John Cain (senior)
Encyclopedia
John Cain was an Australia
n politician, who became the 34th premier of Victoria, and was the first Australian Labor Party
leader to win a majority in the Victorian Legislative Assembly
. He was the only premier of Victoria whose son also served as premier.
, near Bacchus Marsh
. His father, Patrick Kane, was an Irish
-born Roman Catholic who worked as a small farmer and contractor.
As a young man John Kane changed the spelling of his surname and converted to Anglicanism
. He left no personal papers and very little is known about his youth (so little, indeed, that reference works published during his lifetime, and shortly after his death, continued to give the year of his birth as 1887). He had little education, and worked from an early age as a farm labourer. By 1907 he had moved to Melbourne
, where he worked as a fruiterer in Northcote
.
(VSP), a Marxist party to the left of the Australian Labor Party
(although like most VSP members Cain was probably also an ALP member at the time). In 1915 he became an organiser with the Theatrical Employees' Union, and in 1916 he became a clerk in the Defence Department. He was sacked from this job because of his opposition to conscription
for World War I
, and became an organiser with the Clothing Trades Union. From 1915 to 1927 he was a Labor member of the Northcote City Council. In 1921 when many VSP members joined the new Communist Party of Australia
, Cain broke his connections with the left and became a mainstream Labor politician.
In 1926 Cain married Dorothea Grindrod, with whom he had two children. His son John Cain
was born in 1931, when he was already nearly 50. He sent his son to Northcote High School
and later Scotch College, Melbourne
, an unusual choice for a Labor politician at that time.
Cain was elected in 1917 to the Victorian Legislative Assembly
as MLA for Jika Jika, which was renamed Northcote
in 1927, a seat he held for 40 years. Victoria was Labor's weakest state, and there had never been a majority Labor state government. This was partly because of Labor's weakness in rural areas (dominated by the Country Party
) and partly because of the strength of Deakinite
liberalism
among middle-class voters in Melbourne. Most notably the lack of a Labor majority government was however due to the high degree of rural malapportionment existing in the state's electoral system, strongly favouring the rural electorates to the disenfranchisement of inner-city electorates, where Labor's vote was centralised.
Cain was assistant minister for agriculture in the short-lived minority Labor government of George Prendergast
in 1924, a minister without portfolio in the first minority Labor government of Edmond Hogan
(1927-28), and minister for railways and for electrical undertakings in the second Hogan government (1929-32).
When Hogan's government collapsed during the Great Depression
and Hogan himself was expelled from the Labor Party, Cain became party deputy leader under Tom Tunnecliffe. It was Wren's influence which led Labor to support the minority Country Party government of Albert Dunstan
from 1935 to 1943. Cain succeeded Tunnecliffe as Labor Leader in 1937.
In September 1943 Dunstan resigned, when his government lost a vote of no confidence
in the House of Assembly, the Lower house
of the Victorian Parliament. Cain became Premier for four days while the conservative parties composed their differences. Dunstan then resumed office and retained it with Labor support until November 1945, when he again resigned.
government under Ian McFarlan, Cain again became premier on 21 November 1945. Labor's lower house parliamentary position was much better than it had been in 1943, since the 1945 state elections had given Labor 31 seats to the Country Party's 18 and the Liberals' 13, with three independents.
With a majority in neither House
, Cain's government was unable to pass much legislation. On 2 October 1947 the upper house
, the Victorian Legislative Council
blocked his government's budget
to show its opposition to the federal Labor government of Ben Chifley
, which had announced plans to nationalise
the private banks. Although this issue had nothing to do with state politics, Cain was forced to resign and call an election for 8 November 1947, at which Labor was heavily defeated.
The 1950 election, however, gave Labor 24 seats to the Liberals' 27 and the Country Party's 13. Since the Liberals and Country Party hated each other, no stable majority government was possible, and this, together with the unpopularity of the new federal Liberal government, gave Cain his opportunity. In October 1952 the Country Party premier, John McDonald
, resigned and called early elections. Labor won 37 seats, the first time it had won a majority in the lower house, and Cain formed his third government.
, was organised by B.A. Santamaria and supported by the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, Daniel Mannix
). Conflict between left and right in the Labor Party grew increasingly bitter in the Cold War
atmosphere of the 1950s.
Nevertheless the Cain government was able to pass more legislation than any previous Labor government in Victoria had done. Major reforms were carried out in the areas of workers' compensation, tenancy law, long service leave, hospitals, public transport, housing, charities and the Crimes Act. Even some reforms to the electoral system were carried through the Council, where Labor and Liberal members united to reduce the malapportionment which had given the Country Party disproportionate representation since the 1920s. In its first two years the Cain government won the approval of the Melbourne daily papers The Age
, The Herald
and The Argus
. Nevertheless, Cain's third Government fell on 19 April 1955 when 19 expelled Labor lower house members aligned to "The Movement" "crossed the floor" against the government in a vote of no confidence, ironically the same procedure that initiated Cain's first government.
and Frank Scully. Protestant and left-wing ministers strongly opposed the Movement faction. In December 1953 the Lands Minister, Robert Holt
, resigned rather than introduce a Santamaria-influenced bill which would have promoted the settlement of Italian immigrants as small farmers in Gippsland
(a favourite Santamaria scheme which was seen as a plot to create a Catholic peasantry).
In early 1955 the Labor Party's federal executive began to expel Santamaria's supporters from the party. The Victorian branch then split between pro-Evatt and pro-Santamaria factions, and in March the pro-Evatt State Executive suspended 24 members of State Parliament suspected of being Santamaria supporters. Four ministers were forced to resign from the government. When the Parliament met on 19 April, the expelled Labor members crossed over to vote with the Liberal and Country Party members to defeat the government. At the election which followed in May, Labor was heavily defeated, winning only 20 seats to the Liberals' 34 and the Country Party's ten. Only one of the expelled Labor members was re-elected.
Cain was now 73, although he remained outwardly vigorous and his real age was a well-kept secret. He retained the leadership and declared that he would fight the next election against the Liberal premier, Henry Bolte
. In 1957, however, the ALP split spread to Queensland
, and Cain went to campaign for Labor at the state election which followed the fall of the Queensland Labor government. In Townsville on 9 August he suffered a stroke and died within a few hours, aged 75. Alfred Ernest "Ernie" Shepherd (1901-58) succeeded Cain as ALP leader, only to die himself little more than a year afterwards. Labor remained in opposition in Victoria until 1982, when Cain's son, John Cain, Jr.
, led the party back to government.1
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n politician, who became the 34th premier of Victoria, and was the first 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...
leader to win a majority in the Victorian Legislative Assembly
Victorian Legislative Assembly
The Victorian Legislative Assembly is the lower house of the Parliament of Victoria in Australia. Together with the Victorian Legislative Council, the upper house, it sits in Parliament House in the state capital, Melbourne.-History:...
. He was the only premier of Victoria whose son also served as premier.
Early life
Cain was born, one of 18 siblings, in Greendale, VictoriaGreendale, Victoria
Greendale is a town in central Victoria, Australia. The town is located in the Shire of Moorabool Local Government Area, west north west of the state capital, Melbourne...
, near Bacchus Marsh
Bacchus Marsh, Victoria
Bacchus Marsh is an urban centre and suburban locality in Victoria, Australia located approximately west of Melbourne and west of Melton. The population of the urban area is estimated at over 17,000 people, while the central locality is home to 5,566 people...
. His father, Patrick Kane, was an Irish
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
-born Roman Catholic who worked as a small farmer and contractor.
As a young man John Kane changed the spelling of his surname and converted to Anglicanism
Anglicanism
Anglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures. The word Anglican originates in ecclesia anglicana, a medieval Latin phrase dating to at least 1246 that means the English...
. He left no personal papers and very little is known about his youth (so little, indeed, that reference works published during his lifetime, and shortly after his death, continued to give the year of his birth as 1887). He had little education, and worked from an early age as a farm labourer. By 1907 he had moved to Melbourne
Melbourne
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...
, where he worked as a fruiterer in Northcote
Northcote, Victoria
Northcote is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 7 km north-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Darebin...
.
Political career
Around 1910 Cain joined the Victorian Socialist PartyVictorian Socialist Party
The Victorian Socialist Party was a socialist political party in Victoria, Australia in the early 20th century. The VSP was founded in 1906 in Melbourne, bringing together a number of older socialist groupings. A leading influence in the VSP's formation was the British trade unionist Tom Mann, who...
(VSP), a Marxist party to the left of 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...
(although like most VSP members Cain was probably also an ALP member at the time). In 1915 he became an organiser with the Theatrical Employees' Union, and in 1916 he became a clerk in the Defence Department. He was sacked from this job because of his opposition to conscription
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
for World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, and became an organiser with the Clothing Trades Union. From 1915 to 1927 he was a Labor member of the Northcote City Council. In 1921 when many VSP members joined the new Communist Party of Australia
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...
, Cain broke his connections with the left and became a mainstream Labor politician.
In 1926 Cain married Dorothea Grindrod, with whom he had two children. His son John Cain
John Cain II
John Cain , Australian Labor Party politician, was the 41st Premier of Victoria, holding office from 1982 to 1990.-Biography:...
was born in 1931, when he was already nearly 50. He sent his son to Northcote High School
Northcote High School
Northcote High School is a co-educational, state high school in Northcote, Victoria, Australia. It is situated at the southern end of the City of Darebin, on St Georges Road.Teaching from Year 7 through 12, the school has a population of around 1,450 students...
and later Scotch College, Melbourne
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....
, an unusual choice for a Labor politician at that time.
Cain was elected in 1917 to the Victorian Legislative Assembly
Victorian Legislative Assembly
The Victorian Legislative Assembly is the lower house of the Parliament of Victoria in Australia. Together with the Victorian Legislative Council, the upper house, it sits in Parliament House in the state capital, Melbourne.-History:...
as MLA for Jika Jika, which was renamed Northcote
Electoral district of Northcote
The Electoral district of Northcote is an electoral district of the Victorian Legislative Assembly. It currently covers the suburbs of Alphington, Fairfield, Northcote, Thornbury, and part of Preston. It lies on the northern bank of the Yarra River between the Merri and Darebin creeks.The seat...
in 1927, a seat he held for 40 years. Victoria was Labor's weakest state, and there had never been a majority Labor state government. This was partly because of Labor's weakness in rural areas (dominated by the Country Party
National Party of Australia
The National Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Traditionally representing graziers, farmers and rural voters generally, it began as the The Country Party, but adopted the name The National Country Party in 1975, changed to The National Party of Australia in 1982. The party is...
) and partly because of the strength of Deakinite
Alfred Deakin
Alfred Deakin , Australian politician, was a leader of the movement for Australian federation and later the second Prime Minister of Australia. In the last quarter of the 19th century, Deakin was a major contributor to the establishment of liberal reforms in the colony of Victoria, including the...
liberalism
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
among middle-class voters in Melbourne. Most notably the lack of a Labor majority government was however due to the high degree of rural malapportionment existing in the state's electoral system, strongly favouring the rural electorates to the disenfranchisement of inner-city electorates, where Labor's vote was centralised.
Cain was assistant minister for agriculture in the short-lived minority Labor government of George Prendergast
George Prendergast
George Michael Prendergast , Australian politician, was the 28th Premier of Victoria. He was born to Irish emigrant parents in Adelaide, but he grew up in Stawell in the Wimmera district of Victoria...
in 1924, a minister without portfolio in the first minority Labor government of Edmond Hogan
Edmond Hogan
Edmond John "Ned" Hogan , Australian politician, 30th Premier of Victoria, was born in Wallace, Victoria, where his Irish-born parents were small farmers...
(1927-28), and minister for railways and for electrical undertakings in the second Hogan government (1929-32).
When Hogan's government collapsed during the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
and Hogan himself was expelled from the Labor Party, Cain became party deputy leader under Tom Tunnecliffe. It was Wren's influence which led Labor to support the minority Country Party government of Albert Dunstan
Albert Dunstan
Sir Albert Arthur Dunstan, KCMG was an Australian politician. A member of the Country Party , Dunstan was the 33rd Premier of Victoria. His term as Premier was the second-longest in the state's history, behind Sir Henry Bolte...
from 1935 to 1943. Cain succeeded Tunnecliffe as Labor Leader in 1937.
First Cain government
The first Cain government lasted only 4 days, from 14 to 18 September 1943.In September 1943 Dunstan resigned, when his government lost a vote of no confidence
Motion of no confidence
A motion of no confidence is a parliamentary motion whose passing would demonstrate to the head of state that the elected parliament no longer has confidence in the appointed government.-Overview:Typically, when a parliament passes a vote of no...
in the House of Assembly, the Lower house
Lower house
A lower house is one of two chambers of a bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the upper house.Despite its official position "below" the upper house, in many legislatures worldwide the lower house has come to wield more power...
of the Victorian Parliament. Cain became Premier for four days while the conservative parties composed their differences. Dunstan then resumed office and retained it with Labor support until November 1945, when he again resigned.
Second Cain government
After Dunstan's resignation and a brief LiberalLiberal 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 Ian McFarlan, Cain again became premier on 21 November 1945. Labor's lower house parliamentary position was much better than it had been in 1943, since the 1945 state elections had given Labor 31 seats to the Country Party's 18 and the Liberals' 13, with three independents.
With a majority in neither House
Minority government
A minority government or a minority cabinet is a cabinet of a parliamentary system formed when a political party or coalition of parties does not have a majority of overall seats in the parliament but is sworn into government to break a Hung Parliament election result. It is also known as a...
, Cain's government was unable to pass much legislation. On 2 October 1947 the upper house
Upper house
An upper house, often called a senate, is one of two chambers of a bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the lower house; a legislature composed of only one house is described as unicameral.- Possible specific characteristics :...
, the Victorian Legislative Council
Victorian Legislative Council
The Victorian Legislative Council, is the upper of the two houses of the Parliament of Victoria, Australia; the lower house being the Legislative Assembly. Both houses sit in Parliament House in Spring Street, Melbourne. The Legislative Council serves as a house of review, in a similar fashion to...
blocked his government's budget
Loss of Supply
Loss of supply occurs where a government in a parliamentary democracy using the Westminster System or a system derived from it is denied a supply of treasury or exchequer funds, by whichever house or houses of parliament or head of state is constitutionally entitled to grant and deny supply. A...
to show its opposition to the federal Labor government of Ben Chifley
Ben Chifley
Joseph Benedict Chifley , Australian politician, was the 16th Prime Minister of Australia. He took over the Australian Labor Party leadership and Prime Ministership after the death of John Curtin in 1945, and went on to retain government at the 1946 election, before being defeated at the 1949...
, which had announced plans to nationalise
Nationalization
Nationalisation, also spelled nationalization, is the process of taking an industry or assets into government ownership by a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to private assets, but may also mean assets owned by lower levels of government, such as municipalities, being...
the private banks. Although this issue had nothing to do with state politics, Cain was forced to resign and call an election for 8 November 1947, at which Labor was heavily defeated.
The 1950 election, however, gave Labor 24 seats to the Liberals' 27 and the Country Party's 13. Since the Liberals and Country Party hated each other, no stable majority government was possible, and this, together with the unpopularity of the new federal Liberal government, gave Cain his opportunity. In October 1952 the Country Party premier, John McDonald
John McDonald (Victorian politician)
Sir John Gladstone Black McDonald was 37th Premier of Victoria from 27 June 1950 to 17 December 1952, except for a few days in October 1952 when Thomas Hollway led a brief Electoral Reform League government...
, resigned and called early elections. Labor won 37 seats, the first time it had won a majority in the lower house, and Cain formed his third government.
Third Cain government
Cain's government was hampered by the hostility of the Legislative Council (which until 1950 had been elected on a restricted property-based franchise and so always had a conservative majority), and also by tensions within his own party. During the war the Communist Party had grown greatly in strength in the trade unions which controlled and funded the Labor Party, leading a faction of anti-Communist Catholics to form within the party to fight Communist influence. (This body, known as The MovementThe Movement
- Music :* The Movement , an American rock/reggae band* The Movement , the house music act* The Movement , a Danish/German mod revival punk band* The Movement , 2003...
, was organised by B.A. Santamaria and supported by the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, Daniel Mannix
Daniel Mannix
Daniel Mannix was an Irish-born Australian Catholic bishop. Mannix was the Archbishop of Melbourne for 46 years and one of the most influential public figures in 20th century Australia....
). Conflict between left and right in the Labor Party grew increasingly bitter in the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
atmosphere of the 1950s.
Nevertheless the Cain government was able to pass more legislation than any previous Labor government in Victoria had done. Major reforms were carried out in the areas of workers' compensation, tenancy law, long service leave, hospitals, public transport, housing, charities and the Crimes Act. Even some reforms to the electoral system were carried through the Council, where Labor and Liberal members united to reduce the malapportionment which had given the Country Party disproportionate representation since the 1920s. In its first two years the Cain government won the approval of the Melbourne daily papers The Age
The Age
The Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...
, The Herald
Herald Sun
The Herald Sun is a morning tabloid newspaper based in Melbourne, Australia. It is published by The Herald and Weekly Times, a subsidiary of News Limited, itself a subsidiary of News Corporation. It is available for purchase throughout Melbourne, Regional Victoria, Tasmania, the Australian Capital...
and The Argus
The Argus (Australia)
The Argus was a morning daily newspaper in Melbourne established in 1846 and closed in 1957. Widely known as a conservative newspaper for most of its history, it adopted a left leaning approach from 1949...
. Nevertheless, Cain's third Government fell on 19 April 1955 when 19 expelled Labor lower house members aligned to "The Movement" "crossed the floor" against the government in a vote of no confidence, ironically the same procedure that initiated Cain's first government.
Cain and the Labor split
In 1954, the federal Labor Party suffered a public split when the Leader, Dr H. V. Evatt, blamed Santamaria and his supporters in the Victorian ALP for Labor's loss of seats at the 1954 federal elections. Santamaria exercised strong influence in the Cain government through "Movement" linked ministers such as William BarryWilliam Barry (Australian politician)
William Peter Barry was a Member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly for the Electoral district of Carlton from July 1932 until April 1955...
and Frank Scully. Protestant and left-wing ministers strongly opposed the Movement faction. In December 1953 the Lands Minister, Robert Holt
Robert Holt
Robert Wilfred Holt was an Australian politician. Born in Launceston, Tasmania, he was educated in Melbourne at Scotch College and the University of Melbourne. He became a barrister in 1940. In 1945 he was elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly as the Labor member for Portland. He was...
, resigned rather than introduce a Santamaria-influenced bill which would have promoted the settlement of Italian immigrants as small farmers in Gippsland
Gippsland
Gippsland is a large rural region in Victoria, Australia. It begins immediately east of the suburbs of Melbourne and stretches to the New South Wales border, lying between the Great Dividing Range to the north and Bass Strait to the south...
(a favourite Santamaria scheme which was seen as a plot to create a Catholic peasantry).
In early 1955 the Labor Party's federal executive began to expel Santamaria's supporters from the party. The Victorian branch then split between pro-Evatt and pro-Santamaria factions, and in March the pro-Evatt State Executive suspended 24 members of State Parliament suspected of being Santamaria supporters. Four ministers were forced to resign from the government. When the Parliament met on 19 April, the expelled Labor members crossed over to vote with the Liberal and Country Party members to defeat the government. At the election which followed in May, Labor was heavily defeated, winning only 20 seats to the Liberals' 34 and the Country Party's ten. Only one of the expelled Labor members was re-elected.
Cain was now 73, although he remained outwardly vigorous and his real age was a well-kept secret. He retained the leadership and declared that he would fight the next election against the Liberal premier, Henry Bolte
Henry Bolte
Sir Henry Edward Bolte GCMG was an Australian politician. He was the 38th and longest serving Premier of Victoria.- Early years :...
. In 1957, however, the ALP split spread to Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
, and Cain went to campaign for Labor at the state election which followed the fall of the Queensland Labor government. In Townsville on 9 August he suffered a stroke and died within a few hours, aged 75. Alfred Ernest "Ernie" Shepherd (1901-58) succeeded Cain as ALP leader, only to die himself little more than a year afterwards. Labor remained in opposition in Victoria until 1982, when Cain's son, John Cain, Jr.
John Cain II
John Cain , Australian Labor Party politician, was the 41st Premier of Victoria, holding office from 1982 to 1990.-Biography:...
, led the party back to government.1