Edmond Hogan
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Edmond John "Ned" Hogan (12 December 1883 – 23 August 1964) was an Australian politician who was the 30th
Premier of Victoria The premier of Victoria is the head of government of the state of Victoria in Australia. The premier leads the Cabinet of Victoria and selects its ministers. The premier is appointed by the governor of Victoria, must be a member of the Vic ...
. He was born in
Wallace, Victoria Wallace is a town in Victoria, Australia in the Shire of Moorabool local government area, north-west of the state capital, Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capita ...
, where his Irish-born parents were small farmers. After attending a
Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...
primary school, he became a farm worker and then a timber worker, and spent some time on the goldfields of
Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...
. Hogan became active in trade union and Labor Party politics in
Kalgoorlie Kalgoorlie-Boulder (or just Kalgoorlie) is a city in the Goldfields–Esperance region of Western Australia, located east-northeast of Perth at the end of the Great Eastern Highway. It is referred to as Kalgoorlie–Boulder as the surroundi ...
. In 1912, he contracted
typhoid Typhoid fever, also known simply as typhoid, is a disease caused by ''Salmonella enterica'' serotype Typhi bacteria, also called ''Salmonella'' Typhi. Symptoms vary from mild to severe, and usually begin six to 30 days after exposure. Often ther ...
. To recuperate, he returned to Victoria and took up farming at Ballan.


Labor politics

In 1913, Hogan was elected to the
Victorian Legislative Assembly The Victorian Legislative Assembly is the states and territories of Australia, state lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Victoria in Australia; the state upper house being the Victorian Legislative Council. Both houses sit at Parliament H ...
for Warrenheip, an electorate near
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, which was renamed Warrenheip and Grenville in 1927. Although it was not a natural Labor seat, it was heavily
Irish-Catholic Irish Catholics () are an ethnoreligious group native to Ireland, defined by their adherence to Catholic Christianity and their shared Irish ethnic, linguistic, and cultural heritage.The term distinguishes Catholics of Irish descent, particul ...
, which helped Hogan, an active Catholic, retain it for 30 years. In 1914, he was elected to the Labor Party's state executive, becoming state president in 1922. Hogan was a fine speaker and soon became a leading figure in a parliamentary party which was thin on talent. Victoria was Labor's weakest state and in the 1920s there seemed little chance that it would ever win a state election in its own right; minority government status was as much as it could hope for at the time. This status it achieved in 1924, when Hogan became Minister for Agriculture and Railways in the short-lived minority government of George Prendergast. Two years later Prendergast resigned as leader, and Hogan was the obvious choice to succeed him. His main drawback was his close association with the
Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...
horse-racing, boxing and gambling identity
John Wren John Wren (3 April 1871 – 26 October 1953) was an Australian bookmaker, boxing and wrestling promoter, Irish nationalist, land speculator, newspaper owner, racecourse and racehorse owner, soldier, pro-conscriptionist and theatre owner. He ...
, who was widely suspected of corruption. The Wren connection alienated many middle-class voters from Labor through the 1920s and 1930s. Nevertheless, at the 1927 state election, Hogan was able to capitalise on resentment against rural over-representation in the state parliament, and the consequent domination by the Country Party. Labor won 28 seats to the
Nationalists Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation, Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Theory, Id ...
15 and the Country Party's 10. Hogan was able to form a government with the support of the four Country Progressive Party and two Liberal members. However, the alliance broke down in 1928 in the face of a prolonged and violent industrial dispute on the Melbourne waterfront, and in November his government was defeated in a confidence vote and he resigned, being succeeded by the Nationalist William Murray McPherson, who had the support of the Victorian Country Party. In 1929, the Country Party withdrew its support from McPherson's administration and there was another election, fought just as the
Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...
was breaking over Australia. Hogan led Labor to its best result yet, winning 30 seats to the Nationalists' 17 and the Country Party's 11. A collection of Country Progressives, Liberals and independents held the balance of power, and they agreed to support a second Hogan government. Tom Tunnecliffe was Chief Secretary, John Cain was Minister for Railways and William Slater was Attorney-General. The Depression had a particularly devastating effect on Victoria's economy and society, because the state was still more heavily dependent than the rest of Australia on agricultural exports, mainly wheat and wool, for its income; those industries collapsed almost completely as demand in Britain dried up. By 1931, most Victorian farmers were bankrupt and about 25 percent of the state's workforce was unemployed. Hogan's government, in common with all other Australian state governments at the time, had no solution to the disaster. Even if it had been innately inclined to attempt radical solutions (which it was not), it depended on Country Progressive support in the Assembly, and had only six members in the
Legislative Council A legislative council is the legislature, or one of the legislative chambers, of a nation, colony, or subnational division such as a province or state. It was commonly used to label unicameral or upper house legislative bodies in the Brit ...
. Unlike New South Wales ALP Premier Jack Lang, Hogan adopted the orthodox economic view that governments must balance their budgets. Since the Legislative Council would not permit any increases in taxation, and since the ALP had no hope of controlling the council, the only way to balance budgets (in the face of falling government revenue) was to cut governmental expenditure. That increased the burdens on the poor and unemployed, while providing no stimulus to the economy. There was little possibility of effective unemployment relief, although there were some government works to soak up unemployment, such as the building of the
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and the
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. In August 1930, Hogan attended a conference with the other Premiers and the Labor Prime Minister,
James Scullin James Henry Scullin (18 September 1876 – 28 January 1953) was an Australian politician and trade unionist who served as the ninth prime minister of Australia from 1929 to 1932. He held office as the leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), ...
, to consider what to do. On the advice of Sir Otto Niemeyer, a senior official of the
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(which controlled most of Victoria's access to credit in the
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), they agreed to radical cuts to government spending and borrowing. This provoked a storm of protest in the trade unions and among many sections of the Labor Party, which regarded Scullin and Hogan as traitors. During June 1931, a second conference produced the
Premiers' Plan The Premiers' Plan was a deflationary economic policy agreed by a meeting of the Premiers of the Australian states in June 1931 to combat the Great Depression in Australia that sparked the 1931 Labor split. Background The Great Depress ...
, which entailed further cuts in government spending, accompanied by increases in taxation on the wealthy. In the circumstances, both of those measures further depressed the economy, while not satisfying either side of politics. The
New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...
Labor Party, led by Lang, rebelled; in November, Lang's supporters in the federal parliament voted to bring down the Scullin government. Nevertheless, Hogan's government survived because the Country Party continued to support it from the cross-benches. As well, the Nationalists, now renamed the
United Australia Party The United Australia Party (UAP) was an Australian political party that was founded in 1931 and dissolved in 1945. The party won four Elections in Australia, federal elections in that time, usually governing Coalition (Australia), in coalition ...
(UAP), preferred to see Hogan implement the Premiers' Plan. In February 1932, Hogan travelled to London to talk to the banks about Victoria's desperate economic plight. While he was away, Tom Tunnecliffe was acting Premier, and he was much more willing than Hogan to reject the Premiers' Plan. As a result, the Country Party withdrew its support for the ALP; and in April, the government was defeated in a confidence vote. Tunnecliffe replaced Hogan as Labor leader and led the Labor campaign in the May election, now rejecting the Premiers' Plan completely. The Labor Party executive expelled everyone who had supported the Premiers' Plan, including Hogan, although it did not run a candidate against him in Warrenheip and Grenville. At the elections the UAP won 31 seats to Labor's 16 and the reunited Country Party's 14. Hogan and one of his ex-ministers were elected as "Premiers' Plan Labor" candidates. The UAP's Sir Stanley Argyle became Premier. After sitting as an independent for three years, Hogan joined the Country Party in 1935, and soon formed a good working relationship with the Country Party leader Albert Dunstan. The result was a renewed alliance between the Country Party and Labor, brokered by Hogan, John Wren and the Victorian Labor State President,
Arthur Calwell Arthur Augustus Calwell King's Counsel, KC (28 August 1896 – 8 July 1973) was an Australian politician who served as the leader of the Australian Labor Party, Labor Party from 1960 to 1967. He led the party through three federal elections, l ...
. In April 1935, Dunstan brought an end to Argyle's government, and became Premier with Labor support. Hogan was appointed Minister for Agriculture and Mines, and held those posts through Dunstan's record term as Premier, which lasted until September 1943. At the 1943 election, after 30 years in parliament, the 60-year-old Hogan was defeated in Warrenheip and Grenville by the Labor candidate. Playing no more part in politics, he retired to St Kilda in Melbourne, where he lived until his death in 1964, aged 81. He was interred in a modest lawn grave at the Cheltenham Memorial Park (Wangara Road).


References


Sources


Australian Dictionary of Biography (Online Edition)
*Geoff Browne, ''A Biographical Register of the Victorian Parliament, 1900–84'', Government Printer, Melbourne, 1985 *Don Garden, ''Victoria: A History'', Thomas Nelson, Melbourne, 1984 *Kathleen Thompson and Geoffrey Serle, ''A Biographical Register of the Victorian Parliament, 1856–1900'', Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1972 *Kate White, ''John Cain and Victorian Labour 1917–1957'', Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1982 *Raymond Wright, ''A People's Counsel. A History of the Parliament of Victoria, 1856–1990'', Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1992 , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Hogan, Edmond 1883 births 1964 deaths Premiers of Victoria Leaders of the opposition in Victoria (state) Australian Roman Catholics Members of the Victorian Legislative Assembly Vice-presidents of the Board of Land and Works Treasurers of Victoria People from Bacchus Marsh Australian people of Irish descent Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Victoria 20th-century Australian politicians Ministers for agriculture (Victoria) Ministers of railways (Victoria) Ministers of mines (Victoria)