Mick Young
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The Honourable Mick Young |
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|---|---|
| Member of the Australian Parliament for Port Adelaide |
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In office 18 May 1974 – 8 February 1988 |
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| Preceded by | Fred Birrell |
| Succeeded by | Rod Sawford |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
9 October 1936 Sydney |
| Died | 8 April 1996 (aged 59) Sydney |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Political party | Australian Labor Party |
| Occupation | Shearer, unionist |
Michael Jerome Young (9 October 1936 – 8 April 1996) was an Australian politician. He rose through the Australian Labor Party (ALP) to become its National Secretary, before serving as a Labor member of the House of Representatives from the 1974 election to 1988. He was a senior minister in the Hawke government, and was a prominent political figure during the 1970s and 1980s.
Born in Sydney to Irish Catholic parents, Young attended school at Marist Brothers College in the Sydney suburb of Mosman. After his high school days he worked as a shearer and roustabout before becoming an organiser with the Australian Workers' Union in South Australia.
He was appointed as the party's South Australian state organiser in 1964, and his role in the first Labor electoral win for 30 years at the 1965 state election (the election resulted in Frank Walsh becoming Labor Premier) led first to his election as Secretary of the state branch in 1968 and later secretary of the federal party in 1969. Gough Whitlam, then Opposition Leader, hired Young as an adviser during this period.
Young again showed his substantial campaign management skills in the 1972 federal election, playing a significant role in the first ALP federal election win since 1946. He devised Labor's "It's Time" slogan, still considered one of the most effective vote-winning phrases in Australian history.
Touted as a potential successor to Whitlam as Labor leader, Young gained preselection for the safe Labor seat of Port Adelaide and was comfortably elected to parliament at the 1974 election. Labor under Whitlam suffered its worst-ever electoral defeat in late 1975; Young was promoted to the shadow ministry in 1976, and was given the Immigration and Ethnic Affairs portfolios.
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