Vince Gair

Vincent Clair Gair (25 February 190111 November 1980) His parents were founding members of the Labor Party in Queensland in the 1890s. He began work with the Department of Railways upon the family's move to Dutton Park, Queensland. In 1916 he joined the Labor Party. He married Florence Glynn in 1924. and reportedly incurred the displeasure of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane, James Duhig.

Gair worked at consolidating his hold on the marginal electorate, at which he was largely successful except in the 1938 election, when a newly formed Protestant Labor Party targeted his seat. He fended off the challenge and retained a low profile in Parliament. In 1941, Gair's only daughter from his first marriage died. In 1944 he remarried, to Ellen Mary Sexton;

Gair was a backbencher for ten years during the William Forgan Smith government before being appointed as Secretary for Mines under the elderly Frank Cooper in 1942. The same year he became Minister for Labour and Employment (later Labour and Industry), and in 1947 he was elected by his colleagues as Deputy Premier. In 1950 he also became Treasurer. Gair had not previously held office in a trade union. Multiple Labor parliamentarians in Queensland in particular were closely aligned with the Australian Workers' Union (AWU). Premier Edward Hanlon was the first in a succession of Queensland premiers not to be linked with the AWU, and this fact helped bring about a reduction in the union's political influence.

In 1948, the Industrial Groups associated with the Catholic Movement of B. A. Santamaria were introduced into Queensland to combat the influence of the Communist Party of Australia in the trade unions. The Industrial Groups (whose members were known as Groupers) were supported by Gair, who hoped to use them to cement his personal power base within the party's organisational wing, as well as by union leader Joe Bukowski and the AWU. When conflict with the Groupers precipitated a national split in the ALP, leading to the formation of the breakaway Democratic Labor Party (DLP), the national organisation of the AWU swung its support behind ALP leader Dr H. V. Evatt and disbanded the Groups. This would later deprive Gair of a potential source of support within the party organisation. Hanlon died on 15 January 1952 and Gair, having been acting premier since the previous August, was elected by the ALP Caucus to succeed him on 17 January.

Gair came into conflict with Bukowski when the AWU in 1955 began making allegations that there was corruption in the process of granting and extending pastoral leases in the state. In July of that year, members of the AWU executive met Gair. According to an account they gave later, Gair promised them an inquiry, although Gair denied ever having promised any such thing. Bukowski publicly expressed a desire to appear before the Bar of Parliament to detail his allegations, in which he was supported by Frank Nicklin, then leader of the Opposition; but Gair defeated his motion in parliament.

In February 1956, Ian Wood, a Liberal Party Senator for Queensland, alleged that the government had demanded payments from pastoralists in order to ensure the extension of pastoral leases, and that these payments had been diverted to Labor Party funds. Gair immediately set up a royal commission, which resulted in the laying of criminal charges against Lands Minister Tom Foley. Foley was acquitted of the specific charges laid against him, but was found by the Royal Commission's report to be responsible for the improper solicitation of party donations, for which he was dismissed from cabinet and expelled from the Labor Party.

Gair discovered that the AWU had gained its information about the scandal from a senior public official, Vivian Creighton. Gair pressed for Creighton's resignation on the grounds of official misconduct. Creighton was summoned to appear before the Bar of Parliament to explain his actions but was later dismissed by cabinet. Gair easily won the elections of May 1956.

An election was called for 3 August, in which both the QLP and the ALP lost ground. The two Labor factions won only 31 seats between them to the Coalition's 42. Gair was re-elected at South Brisbane as a QLP candidate. Nicklin became Premier and for the first time in 25 years and only the second time since 1915, a Labor Government was out of office in Queensland. The ALP would not return to power in Queensland until 1989.

Federal politics

Although he was no longer Premier, Gair continued to lead the QLP, which was reduced to 11 members after the 1957 election. However, he was defeated at South Brisbane at the 1960 state election. In 1964 he was elected as a DLP Senator for Queensland.

He became the second former Queensland Premier after Anderson Dawson to be elected to Federal Parliament as a Queensland representative. Two other former Premiers Tom Ryan and Ted Theodore had also served in Federal Parliament but were elected as New South Wales representatives in the House of Representatives.

On his election to the Senate, Gair became the federal DLP's leader, a post he held until 1973. In 1974, when the Federal Labor government of Gough Whitlam was desperately attempting to gain a majority in the Senate, Whitlam tried to create an extra vacancy in Queensland for the upcoming Senate election so as to gain the ALP an increased chance of winning an extra Senate seat.

Whitlam approached Gair with the offer of the position of Ambassador to Ireland and not as a reconciliation with an ALP deflector in Gair, which Gair accepted on 14 March. Whitlam intended to keep the appointment confidential until 2 April, when Gair would tender his resignation from his Senate seat retroactive to 20 March, when Dublin cabled its acceptance of Gair's appointment to Canberra. This would force the issuing of writs for the election of six Senators from Queensland, not five as would normally have been the case. Labor would have a realistic chance of winning three of those seats, and with it control of the Senate. Gair's actions helped to precipitate a double dissolution. After the 18 May election, the ALP remained without control of the Senate. The 1974 election marked the electoral demise of the DLP, which lost all four of its remaining seats, largely as a backlash against Gair's actions. He also frequently criticised Opposition Leader Billy Snedden. After the Fraser government was confirmed to office at the 1975 election, Foreign Minister Andrew Peacock had Gair recalled on 21 January 1976, not for political reasons, but because he was unfit for diplomacy.