Bob Heffron

The Honourable Bob Heffron
Heffron as Premier in 1960.
30th Premier of New South Wales
In office 23 October 1959 – 30 April 1964
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Governor	Sir Eric Woodward
Deputy	Jack Renshaw
Preceded by	Joseph Cahill
Succeeded by	Jack Renshaw
5th Deputy Premier of New South Wales
In office 23 February 1953 – 28 October 1959
Premier	Joseph Cahill
Preceded by	Joseph Cahill
Succeeded by	Jack Renshaw
Member of the New South Wales Parliament for Botany
In office 25 October 1930 – 22 May 1950
Preceded by	Thomas Mutch
Succeeded by	District abolished
Member of the New South Wales Parliament for Maroubra
In office 17 June 1950 – 23 January 1968
Preceded by	New district
Succeeded by	Bill Haigh
Personal details
Born	10 September 1890 Thames, New Zealand
Died	27 July 1978 Kirribilli, New South Wales, Australia
Political party	Industrial Labor Australian Labor Party
Spouse(s)	Jessie Bjornstad

Robert James "Bob" Heffron (10 September 1890 – 27 July 1978) was one of the longest-serving New South Wales state parliamentarians. He was the Australian Labor Party Premier of New South Wales from 28 October 1959, to 30 April 1964.

Early years

"Bob" Heffron (as he was widely known) was born in Thames, New Zealand and left school at 15 to work in a gold-treating plant while studying metallurgy at the Thames School of Mines. At 19, he went to California to work and to Yukon look unsuccessfully for gold and he returned to New Zealand in 1912. He joined the New Zealand Socialist Party in 1913 and became a union organiser. He married Jessie Bjornstad in 1917 and they travelled to Melbourne to avoid military service. He moved to Sydney in 1921 as secretary of the New South Wales branch of the Federated Marine Stewards' and Pantrymen's Association of Australasia.

Political career

In 1927, Heffron contested Botany unsuccessfully on behalf of Lang Labor against Thomas Mutch, who had split from Jack Lang. He won Botany in 1930 and held it to 1950 and he was then member for Maroubra until 1968. In 1936, he began to organise against Lang, who had him and his followers expelled in August 1936. They formed the Industrial Labor Party, known as the Heffron Labor Party. In 1939, ILP was readmitted to the New South Wales Labor Party, under pressure from the Federal Executive of the party, and Heffron, William McKell and Lang contested the leadership of the reunited party, with McKell winning.

Once the state Labor Party had overcome the divisive 1930s legacy of Lang and had regained office in 1941, Heffron became a cabinet minister. In the series of Labor governments which ruled New South Wales uninterruptedly from 1941 to 1965, Heffron always held a prominent place. His main portfolios were those of Emergency Services (1941-44) and, above all, Education (1944-52, 1953-59); in 1946 he published a book on educational policy called Tomorrow Is Theirs.

In youth a Catholic, he spent most of his adulthood – unusually for a New South Wales Labor politician at the time – outside the Roman Church. He unsuccessfully attempted to gain the Premiership upon the retirement of William McKell in 1947 (though McKell had hoped that Heffron would succeed him), and again at the departure of James McGirr in 1952. Finally, when Joseph Cahill died in office (October 1959), Heffron was elected Premier unopposed.

By this stage Heffron's best days were behind him; his reign coincided with the ever increasing political importance of television, on which his old-fashioned and rhetorical speaking style, honed on public platforms forty years previously, seldom appeared to advantage. According to future Premier Bob Carr (who eventually succeeded Heffron in the eastern Sydney electorate of Maroubra), the still-embittered Lang referred to Heffron as "Mr Magoo". In Robert Askin the New South Wales Liberals had, for the first time, a confident, tough, and photogenic leader, skilled – unlike Heffron – in TV debate, although Labor did respectably at the 1962 election. Heffron retired to the backbenches in 1964, his successor as Premier being Jack Renshaw.

Heffron died in the Sydney suburb of Kirribilli in 1978, aged 87, and was survived by two daughters.

Honours

Heffron was made honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Sydney in 1952 and University of New England in 1956, and an honorary Doctor of Science by the New South Wales University of Technology in 1955. The state electorate of Heffron was named after him and covers much of his former electorate of Botany.

External links

Parliament of New South Wales
Preceded by Thomas Mutch	Member for Botany 1930 – 1950	District abolished
New district	Member for Maroubra 1950 – 1968	Succeeded by Bill Haigh
Political offices
New title	Minister for National Emergency Services 1941 – 1944	Succeeded by Jack Baddeley
Preceded by Clive Evatt	Minister for Education 1944 – 1960	Succeeded by Ernest Wetherell
Preceded by Joshua Arthur	Secretary for Mines 1953	Succeeded by Francis Buckley
Preceded by Joseph Cahill	Deputy Premier of New South Wales 1953 – 1959	Succeeded by Jack Renshaw
	Treasurer of New South Wales 1959
	Premier of New South Wales 1959 – 1964
Party political offices
New political party	Leader of the Industrial Labor Party 1938 – 1939	Party subsumed into ALP
Preceded by Joseph Cahill	Deputy Leader of the Labor Party in New South Wales 1953 – 1959	Succeeded by Jack Renshaw
	Leader of the Labor Party in New South Wales 1959 – 1964