Jim Curran

James Lawrence Curran (15 April 1927 – 18 May 2005) was a NSW politician (Australia) from Gilgandra, NSW. He was an Australian Labor Party member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly from 1980 to 1981, representing the electorate of Castlereagh.

Early Life

Curran was born in 1927 at Gilgandra where his father, Gilbert Curran, had arrived in 1908 as a young man from Horsham, Vic, with his own parents, brothers and sisters. Gilbert Curran's father, Con Curran snr, had purchased Gilgandra's Royal Hotel in May 1908, and in early 1909 Gilbert purchased a block of land of 3,650 acres adjacent to the Marthaguy Creek, which had been subdivided from "Berida" station. Jim Curran and his brothers were raised on this farming property, named "Bundah", located sixteen kilometres (ten miles) west from Gilgandra township. He later attended boarding school at St Stanislaus College in Bathurst, and won a scholarship to attend Armidale Teachers College.

He was appointed as a teacher in mid 1947. He taught variously in Moree, Bourke and Sydney. He met fellow teacher June Duffy and they were married in Sydney in 1949. They had no children. After his father's death in 1957, Curran resigned from the Department of Education effective 9 Sept 1957 and moved to Malaya with his wife where they took up school teaching posts at a company-owned tin-mining town on the east coast. Here there was an international community engaged by the mine owners and they made lifelong friends from all over the world.

In 1960, after three years in Malaya, they returned to Australia. Curran gave up teaching to live at Gilgandra. He bought out his brothers' share in the family property "Bundah" and farmed there from 1960/61. He ran "Bundah" successfully as a mixed farm, growing wheat and raising sheep and beef cattle while his wife taught at Gilgandra primary school. He became heavily involved in the local farming community, serving as secretary and president of the United Farmers and Woolgrowers Association in Gilgandra, and being an active member of several farming and breeding groups. He was also a farming commentator for the local ABC station for a period. In 1971, he returned to teaching, running the library at Gilgandra High School and later taking up a position as library adviser to the Western Area for the Department of Education. In this role he had a stint in England on a library research grant. His wife June also taught in the library at Gilgandra High School.

Political Life

In 1977, Curran became the private secretary to the local MLA, Jack Renshaw, who was then Treasurer and had formerly been Premier of NSW [April 1964- May 1965). Curran and his wife had both become very involved in the Gilgandra branch of the NSW Labor party during the 1960s and 70s, being its President and Secretary for different periods. Jim Curran's uncle, J.G. "Jack" Curran of the Royal Hotel Gilgandra, had also been president of the Gilgandra ALP branch for several years in the 1940s and 50s and the Curran family were strong supporters of Jack Renshaw, who had been the Labor member since 1941 for the local State electorate, Castlereagh. Renshaw, with farming and agricultural origins, had a strong personal following in the conservative-leaning country seat, appealing to a diverse range of voters from well-to-do graziers, to small farmers to blue-collar workers and he ultimately held the seat for Labor against Country Party opponents for four decades straight.

Renshaw resigned from parliament in January 1980, and endorsed his private secretary, Curran, as his successor at the resulting by-election held a few weeks later in February. Like Renshaw originally, Curran had the appeal of being from the land and understanding farming concerns, while still standing for Labor values. Curran retained the seat for Labor after a fiercely contested campaign. However, a redistribution before the 1981 state election severely hampered his chances of winning that next full-term election. The redistribution had changed the face of Castlereagh. It abolished the adjacent seat of Burrendong held by National Country MLA Roger Wotton, removed some more traditionally ALP-voting towns such as Nyngan, and moved a large area of traditionally National Country Party-voting territory into Castlereagh, including a large section of Burrendong. Wotton contested Castlereagh, which had now notionally become a National Country seat and, predictably on the new boundaries, he succeeded in winning the seat from Curran.

After Politics

Curran remained involved in public life after his parliamentary defeat, while still living on and working his farm. In the 1980s he worked in New York for two years as Manager of Industrial Promotion for New South Wales, and after his return to Australia he was later appointed as an Assistant Commissioner for Western Lands. He died at Gilgandra in May 2005, survived by his wife, June.