the AWU propose a motion at the annual state convention that the groups be dissolved. Cameron did that, and was violently abused by Jack Mullens (a leading 'grouper') the next time he attended a federal caucus meeting in Canberra. 42
      Of course, the three views are not entirely mutually exclusive. It is easy enough to accept that, in the early years of the partnership, Cameron was more the leader and Toohey his follower. But, in later years, there is ample evidence to suggest that it was Toohey rather than Cameron who persuaded the other to adopt a particular stance or pursue a particular course of action. And it is difficult to believe that such a partnership could have endured for nearly 30 years and been so effective had it not involved a great deal of compromise on both sides. As the years went by the mentor and his protégé increasingly became not merely colleagues in whose interests it was to cooperate but friends each genuinely concerned about the welfare of the other. It was a relationship not often seen in politics, one whose rarity was perhaps one reason for its success. It is hard to accept that one or the other, acting alone, could have achieved what they did. On the other hand it is not difficult to accept that two such people — whose union experiences were so similar but whose religious backgrounds, intellects, egos, temperaments, as well as personal and political behaviour were so different — could help each other enormously in situations where the talents of one were not enough while the talents of both were insuperable. Between them they laid the foundations for some of the most impressive achievements in Labor politics. From the late 1940s to the late 1970s the stability of the South Australian branch was the envy of branches in other states; in the mid 1960s Labor in South Australia ended one of the longest periods during which any Party had ever languished in the political wilderness; in the 1970s the Dunstan Labor governments made South Australia once more the nation's social laboratory. Not least of all, from the 1960s the branch nurtured a disproportionate number of the most talented figures the federal Parliamentary Labor Party has ever had. How much of this record of achievement might be attributed to Toohey and Cameron is impossible to assess. What should be conceded, however, is that no other duo has ever had such a far-reaching impact on the Labor Party in South Australia — and perhaps anywhere else in Australia. 43


Endnotes

1.  Louis M. Smith, 'Biographical Method', in Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln (eds), Handbook of Qualitative Research, Thousand Oaks, California, 1994, pp. 293–301.

2.  See, for instance, Amanda Foreman, 'History Gets a Life', 13 November 2002, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/O,923-478022,OO.html; Victoria Glendinning, 'What's in a Life?', 10 March 2002, http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/entertainment/books/articles/374.3734?version=1; Stephen B. Oates, Biography as History, Waco, Texas, 1991; Smith, 'Biographical method'; Philip Ziegler, 'Biography: the Narrative', in Ian Donaldson, Peter Read, and James Walter (eds), Shaping Lives: Reflections on Biography, Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University, Canberra, 1999, pp. 225–237. See also, John Robertson, 'The Historian as Biographer', RMC Historical Journal, vol. 3, 1974, pp. 27–33.

3.  Harry Knowles, 'Voyeurs or Scholars? Biography's Role in Labour History', in Paul Ashton and Bridget Griffen-Foley (eds), From the Frontier: Essays in Honour of Duncan Waterson, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 2001, p. 72.

4.  In this context it might be worth recalling one Australian historian's remark that many articles in Labour History were too dull (Gerald P. Walsh, Australia: History and Historians, School of History, Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra, 1997, p. 16. )

5.  Knowles, p. 74.

6.  In her study of the Australian Commonwealth Parliament, Joan Rydon observed that the Labor Party, especially the South Australian branch, has, more than any other Party or ALP branch, sent a large number of its older and most faithful former union officials and organisers to Canberra (Joan Rydon, A Federal Legislature: the Australian Commonwealth Parliament 1901–1980, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1986, p. 52).

7.  Christopher Schacht, Interview (face-to-face) with author, Adelaide, 17 January 2002.

8.  For an excellent analytical profile of Young see Ross McMullin, The Light on the Hill: the Australian Labor Party 1891–1991, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1991, pp. 324–325.

9.  Unless otherwise indicated, the information in the next three paragraphs comes from Commonwealth of Australia, Parliament's Oral History Project, Transcript, Mr James Philip Toohey interviewed by Mr Ron Hurst, 26 February — 2 March 1990, National Library of Australia, Tape 1, Side 1 (Referred to hereafter as Toohey transcript).

10.  Toohey transcript, Tape 1, Side 1, p. 2.

11. Advertiser, 22 March 1944, p. 3.

12. Advertiser, 22 March 1944, p. 3.

13.  Ron Gibbs, A History of South Australia, Balara Books, Adelaide, 1969, p. 233.

14.  John Sendy, Comrades Come Rally: Recollections of an Australian Communist, Thomas Nelson (Australia), Melbourne, 1978, p. 25.

15.  Bill Guy, A Life on the Left: a Biography of Clyde Cameron, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 1999, p. 66; Advertiser, 19 October 1948, p. 3.

16.  Clyde Cameron, Speech of dedication to James Philip Toohey delivered in the Jim Toohey Executive Room, Trades Hall, South Terrace, Adelaide, on Tuesday 10 December 1992 (14 pp.) (Referred to hereafter as Cameron, Speech of dedication).

17.  Cameron, Speech of dedication, pp. 3–4.

18. Advertiser, 10 September 1947, p. 3.

19.  R.L. Reid, 'South Australia', in John Rorke (ed.), Politics at State Level — Australia, Department of Adult Education, University of Sydney, Sydney, 1971, pp. 35–36.

20.  Other unions whose influence at various times was considerable included the Amalgamated Metal Workers Union (AMWU), the Australian Society of Engineers (ASE), the Electrical Trades Union (ETU), the Printing and Kindred Industries Union (PKIU), the Liquor and Allied Trades Union (LTU), and the Postal Workers Union (PWU). See Geoff Stokes and Richard Cox, 'The Governing Party: the ALP and the Politics of Consensus', in Andrew Parkin and Allan Patience (eds), The Dunstan Decade: Social Democracy at the State Level, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1981, p. 261.

21.  Cameron, Speech of dedication, p. 11; Clyde Cameron, James Philip Toohey AM, 20 August 1992, p. 2 (This is a four-page eulogy Cameron prepared and delivered in the wake of Toohey's death on 18 August 1992).

22. Advertiser, 25 October 1951, p. 1.

23.  R. Hetherington and R.L. Reid, The South Australian Elections 1959, Rigby Limited, Adelaide, 1962, p. 39.

24.  Traditionally, Catholics have tended to dominate most state branches whereas Methodists, in particular, have been conspicuous among the leaders and members of the South Australian branch (Hetherington and Reid, p. 11).

25.  In the late 1950s only 16 per cent of South Australians were even nominally Catholic whereas 25 per cent of Australians claimed they were (R.L. Reid, L.C.L. Blair and K.A.F. Sainsbury, 'The Government of South Australia', in S.R. Davis (ed.), The Government of the Australian States, Longmans, Melbourne, 1960, p. 340).

26.  'The consensus approach' has been examined thoroughly elsewhere and need not be rehashed here (Geoff Stokes, 'South Australia: Consensus Politics', in Andrew Parkin and John Warhurst (eds), Machine Politics in the Australian Labor Party, George Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1983, pp. 132–164. See also Dean Jaensch, The Hawke-Keating Hijack: the ALP in Transition, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1989, p. 1).

27.  It is easier to date the beginning than it is the end of 'the consensus method'. According to Cameron: 'Our work continued from that date (1946) until shortly after the dismissal of the Whitlam Government, when we both decided to pass our key to others. That ended a reign that lasted for thirty years' (Letter, Clyde Cameron to author, 17 May 2002).

28. Advertiser, 17 September 1948, p. 3; 18 September 1948, p. 3.

29. Advertiser, 19 October 1948, p. 3; Rydon, A Federal Legislature, p. 119.

30. Advertiser, 11 May 1953, p. 3.

31. CPD (Senate), 8 June 1955, pp. 717–722; 20 September 1956, pp. 376–377; 22 May 1957, p. 945.

32. CPD (Senate), 14 March 1961, p. 152; 23 August 1962, pp. 448–453; Advertiser, 24 August 1962, pp. 1 and 3.

33. CPD (Senate); Advertiser, 14 January 1969, p. 3.

34. CPD (Senate), 8 June 1955, p. 721; 28 September 1961, pp. 747–752.

35.  See also Advertiser, 27 August 1956, p. 1.

36. Advertiser, 1 December 1964, p. 8.

37.  As an example of something which says almost nothing see Toohey's speech on the conflict in Indo-China — delivered after the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964, but before the announcement of the commitment of Australian combat troops to Vietnam in April 1965 (CPD (Senate), 18 August 1964, pp. 75–81).

38. CPD (Senate), 1 May 1957, pp. 529–530; 9 November 1960, pp. 1441–1443, 1459–1461.

39. CPD (Senate), 11 August 1954, p. 126; 7 March 1962, p. 400; 4 March 1964, p. 198.

40. CPD (Senate), 19 September 1956, p. 333; 27 November 1957, pp. 1555–1558; 29 November 1960, p. 1784; 5 December 1960, pp. 2028–2029; 14 March 1961, pp. 143–153; 2 September 1965, p. 329.

41. CPD (Senate), 23 September 1953, p. 204.

42. CPD (Senate), 31 August 1961, pp. 332–334; 5 September 1961, pp. 345–346; 26 September 1961, pp. 634–639; 2 September 1965, pp. 329–331; 29 September 1966, pp. 815–820.

43. CPD (Senate), 12 November 1957, p. 1174; 18 April 1967, p. 845; 10 May 1967, p. 1306; 31 August 1967, pp. 442 and 444; 29 May 1968, p. 1245.

44.  Joan Rydon, A Biographical Register of the Commonwealth Parliament 1901–1972, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1975, p. 212.

45. Advertiser, 5 September 1950, p. 3.

46. Advertiser, 10 May 1969, p. 10.

47.  Cameron, Speech of dedication, p. 9.

48.  'Jim Began With Tips', Herald, April 1981, p. 2.

49.  See, for instance, Advertiser, 6 April 1948, p. 4; 13 December 1949, p. 3; Hetherington and Reid, The South Australian Elections 1959, p. 52.

50. Advertiser, 14 September 1954, p. 3.

51. Advertiser, 13 April 1956, p. 6.

52.  C.A. Hughes and B.D. Graham, A Handbook of Australian Government and Politics 1890–1964, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1968. p. 554.

53.  Reid, Blair, and Sainsbury, 'The Government of South Australia', especially pp. 339–341.

54.  Dean Jaensch, 'The Playford Era', in Dean Jaensch (ed.), The Flinders History of South Australia: Political History, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 1986, p. 243.

55.  See letter by W.R. Ninnes, Advertiser, 8 March 1950, p. 4.

56.  As a leading journalist in South Australia at the time put it, O'Halloran 'sometimes talked as if he were deputy to Playford in a coalition rather than Leader of the Opposition' (Stewart Cockburn, Playford: Benevolent Despot, Axiom Publishing, Adelaide, 1991, p. 217).

57.  Neal Blewett and Dean Jaensch, Playford to Dunstan: the Politics of Transition, Cheshire, Melbourne, 1971, p. 14.

58.  See, for instance, reports in Advertiser, 24 December 1953, p. 3; 24 June 1955, p. 23; 15 November 1957, p. 7; 24 August 1962, pp. 1 and 3.

59.  Blewett and Jaensch, p. 17.

60.  Christopher Schacht, Interview (face-to-face) with author, Adelaide, 17 January 2002; Blewett and Jaensch, Chapter 2, especially pp. 29–30.

61.  R.L. Reid, 'South Australia', Australian Journal of Politics and History, vol. 11, no. 2, August 1965, pp. 233–236.

62.  In March 1965, an anonymous commentator, whose description cum analysis of Adelaide was interrupted by the election, wrote: 'The Adelaide of which this CAB attempts to give a somewhat subjective impression is already an Adelaide of the past, the Adelaide of the Playford age whose 26-odd years ran out on March 6, 1965, during the course of composition' ('Adelaide', Current Affairs Bulletin, March 1965, p. 2).

63.  Patrick Weller and Beverly Lloyd (eds), Federal Executive Minutes 1915–1955: Minutes of the Federal Executive of the Australian Labor Party, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1978, pp. 611–613.

64.  See, for instance, Robert Murray, who refers to 'the unbroken South Australian delegation' (Robert Murray, The Split: Australian Labor in the Fifties, Cheshire, Melbourne, 1970, p. 227); and John Warhurst, who mentions that in March 1955 'only the South Australian delegation remained intact' (John Warhurst, 'The Australian Labor Party (Anti-Communist) in South Australia, November-December 1955: '"Molotov" Labor Versus "Coffee-shop" Labor', Labour History, no.32, May 1977, p. 69).

65.  Cameron, James Philip Toohey AM, p. 1.

66.  Murray, The Split, p. 227.

67.  Letter, Clyde Cameron to author, 5 July 2002, p. 2.

68.  Murray, The Split, p. 229.

69. Sydney Morning Herald, 30 April 1955, p. 3.

70. Advertiser, 13 May 1955, p. 6.

71.  Toohey transcript, Tape 3, p. 5

72. Advertiser, 15 February 1956, p. 2.

73.  Jack Kane, Exploding the Myths:the Political Memoirs of Jack Kane, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1989, p. 271.

74.  Kane, Exploding the Myths, pp. 125–126.

75.  Gil Duthie, I Had 50,000 bosses: Memoirs of a Labor Backbencher 1946–1975, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1984, p. 169.

76.  McMullin, The Light on the Hill, p. 282.

77.  Murray, The Split, pp. 227, 231, 259, 287, 294.

78.  Kane, Exploding the Myths, pp. 76–77, 89, 97.

79.  McMullin, The Light on the Hill, p. 282.

80.  Graham Freudenberg, Cause for Power: the Official History of the New South Wales Branch of the Australian Labor Party, Pluto Press, Sydney, 1991, p. 230.

81. Advertiser, 14 September 1957, p. 10.

82.  Chambers, who had been minister for the army in the Chifley government, was expelled from the Party. Although he was later readmitted, it marked the beginning of the end of his parliamentary career. His was 'the first open attack on Dr Evatt by a leading SA member of the party' (R.L. Reid, 'South Australia', Australian Journal of Politics and History, vol. 3, no. 2, May 1958, p. 247).

83. Advertiser, 27 January 1960, p. 2.

84. Advertiser, 9 January 1962, p. 9.

85.  Cameron, Speech of dedication, pp. 12–13; Cameron, James Philip Toohey AM, p. 3.

86.  Cameron, Speech of dedication, p. 10.

87.  McMullin, p. 280; Courier-Mail, 6 April 1955, p. 1.

88.  Cameron, Speech of dedication, p. 10.

89.  Laurie Oakes, Whitlam PM: a Biography, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1972, pp. 128–146; Graham Freudenberg, A Certain Grandeur: Gough Whitlam in Politics, Sun Books, Melbourne, 1978, pp. 34–37.

90.  Oakes, Whitlam PM, p. 139.

91.  Cameron, Speech of dedication, pp. 10–11.

92. Ibid., p. 13.

93.  Cameron was wrong on this last point. At least partly as a result of the intervention he masterminded, the ALP won several more seats in Victoria in 1972 than it had in 1969. However, it was so successful in other states that, had it not picked up those seats, it would still have won the elections (see D. Aitkin, 'How Much Does Victoria Matter?', Canberra Times, 29 April 1968; Neal Blewett, 'Labor 1968–72: Planning for Victory', in Henry Mayer (ed.), Labor to Power: Australia's 1972 Election, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1973, pp. 7 and 15).

94.  Peter Samuel, 'Socialism's Success Story: He Did it a Special Way', Bulletin, 28 June 1975, p. 15. See also the pictures of Toohey and Cameron on the previous page over the caption 'Senator Jim Toohey and Clyde Cameron: They Made the SA Branch of the ALP the Most Stable in the Nation'.

95.  Richard Yeeles (comp.), Don Dunstan: the First 25 Years in Parliament, Hill of Content, Melbourne, 1978, p. 17; Don Dunstan, Felicia: the Political Memoirs of Don Dunstan, Macmillan, Melbourne, 1981, pp. 26–28; Stewart Cockburn, 'Portrait of a Premier at 50', Advertiser, 13 September 1976, p. 5.

96.  Blewett, 'Labor 1968–72: Planning for Victory', pp. 9ff.

97.  Cameron, Speech of dedication, pp. 7–8.

98. Advertiser, 10 May 1969, p. 10.

99. CPD (Senate), 19 August 1992, p. 242.

100.  'Obituary: Historic Role Within ALP Recorded', Advertiser, 19 August 1992, p. 11.

101.  Interviewed separately, Neal Blewett, Clyde Cameron, and Christopher Schacht were in agreement over this issue.

102. Advertiser, 4 December 1971, p. 9.

103. Advertiser, 15 September 1973, p. 25.

104. CPD (Senate), 19 August 1992, pp. 239–240.

105. Advertiser, 3 June 1978, p. 4.

106. Advertiser, 5 June 1978, p. 4.

107.  The information in this paragraph is drawn from Letter, Cameron to author, 5 July 2002.

108.  Cameron to author, 5 July 2002

109.  Clyde Cameron, China, Communism and Coca Cola, Hill of Content, Melbourne, 1980; Unions in Crisis, Hill of Content, Melbourne, 1982; The Cameron Diaries, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1990; The Confessions of Clyde Cameron 1913–1990 (As Told to Daniel Connell), ABC Enterprises, Sydney, 1990.

110.  Letter, Clyde Cameron to Jim Toohey, 16 July 1981, copy in author's possession.

111.  'Party Honors Jim Toohey', Herald, Autumn 1992, p. 6.

112.  'Obituary: Historic Role Within ALP Recorded'.

113.  I was then researching the life and career of the state branch's longest-serving secretary, Frederick Furner Ward (1872–1954). See 'Never Favoured and Now Forgotten: a Tribute to "A Good Labor Man"', Labour History, no. 59, November 1990, pp. 1–15. Both Cameron and Toohey had known Ward intimately during the last 10–15 years of the latter's life.

114.  See the photos in Herald, Autumn 1992, p. 6; Spring 1992, p. 1.

115.  Joseph Alexander (comp. and ed.), Who's Who in Australia, Colorgravure Publications, Melbourne, 1950, p. 707. This appears to have been the first entry on Toohey in Who's Who.

116. Advertiser, 20 August 1992, p. 48.

117. CPD (Senate), 19 August 1992, pp. 239–242.

118. Advertiser, 20 August 1992, p. 48. All these tributes were printed in this issue of the paper.

119.  'Migration: the Truth', Herald, vol.1, no.2, September 1971, pp. 3 and 13.

120.  Cameron, James Philip Toohey AM, pp. 1–2.

121.  For the rest of this paragraph see Cameron, Speech of dedication, pp. 12–13.

122.  Dunstan, Felicia, p. 26.

123. CPD (Senate), 19 August 1992, pp. 239–242.

124.  Cameron, James Philip Toohey AM, p. 1.

125.  Bartholomew Augustine Santamaria, Against the Tide, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1981, p. 101.

126.  Murray, The Split, p. 126.

127.  Warhurst, 'The Australian Labor Party (Anti-Communist) in South Australia', p. 70.

128.  Hetherington and Reid, The South Australian Elections 1959, pp. 39, 48–49, 51.

129.  Blewett and Jaensch, Playford to Dunstan, p. 35.

130.  Jim Moss, Sound of Trumpets: History of the Labour Movement in South Australia, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 1985, p. 378.

131.  Cameron, Speech of dedication, pp. 8–9.

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