Clyde Cameron
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The Honourable Clyde Cameron AO |
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|---|---|
| Member of the Australian Parliament for Hindmarsh |
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In office 10 December 1949 – 19 September 1980 |
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| Preceded by | Albert Thompson |
| Succeeded by | John Scott |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
11 February 1913 Murray Bridge, South Australia |
| Died | 14 March 2008 (aged 95) |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Political party | Australian Labor Party |
| Spouse(s) | 1. Ruby Krahe 2. Dorothy Bradbury |
| Occupation | Shearer, unionist |
Clyde Robert Cameron, AO (11 February 1913 – 14 March 2008), Australian politician, was a member of the Australian House of Representatives for 31 years from 1949 to 1980, a Cabinet minister in the Whitlam government and a leading figure in the Australian labour and Georgist movements.
Cameron was born in Murray Bridge, South Australia, the son of a shearer of Scottish descent. He was educated at Gawler but left school at 14 to work as a shearer. During the very worst years of the Great Depression, he was unemployed, and the experience of joblessness was one that he never forgot or forgave. When he finally got work, later in the 1930s, he ended up having to travel to every Australian state and also to New Zealand. He was active in the Australian Workers' Union and the Australian Labor Party from an early age, becoming an AWU organiser and then South Australian State President and a Federal Vice-President of the union in 1941. From 1943 to 1948, he was the union's industrial advocate and taught himself industrial law. In 1946, he became State President of the Labor Party.
In 1939, Cameron married Ruby Krahe (always called "Cherie") with whom he had three children (twins Warren and Tania, and a second son Noel). In 1949, he suffered a personal crisis when all three children were afflicted with poliomyelitis (infantile paralysis). He also learned that his youngest son suffered from an intellectual disability. Although they all eventually recovered from polio, the ordeal permanently affected Cameron and contributed to the breakup of his marriage. In 1966, the Camerons were divorced and in 1967, he remarried, now to Dorothy Bradbury.
Cameron was the most powerful figure in the South Australian labour movement in the years immediately after World War II. At the 1949 election, he was elected to the House of Representatives for the safe Labor seat of Hindmarsh and left his brother Don (later a senator) in charge of the South Australian AWU. He rapidly made his mark as one of the most aggressive and uncompromising Labor members ever to enter the Australian Parliament. Cameron regarded the conservatives with a deep and personal hatred and made no secret of it. He rapidly emerged as one of the leaders of the left wing of the Caucus, led at that time by Eddie Ward, who became Cameron's mentor.
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