Reg Turnbull

Reginald John David "Spot" Turnbull (21 February 1908 – 17 July 2006) was an Australian politician. He served as a Senator for Tasmania from 1962 to 1974 and was a member of the Tasmanian House of Assembly from 1946 to 1961.

Turnbull was born in China to Australian parents and returned to Australia at a young age. He studied medicine at the University of Melbourne and began working as a general practitioner in Tasmania in the 1930s. He served as a military physician during World War II. Turnbull began his political career in the Australian Labor Party (ALP). He was elected to state parliament in 1946 and was appointed minister for health in 1948, also becoming state treasurer in 1956. He resigned from the ALP in 1959 after falling out with Premier Eric Reece and subsequently won re-election as an independent.

Turnbull was elected to the Senate at the 1961 federal election and was re-elected in 1967, attaining a high profile as an independent crossbencher sharing the balance of power. In 1969 Turnbull accepted leadership of the newly formed Australia Party, a successor to the Australian Reform Movement. The party enjoyed limited success at the 1969 election and he resigned from the party in 1970 to return to his independent status. He retired from politics at the 1974 election and returned to his medical practice.

Early life Turnbull was born on 21 February 1908 in Shanghai, China, the son of Bertha (née Widler) and William John Turnbull. His mother was born in Singapore, and his father was an Australian journalist working on the North China Daily News.

Turnbull's father died when he was a boy and his mother remarried to Enos Soren Thellefsen, a Danish diplomat in the Shanghai International Settlement. He began his schooling at Jewell's Private Day Boarding School in Shanghai, before completing his secondary education in Australia at Wesley College, Melbourne. At Wesley he was a classmate of future prime minister and parliamentary colleague Harold Holt. He was nicknamed "Spot" from a young age due to a prominent mole on his forehead. In September 1975, he was deregistered by the Medical Council of Tasmania on the grounds that he had engaged in professional misconduct. A 17-year-old girl alleged that Turnbull had "interfered with her" during an examination in Devonport in March 1975. No charges were laid against Turnbull and he denied the allegations, stating he was the victim of "a set-up job". He was eventually reinstated in December 1976 and ran a practice at George Town until his retirement in 1986. topping the poll in the seat of Bass. He denied the allegations and stated that Fitzpatrick had in fact offered to bribe him, which he reported to police. He was found not guilty of corruption in October 1958, and returned to his prior portfolios. Turnbull chose to recontest Bass as an independent, resulting in his automatic expulsion from the Labor Party. He was re-elected with a personal vote of 28 percent, a record for an independent.

Federal politics

Turnbull resigned from state parliament on 30 October 1961 to stand for the Senate at the 1961 federal election. he briefly served as leader of the Australia Party from August 1969 to January 1970. However, he ultimately decided not to contest the seat, on the grounds that he believed a double dissolution was likely and he did not have the funds to run multiple campaigns in a short amount of time. He was proven correct as the June by-election was followed 6 months later in December by the double dissolution 1975 Australian federal election caused by the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis. Turnbull did not nominate, still in the middle of the deregistration fight with the Medical Council of Tasmania, which lasted until his reinstatement in December 1976. It was the end of his political career.

Personal life In 1929, Turnbull married Elizabeth Ffrost, with whom he had three children. He was widowed in the mid-1980s and remarried in 1987 to Nell Fullerton , the daughter of surgeon John Ramsay. He died in Melbourne on 17 July 2006 at the age of 98.