Percival Clarence Millar (; 15 June 1925 – 28 November 2017) was an Australian politician. He was a member of the National Party and served in the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

from 1974 to 1990, representing the

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

seat of Wide Bay. Prior to entering politics he was a public servant, soldier and farmer.

Early life

Millar was born on 15 June 1925 in

Norwood, South Australia Norwood is a suburb of Adelaide, about east of the Adelaide city centre. The suburb is in the City of Norwood Payneham & St Peters, whose predecessor was the oldest South Australian local government municipality. History Before British colon ...

, the son of Elsie (née Klaebe) and Percival John Turbill. His father, a clerk, salesman and tram driver, died of tuberculosis in 1935. His mother subsequently married William Donald Millar and he was given his stepfather's surname. As a child, Millar's family "followed an itinerant life across Victoria and Tasmania" in the aftermath of the Great Depression. He left school at the age of thirteen, by which time the family had settled in Hobart. As a teenager he worked as an assayist at the Rosebery zinc mines and as a salesman in a Hobart department store, before joining the

Postmaster-General's Department The Postmaster-General's Department (PMG) was a department of the Australian federal government, established at Federation in 1901, whose responsibilities included the provision of postal and telegraphic services throughout Australia. It was ...

in 1940. He worked for the department as a messenger boy, post office assistant, and junior assistant telgraphist.

Military service

Millar enlisted in the

Royal Australian Air Force "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = RAAF Anniversary Commemoration ...

(RAAF) in 1943, at the age of 18. He joined the Central Bureau as a radio operator conducting

signals intelligence Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of '' signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication ...

. He was initially stationed in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...

and later in the Northern Territory, where he intercepted the Japanese message of surrender in 1945. He was discharged from the RAAF in 1946 with the rank of

leading aircraftman Leading aircraftman (LAC) or leading aircraftwoman (LACW) is a junior rank in some air forces. It sits between aircraftman and senior aircraftman, and has a NATO rank code of OR-2. The rank badge is a horizontal two-bladed propeller. The ran ...

Politics

Millar served in the military between 1943 and 1946 before becoming a public servant, and then a farmer. In

1974 Major events in 1974 include the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis and the resignation of President of the United States, United States President Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal. In the Middle East, the aftermath of the 1973 Yom K ...

, he was elected to the

Australian House of Representatives The House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameralism, bicameral Parliament of Australia, the upper house being the Australian Senate, Senate. Its composition and powers are established in Chapter I of the Constitution of Austra ...

as the Country Party member for Wide Bay in

. He served as chairman of committees from 1978 to 1983. He retired in 1990. Together with

Labor Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

Tom Uren Thomas Uren (28 May 1921 – 26 January 2015) was an Australian politician and Deputy Leader of the Australian Labor Party from 1975 to 1977. Uren served as the Division of Reid, Member for Reid in the Australian House of Representatives from ...

, Millar was the last

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

combat veteran to serve in the House, though Russ Gorman who was a non-combat WWII veteran would serve until

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 800, causing the plane to crash and killing everyone on b ...

. He was the father of ABC journalist Lisa Millar.

References

1925 births 2017 deaths National Party of Australia members of the Parliament of Australia Members of the Australian House of Representatives for Wide Bay Members of the Australian House of Representatives Members of the Order of Australia Royal Australian Air Force personnel of World War II 20th-century Australian politicians {{Australia-National-politician-stub