Mick O'Halloran

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Michael Raphael O'Halloran (12 April 1893 – 22 September 1960) was an Australian Labor Party (ALP) politician, serving in the Australian Senate and as opposition leader in South Australia.

Born in Yanyarrie in outback South Australia, the Irish Catholic O'Halloran was educated at public schools before leaving to work on his parents' farm aged 13.

O'Halloran joined the ALP at 15 and was first elected to the South Australian House of Assembly Electoral district of Burra at the 1918 election. He lost the seat at the 1921 election, but regained it in 1924. He also made an astute move in 1924 by marrying Mary Frances Rowe on 14 August 1924. They had no children, but Mary would act as O'Halloran's electorate officer and advisor for the remainder of his political life.

Following his defeat at the 1927 election, O'Halloran worked as an organiser for the Labor Party until his election to the Senate at the 1928 election. He served as the Deputy Opposition Leader in the Senate from 1932 until his defeat at the 1935 election.

After a failed bid to re-enter the Senate at the 1937 election, O'Halloran returned to state parliament at the 1938 South Australian election as the member for Frome, then the largest electorate in South Australia, based around the town of Peterborough.

An eccentric, O'Halloran forbade any Labour people to enter Frome or campaign there and it became known as his personal fiefdom. Despite this, O'Halloran comfortably retained Frome for the rest of his career and succeeded Robert Richards as Leader of the Opposition on 10 October 1949, becoming the first Catholic to lead the South Australian state Labor Party in the process.

In his eleven years as ALP leader, O'Halloran lost four consecutive elections to the Sir Thomas Playford IV led Liberal and Country League (although the ALP gained a majority of the popular vote in each of these elections) but his leadership of the party remained unchallenged during this time.

O'Halloran used his influence within the ALP to support H.V. Evatt as federal ALP leader and resist overtures to join the Catholic influenced Democratic Labor Party, ensuring that the South Australian branch of the ALP remained free from the splits that occurred in Victoria and Queensland.

O'Halloran's working relationship with Playford would be unthinkable in today's political climate of adversarial politics. The two, despite their political differences, were close friends and dined together each week to discuss Playford's future plans for South Australia. In response, Playford would regularly publicly call attention to the important role O'Halloran played in the running of the state while O'Halloran once described Playford as "the best Labor Premier South Australia ever had".

Both men had a reason for this close working relationship; many of Playford's ideas were socialistic in nature (such as the development of state owned electricity boards) and as such were anathema to his conservative colleagues, meaning that he often required ALP support to get his plans passed by parliament.

O'Halloran meanwhile, realised that with the "Playmander" (Playford's version of the gerrymander) in place, there was little chance for the ALP to gain office and saw a close relationship with Playford as the ideal way to ensure ALP-friendly legislation was passed.

This partnership meant that O'Halloran was portrayed in the media as Playford's amenable offsider, leading the public to believe the key to South Australia's ongoing economic success was the status quo of Playford as Premier and O'Halloran as opposition leader. This may not have concerned O’Halloran a great deal, however; he appeared to be content to remain as Opposition Leader, once telling an acquaintance "I wouldn't want to be Premier even if I could be. Tom Playford can do more for my voters than I could if I were in his shoes."

Indeed, following the 1959 election, a cartoon highlighting O'Halloran's relief at losing yet another election was published and O'Halloran liked it so much he framed and hung it in his Parliament House Office.

O'Halloran’s cordial relationship with Playford also proved beneficial to him personally, as in the case where O'Halloran had eagerly sought to have an audience with the Pope for many years but had been informed that only Heads of State could meet with the Pope. When he sadly mentioned this to Playford, Playford, who as a Baptist, had no great interest in meeting the Pope, organised to see Pope Pius XII while in Europe to attend Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, taking O'Halloran and his wife with him.

O’Halloran's fondness for whiskey was renowned within state politics. He would regularly overindulge during parliamentary dinner adjournments, and Playford would thoughtfully adjourn the House early so as not to embarrass him. Similarly, Don Dunstan recalled an incident during the 1953 election campaign when O'Halloran arrived at a public meeting intoxicated, and had to be led away quietly before he fell over.

Despite these weaknesses, O'Halloran was universally liked and respected. Labor's most effective orator prior to Dunstan’s entry into politics, O'Halloran was a "decent, heavily built but gentle man who ... wore an air of sleepy benevolence", smoked a pipe and spoke with an Irish brogue. O'Halloran was still Opposition Leader when he died suddenly of a pulmonary embolism in Adelaide.

Upon hearing the news of his death, Playford publicly cried and served as one of the pallbearers at his state funeral (the first state funeral for an opposition leader in South Australian history).

In his eulogy for O’Halloran, Playford said that he had greatly respected O’Halloran because he knew O’Halloran always told the truth.

[edit] References

• Cockburn, S. (1991) Playford: benevolent despot, Axiom, Adelaide. ISBN 0-9594164-4-7
• Dunstan, D. (1981) Felicia: The Political Memoirs of Don Dunstan, MacMillan, South Melbourne. ISBN 0-333-33815-4
• Jaensch, D. (ed) (1986) The Flinders history of South Australia. Political history, Wakefield Press, Netley, South Australia. ISBN 1-86254-003-9
• O'Neil, B., Raftery, J. Round, K. (eds) (1996) Playford's South Australia : essays on the history of South Australia, 1933-1968, Association of Professional Historians, Adelaide. ISBN 0-646-29092-4