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Eddie Ward


The Right Honourable Edward John "Eddie" Ward (7 March 189931 July 1963), Australian politician, was a long serving and controversial Australian Labor Party member of the Australian House of Representatives for 32 years from 1931 until his death in 1963.

Born and raised in Darlington, Sydney, Ward spent time variously as a labourer, boilermaker, tarpaulin maker, tramways worker and prize boxer before his political career. Ward was first elected to the Australian House of Representatives at a 1931 by-election for the seat of East Sydney in the midst of the Great Depression and the rise to prominence of Australian Labor Party New South Wales Premier Jack Lang whose policies for dealing with the depression were considered radically left wing. Ward was a Lang supporter and gained notoriety soon after his election when Prime Minister and ALP leader James Scullin refused to allow Ward into the ALP caucus. In response, Lang and his supporters left the ALP to form the Lang Labor Party and voted with the opposition on a no-confidence motion to bring down the Scullin government.

Ward lost his seat later that year to the United Australia Party at the federal election as the Labor vote was split between Ward and the official ALP candidate. As luck would have it, the sudden death of the newly elected East Sydney MP led to another by election in early 1932 which Ward, again standing as a Lang Labor candidate, duly won.

Ward remained in Lang Labor until 1936, when he returned to the ALP, but would continue to have a prickly relationship with many of his Labor colleagues for the rest of his life.

One such issue that set Ward apart from his parliamentary colleagues was his opposition to any form of defence spending. During the 1936 budget debate, he argued that any funding earmarked for defence would be better spent on welfare and unemployment relief. In reference to a move to increase the size of the Royal Australian Navy, Ward said

“I wonder if such vessels are really needed for the defence of Australia, or whether they are not required for the purpose of helping other peoples defend rich possessions in other parts of the world.”

While in retrospect, Ward’s opposition to defence spending would appear to be foolhardy in lieu of would occur in the following years but his stance reflected the thinking of many Australians at the time.

While in opposition during the early years of World War II, Ward discovered the existence of the 'Brisbane Line' plan, whereby the Menzies government had decided, that in the event of enemy invasion, Australia would have been defended by the concentration of Australian military forces on a line drawn from Brisbane to Adelaide, meaning that large tracts of Australia would have been abandoned to the Japanese. The public reaction to this plan is said to have contributed to the ALP's victory at the 1941 federal poll, after which, Ward entered the ministry of new Prime Minister John Curtin.

Ward served as Minister for Labour and National Service before being moved to Minister for Transport and Minister for External Territories in 1943 (many considered this a demotion, as “the Army had the Transport and the Japs [Japanese] had the external territories”, leaving Ward with little to administer.

Following the death of Curtin in 1945, Ward nominated for preselection for Prime Minister but lost to Ben Chifley. Ward would continue to harbour leadership aspirations throughout the rest of his career and rarely had a friendly working relationship with the ALP leader.

Ward remained in the public spotlight after World War II when he vigorously opposed the Bretton Woods Agreement and Australia joining the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction (later named the World Bank) as he believed international financiers were responsible for the Depression in Australia during the 1930s. Ward argued that signing Bretton Woods would “enthrone a World Dictatorship of private finance, more complete and terrible than any Hitlerite dream” destroy Australian democracy, pervert and paganise Christian ideals and endanger world peace. It was outbursts like these that would continue to stymie his leadership ambitions within the Labor Party.

Unable to stay out of the limelight, Ward was a subject of an apparently drunken parliamentary outburst by Menzies during a discussion of the proposed Anti-Communist bill. Ward though was less than polite about Menzies in reply, calling him "a posturing individual with the scowl of a Mussolini, the bombast of a Hitler and the physical proportions of a Göring."

His highest contempt however was for those who he considered had betrayed the working class. He refused an invitation to a function celebrating former Labor turned Nationalist Prime Minister Billy Hughes' 50 years in parliament, saying "I don't eat cheese", a reference to Labor tradition whereby any one leaving the ALP is considered a "rat".

Following the 1951 election, Ward nominated for Deputy Leader of the Labor Party but was beaten by Herbert Evatt, and then continuing a trend, he again nominated for deputy leader in 1960, this time losing narrowly to future Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. In 1961, upon the defeat of Earle Page, Ward became the longest serving member of the House. However, with the end of his leadership aspirations and the onset of advanced arteriosclerosis and heart disease, Ward was gradually losing political importance although he was still seen as an elder statesman of the Labor Party.

He was still serving as Member for East Sydney when he died of a heart attack aged only 64 after years of ill health. Asked when he knew that his health was failing he said it was when he ‘took a swing at Gough Whitlam, and missed’.

Last updated: 05-09-2005 20:34:50
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