John Cain (senior)
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John Cain (19 January 1882 – 4 August 1957) was an Australian politician, who became the 34th
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 ...
, and was the first Labor Party leader to win a majority in 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 ...
. He is the only premier of Victoria to date whose son has also served as premier.


Early life

Cain was born, oldest of 13 siblings, in Greendale, Victoria, near Bacchus Marsh. His father, Patrick Cane, was an Irish-born
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 ...
who worked as a small farmer and contractor. His birth (number 3094 of 1882) was registered as John Caine, son of Patrick Caine and Julia Brannen at Greendale. His siblings were variously registered with the surnames Cane and Cain. (n.b. unusual misspelling of his mother's surname) John Caine changed the spelling of his surname and converted to
Anglicanism Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...
. 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 extremely limited formal schooling, and worked from an early age as a farm labourer in the Goulburn Valley. By 1907 he had moved to
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 ...
, where he was employed as a fruiterer in the suburb of Northcote.


Political career

Around 1910 Cain joined the
Victorian Socialist Party The Victorian Socialist Party (VSP), also known as the Socialist Party of Victoria, was a socialist political party in the Australian state of Victoria during the early 20th century. Most VSP members were also members of the Australian Labor ...
(VSP), a
Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...
party to the left of the 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 Conscription, also known as the draft in the United States and Israel, is the practice in which the compulsory enlistment in a national service, mainly a military service, is enforced by law. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it conti ...
for
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, 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 The Communist Party of Australia (CPA), known as the Australian Communist Party (ACP) from 1944 to 1951, was an Australian communist party founded in 1920. The party existed until roughly 1991, with its membership and influence having been ...
, Cain broke his connections with the party 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 Northcote High School is a co-educational, state secondary school in Northcote, Victoria, Australia. It is situated at the southern end of the City of Darebin, on St Georges Road. The school teaches from Years 7 to 12 and has a current popula ...
and later
Scotch College, Melbourne Scotch College is a private, Presbyterian day and boarding school for boys, located in Hawthorn, an inner-eastern suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The college was established in 1851 as The Melbourne Academy in a house in Spri ...
, an unusual choice for a Labor politician at that time. Cain was elected in 1917 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 ...
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 Edmond John "Ned" Hogan (12 December 1883 – 23 August 1964) was an Australian politician who was the 30th Premier of Victoria. He was born in Wallace, Victoria, where his Irish-born parents were small farmers. After attending a Roman Cathol ...
(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 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 ...
and Hogan himself was expelled from the Labor Party, Cain became party deputy leader under Tom Tunnecliffe. Cain succeeded Tunnecliffe as Labor Leader in 1937. Under both Tunnecliffe and Cain, Labor supported the minority Country Party government of Albert Dunstan from 1935 to 1943.


Cain's three governments


First Cain government

In September 1943, Dunstan resigned, when his government lost a
vote of no confidence A motion or vote of no confidence (or the inverse, a motion or vote of confidence) is a motion and corresponding vote thereon in a deliberative assembly (usually a legislative body) as to whether an officer (typically an executive) is deemed fi ...
in 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 ...
, the
Lower house A lower house is the lower chamber of a bicameral legislature, where the other chamber is the upper house. Although styled as "below" the upper house, in many legislatures worldwide, the lower house has come to wield more power or otherwise e ...
of the Victorian Parliament. Cain became Premier and Labor formed a minority government on 14 September. The first Cain government lasted only 4 days, from 14 to 18 September 1943. On 15 September, barely 24 hours after
Governor of Victoria The governor of Victoria is the representative of Monarchy of Australia, the monarch, currently King Charles III, in the Australian state of Victoria (state), Victoria. The governor is appointed by the monarch on the advice of the premier of V ...
Sir Winston Dugan had sworn in the cabinet, the government was defeated in the Legislative Assembly. Cain's motion to adjourn the parliament for over a week was defeated by the Country Party and 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), and Dunstan moved that Parliament resume the next day, giving notice that he would move a motion of no confidence against Cain's government, confident it would be carried by the CP–UAP alliance. Cain indicated that he would request a dissolution of parliament from the Governor, but if his request was refused, he would resign as Premier. On 17 September, Cain visited the Governor who refused his request for a dissolution, Cain then resigned and the Governor commissioned Dunstan to form a coalition government with the UAP, which was sworn in on Saturday 18 September.


Second Cain government

After Dunstan's resignation and a brief Liberal government under Ian Macfarlan, 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 An upper house is one of two Legislative chamber, chambers of a bicameralism, bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the lower house. The house formally designated as the upper house is usually smaller and often has more restricted p ...
, the
Victorian Legislative Council The Victorian Legislative Council is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Victoria, Australia, the lower house being the Victorian Legislative Assembly, Legislative Assembly. Both houses sit at Parliament House, Melbourne, Parliament ...
blocked his government's budget to show its opposition to the federal Labor government of
Ben Chifley Joseph Benedict Chifley (; 22 September 1885 – 13 June 1951) was an Australian politician and train driver who served as the 16th prime minister of Australia from 1945 to 1949. He held office as the leader of the Labor Party (ALP), and was n ...
, which had announced plans to
nationalise Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization contrasts with priv ...
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.


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 Movement, was organised by B. A. Santamaria and supported by the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne,
Daniel Mannix Daniel Patrick Mannix (4 March 1864 – 6 November 1963) 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. Early lif ...
). Conflict between left and right in the Labor Party grew increasingly bitter in the
Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
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. Changes included the provision on long-service leave to railway workers, increased eligibility to workers' compensation, alterations to the Shops and Factories Act and the Landlord and Tenant Act, and the introduction of legislation "to penalise rogues who resorted to fraudulent misrepresentation in soliciting corporate investment from the public." The government had also reformed wage determination procedures and public service administration, while constructive initiatives were carried out in adult education and soil conservation. Even some reforms to the electoral system were carried through the council, where Labor and Liberal members united to reduce the
malapportionment Apportionment is the process by which seats in a legislative body are distributed among administrative divisions, such as states or parties, entitled to representation. This page presents the general principles and issues related to apportionmen ...
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'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria (Australia), Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Austral ...
'', '' 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 In some parliamentary systems (e.g., in Canada and the United Kingdom), politicians are said to cross the floor if they formally change their political affiliation to a political party different from the one they were initially elected under. I ...
" against the government in a vote of no confidence, ironically the same procedure that initiated Cain's first government.


Cain and the Labor split

The Australian Labor Party split of 1955 started in October 1954 after the federal leader, Dr H. V. Evatt, blamed B. A. Santamaria and his supporters in the Victorian Labor Party for Labor's loss of seats at the 1954 federal election. Santamaria exercised strong influence in the Cain government through "Movement" linked ministers such as Bill Barry 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 Gippsland () is a rural region in the southeastern part of Victoria, Australia, mostly comprising the coastal plains south of the Victorian Alps (the southernmost section of the Great Dividing Range). It covers an elongated area of east of th ...
(a favourite Santamaria scheme which was seen as a plot to create a Catholic peasantry). In early 1955 the Labor Party's federal executive dissolved the state executive and began to expel Santamaria's supporters from the party. The Victorian branch of the Labor Party then split between pro-Evatt and pro-Santamaria factions, and in March the pro-Evatt State Executive of the party suspended the membership of 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 1955, 19 expelled Labor members crossed over to vote with the Liberal and Country Party members to defeat the government. At the ensuing May 1955 election, the expelled members and others stood as the Australian Labor Party (Anti-Communist). 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 Sir Henry Edward Bolte ( ; 20 May 1908 – 4 January 1990) was an Australian politician who served as the 38th premier of Victoria from 1955 to 1972. He held office as the leader of the Victorian division of the Liberal Party of Australia ...
. In 1957, however, the ALP split spread to
Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...
, and Cain went to campaign for Labor at the state election which followed the fall of the Queensland Labor government. In
Townsville The City of Townsville is a city on the north-eastern coast of Queensland, Australia. With a population of 201,313 as of 2024, it is the largest settlement in North Queensland and Northern Australia (specifically, the parts of Australia north of ...
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 the 1982 election, when Cain's son, John Cain Jr., led the party back to government.1


Notes

1 John Cain (1882–1957) was the father of
John Cain (41st Premier of Victoria) John Cain (26 April 1931 – 23 December 2019) was an Australian politician who was the 41st Premier of Victoria, in office from 1982 to 1990 as leader of the Australian Labor Party (Victorian Branch), Labor Party. During his time as premier, ...
(1931–2019), who also has a son named John Cain who in 2019 became State Coroner of Victoria.


References

*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,


See also

, - {{DEFAULTSORT:Cain, John 1882 births 1957 deaths Premiers of Victoria Members of the Victorian Legislative Assembly Vice-presidents of the Board of Land and Works Treasurers of Victoria Australian people of Irish descent Converts to Anglicanism from Roman Catholicism Leaders of the opposition in Victoria (state) Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Victoria 20th-century Australian politicians