Moses Gabb

Joel Moses Gabb (21 November 1882 – 6 March 1951) was an Australian politician. He was a member of the Australian House of Representatives from 1919 to 1934, representing the electorate of Angas. He represented the Australian Labor Party until resigning during the 1931 Labor split; however, he did not join the United Australia Party along with the other dissident MPs, and instead remained in parliament as an independent.

Early life, missionary and business work

Gabb was born in Glenelg, and was educated at St Peter's College. He worked for printers A. & E. Lewis and then for grocers Barns, Stobie, & Co. after leaving school. He had studied at night to become a Methodist missionary while working at the grocers, and after qualifying for home mission work, worked from 1905 reopening a mission on Kangaroo Island, then at churches in Cockburn, Silverton, Kalangadoo and Penola, and on the Tea Tree Gully–Modbury circuit. He passed as a candidate for ministry and studied at Prince Alfred College in 1908, before spending two and a half years preaching from a motor launch on the Murray River between Swan Reach and Loxton. He then left missionary work because of doctrinal differences, did not enter the ministry, and instead opened a store at Alberton until his election to parliament. He married Florence Ethel Hobbs on 9 October 1912. He was publicly involved in the campaign against conscription during World War I, and unsuccessfully contested the 1918 state election in the electorate of Barossa, narrowly losing to Sir Richard Butler. Gabb was a strict teetotaller.

Federal politics

In 1919, he was elected to the Australian House of Representatives as the Labor member for Angas, defeating long-serving Nationalist MP and Minister for Home and Territories Paddy Glynn. He drew public attention in 1920 when he refused to accept a salary increase from £600 to £1,000. He was known for often calling quorum when the amount of MPs in the parliamentary chamber was low, believing that its strict application forced MPs to do their elected duties. Unlike his colleagues, did not join the new United Australia Party and instead remained in parliament as an independent. He responded to criticism for wasting parliamentary time with quorum calls in May by stating "if the economy were really considered this show [parliament] would be shut down" and "close it and let me act as Mussolini and I will run things in a better way!"

He was re-elected as an independent with the support of the Emergency Committee of South Australia at the 1931 federal election. Gabb's seat of Angas was abolished in a redistribution prior to the 1934 election, at which he retired. He contested the 1938 state election as an independent, nominating against Premier Richard Layton Butler in his seat of Light, but was unsuccessful. Gabb rarely listened to radio coverage of politics in later years because he felt broadcasting was bringing Parliament into disrepute. He killed himself at his Rosewater home in 1951, and was cremated.