Jim Bacon
Encyclopedia
James Alexander Bacon, AC (15 May 195020 June 2004) was Premier
of Tasmania
from 1998 to 2004.
; his father Frank, a doctor, died when Jim was twelve, leaving him to be raised by his mother Joan. He was educated at Scotch College
and later at Monash University
, but he did not graduate. At Monash he was a Maoist
student leader. Jim moved to Western Australia and after going back on the job as a labourer again became an official of the Builders Labourers Federation
, which later sent him to Tasmania as an organiser. He later became leader of the trade union movement as Secretary of the Tasmanian Trades & Labor Council
.
Having abandoned Communism
and joined the Australian Labor Party
, Bacon was elected as a Member of the House of Assembly in 1996. He became leader of the Tasmanian Labor Party in 1997 and won the state election in 1998, defeating the Liberal Party
government under Tony Rundle
. His government was re-elected in 2002 in a landslide victory for his party.
ferries, and beginning a ferry run between Devonport
and Sydney
. (However, the Sydney service has since proven unsuccessful and was discontinued in 2006.) He controversially appointed Richard Butler
to the office Governor of Tasmania in 2003. One of the Bacon Government's most notable achievements was to wipe out a $1.6 billion state net debt in only six years. Other achievements included huge increases in tourist numbers, leading social policies, partnerships between state and local governments, turning Tasmanian Government entities, such as Hydro Tasmania, into profit-generating businesses (one of the election-winning strategies was to propose this as opposed to selling them), bringing two AFL
clubs to play regular home and away matches in Tasmania (Hawthorn Football Club
and St Kilda Football Club) and improving the general feeling of confidence in individuals and businesses within the state of Tasmania.
. On 23 February 2004, Bacon subsequently announced that he would take a four week leave of absence from his role of Premier so that he could explore treatment options. After news that Jim had little time left, he stood aside as Premier in March 2004, to spend with his family and friends whatever time was left to him. Paul Lennon
, who had been Deputy Premier, succeeded Bacon as Tasmania's 42nd Premier.
Bacon, a 35-year smoker, died as a result of the cancer on 20 June 2004, at Calvary Hospital
in Hobart. A state funeral
was held on 25 June; many state and federal politicians (from both major parties) attended, including Liberal Prime Minister John Howard
, all the state Premiers, Opposition Leader Mark Latham
, former Opposition Leader Simon Crean
, and former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam
.
in August 2004.
His appointment as a Companion of the Order of Australia
was announced in June 2005 but made effective from 13 May 2004. The Order of Australia is not awarded posthumously, but Bacon had been nominated before his death.
The Jim Bacon Foundation was established in his honour to "provide practical support and financial assistance to cancer patients and their families by making funds available to organisations that offer cancer treatment and palliative care services".
, Janet and Mary.
Jim had a twenty-year partnership with Lynnette Francis, and they had two sons, Mark and Scott
. Scott Bacon was elected to the Tasmanian House of Assembly at the 2010 state election.
Later Jim married Honey Hogan, who had been a croupier and the public face of Australia's first casino: Wrest Point Hotel Casino
when it opened in 1973. This marriage gave him a stepson, Shane.
Premiers of the Australian states
The Premiers of the Australian states are the de facto heads of the executive governments in the six states of the Commonwealth of Australia. They perform the same function at the state level as the Prime Minister of Australia performs at the national level. The territory equivalents to the...
of Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
from 1998 to 2004.
Early life
Bacon was born in MelbourneMelbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
; his father Frank, a doctor, died when Jim was twelve, leaving him to be raised by his mother Joan. He was educated at Scotch College
Scotch College, Melbourne
Scotch College, Melbourne is an independent, Presbyterian, day and boarding school for boys, located in Hawthorn, an inner-eastern suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia....
and later at Monash University
Monash University
Monash University is a public university based in Melbourne, Victoria. It was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. Monash is a member of Australia's Group of Eight and the ASAIHL....
, but he did not graduate. At Monash he was a Maoist
Maoism
Maoism, also known as the Mao Zedong Thought , is claimed by Maoists as an anti-Revisionist form of Marxist communist theory, derived from the teachings of the Chinese political leader Mao Zedong . Developed during the 1950s and 1960s, it was widely applied as the political and military guiding...
student leader. Jim moved to Western Australia and after going back on the job as a labourer again became an official of the Builders Labourers Federation
Builders Labourers Federation
The Builders Labourers Federation is an Australian trade union organisation which existed from 1911 until 1972, and from 1976 until 1986, when it was permanently deregistered in various Australian States by the federal Labor government and some state governments of the time. This occurred in the...
, which later sent him to Tasmania as an organiser. He later became leader of the trade union movement as Secretary of the Tasmanian Trades & Labor Council
Tasmanian Trades & Labor Council
The Tasmanian Trades & Labor Council, also known as Unions Tasmania, is a representative body of trade union organisations in the State of Tasmania, Australia. It is the peak union body in Tasmania, made up of affiliated unions who represent more than 40,000 workers...
.
Having abandoned Communism
Communist Party of Australia
The Communist Party of Australia was founded in 1920 and dissolved in 1991; it was succeeded by the Socialist Party of Australia, which then renamed itself, becoming the current Communist Party of Australia. The CPA achieved its greatest political strength in the 1940s and faced an attempted...
and joined the Australian Labor Party
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
, Bacon was elected as a Member of the House of Assembly in 1996. He became leader of the Tasmanian Labor Party in 1997 and won the state election in 1998, defeating the Liberal Party
Liberal Party of Australia
The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...
government under Tony Rundle
Tony Rundle
Anthony Maxwell Rundle AO was the Premier of the Australian State of Tasmania from 18 March 1996 to 14 September 1998. He succeeded Ray Groom and was succeeded himself by Jim Bacon. He is a Liberal who held the seat of Braddon between 1986 and 2002. A former journalist, he is married to...
. His government was re-elected in 2002 in a landslide victory for his party.
Premier
His time in office was said to have been hugely successful, for the state economy as a whole, for his popularity with the people of the state, and also for tourism with the introduction of two more Bass StraitBass Strait
Bass Strait is a sea strait separating Tasmania from the south of the Australian mainland, specifically the state of Victoria.-Extent:The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Bass Strait as follows:...
ferries, and beginning a ferry run between Devonport
Devonport, Tasmania
-Sport:The Devonport Football Club is an Australian Rules team competing in the Tasmanian Statewide League. The Devonport Rugby Club is a Rugby Union team competing in the Tasmanian Rugby Union Statewide League...
and Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
. (However, the Sydney service has since proven unsuccessful and was discontinued in 2006.) He controversially appointed Richard Butler
Richard Butler (diplomat)
Richard William Butler AC has served as an Australian diplomat, a United Nations weapons inspector and the Governor of Tasmania.-Life and career:...
to the office Governor of Tasmania in 2003. One of the Bacon Government's most notable achievements was to wipe out a $1.6 billion state net debt in only six years. Other achievements included huge increases in tourist numbers, leading social policies, partnerships between state and local governments, turning Tasmanian Government entities, such as Hydro Tasmania, into profit-generating businesses (one of the election-winning strategies was to propose this as opposed to selling them), bringing two AFL
Australian Football League
The Australian Football League is both the governing body and the major professional competition in the sport of Australian rules football...
clubs to play regular home and away matches in Tasmania (Hawthorn Football Club
Hawthorn Football Club
The Hawthorn Football Club, nicknamed the Hawks, is a professional Australian rules football club in the Australian Football League . The club, founded in 1902, is the youngest of the Victorian-based teams in the AFL. The team play in Brown & Gold vertically striped guernseys...
and St Kilda Football Club) and improving the general feeling of confidence in individuals and businesses within the state of Tasmania.
Last year
On Friday 13 February 2004, Bacon received the diagnosis that he was suffering from inoperable lung cancerLung cancer
Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...
. On 23 February 2004, Bacon subsequently announced that he would take a four week leave of absence from his role of Premier so that he could explore treatment options. After news that Jim had little time left, he stood aside as Premier in March 2004, to spend with his family and friends whatever time was left to him. Paul Lennon
Paul Lennon
Paul Anthony Lennon is an Australian Labor Party politician. He was Premier of Tasmania from 21 March 2004 until his resignation on 26 May 2008. He was member of the Tasmanian House of Assembly for the seat of Franklin from 1990 until officially resigning on 27 May 2008...
, who had been Deputy Premier, succeeded Bacon as Tasmania's 42nd Premier.
Bacon, a 35-year smoker, died as a result of the cancer on 20 June 2004, at Calvary Hospital
Calvary Hospital, Hobart
Calvary Hospital is a Catholic not-for-profit private hospital, located in Lenah Valley, Hobart, Tasmania.Calvary provides specialised treatment in the areas of orthopaedic surgery, urology, gynaecology, neurosurgery, paediatric surgery, plastic surgery, vascular surgery, cardiology, respiratory...
in Hobart. A state funeral
State funeral
A state funeral is a public funeral ceremony, observing the strict rules of protocol, held to honor heads of state or other important people of national significance. State funerals usually include much pomp and ceremony as well as religious overtones and distinctive elements of military tradition...
was held on 25 June; many state and federal politicians (from both major parties) attended, including Liberal Prime Minister John Howard
John Howard
John Winston Howard AC, SSI, was the 25th Prime Minister of Australia, from 11 March 1996 to 3 December 2007. He was the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies....
, all the state Premiers, Opposition Leader Mark Latham
Mark Latham
Mark William Latham , an author and former Australian politician, was leader of the Federal Parliamentary Australian Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition from December 2003 to January 2005....
, former Opposition Leader Simon Crean
Simon Crean
Simon Findlay Crean is an Australian politician, and the current Minister for the Arts and Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government in the Australian Federal Government. He was leader of the Australian Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition at the Federal level,...
, and former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam
Gough Whitlam
Edward Gough Whitlam, AC, QC , known as Gough Whitlam , served as the 21st Prime Minister of Australia. Whitlam led the Australian Labor Party to power at the 1972 election and retained government at the 1974 election, before being dismissed by Governor-General Sir John Kerr at the climax of the...
.
Honours and legacy
Bacon was posthumously awarded the degree of Doctor of Laws honoris causa from the University of TasmaniaUniversity of Tasmania
The University of Tasmania is a medium-sized public Australian university based in Tasmania, Australia. Officially founded on 1 January 1890, it was the fourth university to be established in nineteenth-century Australia...
in August 2004.
His appointment as a Companion of the Order of Australia
Order of Australia
The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
was announced in June 2005 but made effective from 13 May 2004. The Order of Australia is not awarded posthumously, but Bacon had been nominated before his death.
The Jim Bacon Foundation was established in his honour to "provide practical support and financial assistance to cancer patients and their families by making funds available to organisations that offer cancer treatment and palliative care services".
Personal
Jim Bacon had four sisters: Jenny, WendyWendy Bacon
Professor Wendy Bacon is an Australian investigative journalist who now heads the Journalism Program at the University of Technology, Sydney...
, Janet and Mary.
Jim had a twenty-year partnership with Lynnette Francis, and they had two sons, Mark and Scott
Scott Bacon
Scott Bacon is an Australian politician. He has been an Australian Labor Party member for Denison in the Tasmanian House of Assembly since 2010. He was educated at Cosgrove High School, Elizabeth College and the University of Tasmania, where he studied Economics...
. Scott Bacon was elected to the Tasmanian House of Assembly at the 2010 state election.
Later Jim married Honey Hogan, who had been a croupier and the public face of Australia's first casino: Wrest Point Hotel Casino
Wrest Point Hotel Casino
The Wrest Point Hotel Casino was Australia's first legal casino, opening in the suburb of Sandy Bay in Hobart, Tasmania, on 10 February 1973.-History:...
when it opened in 1973. This marriage gave him a stepson, Shane.