Charles Jones (Australian politician)
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Charles Keith Jones (September 12, 1917 - August 7, 2003) was an Australian politician and government minister.
Minister for Transport (19/12/1972 - 12/06/1974) and Minister for Civil Aviation (19/12/1972 - 30/11/73) in the Second Whitlam Ministry and Minister for Transport (12/06/1974 - 11/11/1975) in the Third Whitlam Ministry.
Commonly known as "Charlie", C.K. Jones was born in Newcastle, NSW and was educated at Cooks Hill High School to the equivalent of the seventh grade. He then completed an apprenticeship in boilermaking at the BHP steelworks and Newcastle Technical College. He married Doreen Wright in 1939.
He first became politically active as a member of the Boilermakers Union and, subsequently, the various metal trade unions. In the early 1940s he became a union official and a delegate to the Newcastle Trades Hall Council.
He was elected to the Newcastle City Council in 1946, and in 1956, at the age of 39, became the youngest Lord Mayor of Newcastle, a position he held until he was elected to the Division of Newcastle at the 1958 election. He held the seat until he retired in 1983.
In the Federal Australian Labor Party, he was associated with the Left faction and was a close associate of Jim Cairns and Tom Uren. He became the shadow minister for Transport and Civil Aviation following Labor's crushing defeat at the 1966 general election.
Charlie Jones was commissioned as a minister with the election of the Whitlam Government in 1972 and served as the Minister for Transport until that government was dismissed on November 11 1975. During this period, Mr Jones attempted to improve the co-ordination of Australia's transport systems. Under the Australian constitution, intra-state transport was a responsibility of the various state governments. Consequently Australian transport had a significant degree of systemic inefficiency. Mr Jones proposed a model urban train carriage that could be used in the train systems of the major capitals and also attempted to inaugerate an Inter-state Commission as proposed by Section 101 of the Australian Constitution.
He was involved in providing air services to Papua-New Guinea when that nation became independent in 1975. He is reported to have said to Michael Somare, Papua-New Guinea's first Prime Minister; "You can talk until your black in the face, Michael, but Ansett are the niggers in the woodpile"[1]
He was awarded an Officer of the Order of Australia honour for service to politics and government in the 1984 Australia Day honours list and in 2001 was presented with a Centenary Medal for service to the Australian community.
