Ken Anderson (politician)

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Ken Anderson (1951)

Kenneth "Ken" McColl Anderson , KBE (born October 11, 1909 at sea off Adelaide , South Australia , † March 29, 1985 in Lane Cove , Sydney ) was an Australian politician of the Liberal Party of Australia (LP), who among other things between 1953 and 1975 member of the Senate and several times Minister.

Life

Insurance broker, World War II and local politician

Kenneth "Ken" McColl Anderson was the fifth of six children of Scottish immigrant realtor David More Anderson, who later was mayor of Ryde and a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly between 1920 and 1930 , and his second Sydney- born wife, Florence May McWhirter . He first attended the Ryde Public School and then the Petersham Boys Intermediate School and worked as an insurance employee until the Great Depression. He then followed his father into the real estate business in Eastwood and later bought the larger agency JG Stone & Co. in West Ryde, where he qualified as an auctioneer and real estate appraiser. After serving as a radio operator in the militia, he joined the Australian Imperial Force (2nd AIF) on July 2, 1940 during World War II . For the next fifteen months he was deployed as a lieutenant in the communications force of the 8th Division and served until the Japanese invasion of the Malay Peninsula . During the fall of Singapore on February 15, 1942 , he was taken prisoner by the Japanese and spent in the Changi POW camp. He was later used as a slave labor in the construction of the Thailand-Burma Railway . After the capitulation of Japan , he returned to Australia after his release in September 1945 and became a reserve officer on December 4, 1945.

After the war, Anderson was like before his father from 1949 to 1950 Mayor of Ryde and was on 17 June 1950 for the Liberal Party of Australia (LP) in the constituency Ryde in the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales (New South Wales Legislative Assembly) elected . In 1949 and 1951 he was also a member of the County Council of Cumberland County (Cumberland County Council) , the statutory body to monitor the planning of the growing Sydney. At that time, he sold his real estate agency to focus on his political career. He was also active from 1951 to 1953 as President of the Ryde Bowling Club .

Senator and Minister

Ken Anderson (1962)

He was defeated in the New South Wales state elections on January 14, 1953, but was elected a member of the Senate on May 9, 1953, after meeting incumbent Senator John Tate and former Prime Minister of New South Wales Sir Bertram Stevens in the Had defeated the Liberal Party preselection. In his first speech to the Senate on September 16, 1953, he declared: “I just want to do everything in my power to help my fellow men” ( “I just want to do whatever is within my power to help my fellow man ” ).

In the Senate he was a member of various committees and from 1959 to 1960 chairman of the Select Committee on Road Safety . Ironically, he was later injured in two road accidents. He also served as Chairman of the Board of the Ryde District Soldiers' Memorial Hospital from 1961 to 1964 . When Prime Minister Robert Menzies reshuffled his eighth cabinet on June 10, 1964 , Anderson was appointed Minister for Customs and Excise . He also held this ministerial office in the Holt I government (January 26, 1966 to December 14, 1966), the Holt II government (December 14, 1966 to December 19, 1967), in the McEwen cabinet (December 19, 1967 to January 10 1968) and in the Gorton I government (January 10, 1968 to February 28, 1968). After the formation of the Gorton II government , he took up the post of Minister for Supply on February 28, 1968 and remained in this position in the Gorton III government (November 12, 1969 to March 10, 1971) and from November 10 , 1968 March 1971 also in the McMahon administration . He was also between 1968 and 1972 as Leader of the Liberal Party in the Senate chairman of the government in the Senate. On October 23, 1970 he was beaten to Knight Bachelor (Kt) and has since had the addition of "Sir". In the course of a reshuffle of the McMahon government he became Minister for Health on August 2, 1971 and held this ministerial office until December 5, 1972, after the coalition of Liberal Party and Country Party had previously had one in the elections of December 2, 1972 Lost to the Australian Labor Party (ALP). In essence, Anderson was a conservative man, but his Calvinist Presbyterian principles gave him a social conscience that led him, as Minister of Health, to introduce measures to liberalize censorship, negotiate a new system for pharmaceutical services, and develop new funding arrangements for nursing homes. On January 1, 1972, he was also beaten Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE). Subsequently, he was a member of various committees again until he left the Senate on November 11, 1975. He also served as chairman of the Liberal Party in New South Wales between 1976 and 1978.

On June 17, 1936, he married Madge Martha Merrion, a cashier in the Presbyterian Church in Meadowbank . From this marriage a daughter was born. He died of complications from Alzheimer's disease in a nursing home in Lane Cove.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b KNIGHTS AND DAMES. In: leighrayment.com. November 2, 2018, accessed September 30, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Anderson, Ken
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Anderson, Kenneth McColl (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Australian politician
DATE OF BIRTH October 11, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH at sea off Adelaide , South Australia
DATE OF DEATH March 29, 1985
Place of death Lane Cove , Sydney