Edmund Piesse

Edmund Stephen Roper Piesse (5 January 1900 – 25 August 1952) was an Australian politician. He was a member of the Country Party and served as a Senator for Western Australia from 1950 until his death in 1952. Prior to entering parliament he was a prominent farmer and businessman in Katanning, Western Australia.

Early life Piesse was born on 5 January 1900 in Katanning, Western Australia. He was one of three children born to Margaret Mary (née Chipper) and Arnold Edmund Piesse. His family was prominent in the local region, with his father and three uncles — Frederick, Charles and Alfred Piesse — serving terms in the parliament of Western Australia.

Piesse's mother died in 1902 when he was two years old. His father remarried in 1904 and had two more children with his second wife. Piesse attended the local state school until the age of ten, when he was sent to board at Guildford Grammar School, Perth. He left school in 1917 to manage the family farming property Langaweira near Katanning, during his father's illness. Piesse returned to farming after his war service, becoming master of the merino stud at Langaweira. He later served as a director of Katanning Flour Mills Ltd. and as chairman of the Katanning Stock and Trading Company. At the 1949 federal election, he was elected to a six-year term commencing on 22 February 1950. His term was cut short by a double dissolution but he was re-elected to a further term at the 1951 election.

In the Senate, Piesse supported the Menzies government and spoke mainly on Western Australian and rural matters. He was interested in taxation reform, arguing for simplified income tax assessments, reforms to income averaging for wool-growers, and for fuel tax collected by the federal government to be returned to the states for road works. His father had also committed suicide.