Ted Holloway

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Edward James "Ted" Holloway (1875 - 3 December 1967), Australian politician, was born in Hobart, the son of a stonemason. He had little formal education and was apprenticed at an early age as a bootmaker. When he was 15 he moved to Melbourne, and later spent some time as a gold prospector in Western Australia. He also worked for a time in Broken Hill. By 1910 he had returned to Melbourne and worked as a boot machinist. He became an official of the Boot Trade Employees Association, and was also active in the Australian Labor Party. He was secretary of the No Conscription Committee during World War I. In 1916 he became secretary of the Melbourne Trades Hall Council, a position he held until 1929. He was a socialist and militant trade unionist, but opposed Communism and other revolutionary ideologies then current in the trade union movement.

At the 1929 federal election, Holloway stood as the Labor candidate against the Nationalist (conservative) Prime Minister Stanley Bruce, in his seat of Flinders south of Melbourne. His candidacy, in what was considered a safe Nationalist seat, was a protest against the Bruce government's plan to dismantle the arbitration system. But the Bruce government was thrown from office in a huge swing, and Holloway unexpectedly defeated Bruce in Flinders.

In Parliament, Holloway soon found himself in opposition to the policies of the Scullin Labor government, a government unable to deal with the Great Depression which began soon after the 1929 elections. Holloway, as the leading trade unionist in the Labor Caucus, opposed the deflationary Premiers' Plan (which reduced wages and pensions), and when Scullin accepted it he resigned his position as Assistant Minister for Industry, in June 1931. When the government fell at the end of the year, causing an election, Holloway transferred from Flinders to the safe Labor seat of Melbourne Ports, which he held comfortably despite Labor's heavy defeat.

In opposition, Holloway was determined that Labor would never again adopt what he saw as anti-working-class policies. When Scullin retired as Labor leader in 1935, Holloway opposed Frank Forde's candidacy to succeed him, on the grounds that Forde has supported the Premiers' Plan, and threw the support of left-wing members of Caucus to John Curtin, who won the Caucus ballot by one vote. Holloway thus became one of Curtin's most powerful supporters.

When Labor came to power in October 1941, Curtin appointed Holloway Minister for Social Services and Health. In 1943, when Labor won large majorities in both houses of the Parliament, Holloway became Minister for Labour and National Service. Under wartime regulations, thus gave him almost unlimited power over the labour force and the allocation of manpower. When Curtin died in 1945 Holloway again opposed Forde's leadership bid, helping to ensure that Ben Chifley, like him an ex-trade unionist, was elected leader.

Holloway retained his Labour portfolio under Chifley, and played a leading role in defeating the 1949 strike in the coal industry, which had been fomented by the Communist Party of Australia as a challenge to the Labor Party. This caused the rupture of some of his lifelong friendships in the left-wing of the union movement. When the Chifley government was defeated in 1949, Holloway, by now 74, retired to the backbench. He was made a Privy Councillor and retired from Parliament in 1951.

Preceded by: Frederick Stewart

Minister for Health 1941–1943

Succeeded by: James Fraser