Kenneth James Aldred (1 August 194517 April 2016) was an Australian politician who represented the
Liberal Party
The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left.
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in the
Australian House of Representatives
The House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the upper house being the Senate. Its composition and powers are established in Chapter I of the Constitution of Australia.
The term of members of the ...
between 1975 and 1980 and again from 1983 to 1996.
Early life
Aldred was born in
East Melbourne
East Melbourne is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Melbourne local government area. East Melbourne recorded a population of 4,896 at the 2021 ...
,
Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada
* Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory
* Victoria, Seychelle ...
, on 1 August 1945. He was educated at
Melbourne High School
Melbourne High School is a government-funded single-sex academically selective secondary day school for boys, located in the Melbourne suburb of South Yarra, Victoria, Australia. Established in 1905, the school caters for boys from Year 9 t ...
and
Monash University
Monash University () is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Named for prominent World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. The university has a ...
, and held the degrees of Bachelor of Economics and Master of Administration from
Monash University
Monash University () is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Named for prominent World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. The university has a ...
.
During 1970–71 he was Special Projects Officer in the Commonwealth Public Service Board in Melbourne. This was followed by two years in the period 1971–73, as Management Training Officer at the Administrative College of
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...
. Though principally based in Port Moresby, Aldred also had responsibility for running management courses in several of PNG's major regional centres.
In June 1973 Aldred returned to the Commonwealth Public Service Board in Melbourne as Industrial Information Officer. Later that year he was appointed Senior Industry Survey Officer in the Commonwealth Industries Assistance Commission, also in Melbourne. He remained there until elected to Federal Parliament in December 1975 as the Member for
Henty Henty may refer to:
Australian geography
*Henty, New South Wales
* Henty, Victoria
* Henty (wine) an Australian geographical indicator and wine region in southwestern Victoria
*Division of Henty, a former federal electorate in Victoria
*Henty Highw ...
.
Military service
From 1965 to 1971, Aldred served in the
Australian Army Reserve
The Australian Army Reserve is a collective name given to the reserve units of the Australian Army. Since the Federation of Australia in 1901, the reserve military force has been known by many names, including the Citizens Forces, the Citizen ...
. His first four years were in the
Melbourne University Regiment
The Melbourne University Regiment (MUR) is an officer training unit in the Australian Army Reserve (ARes). It has a depot at Grattan Street, Carlton, Melbourne, Australia.
History
MUR traces its origins to 1884 as D Company, 4th Battalion of th ...
(MUR) and the last two years as a
lieutenant
A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations.
The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often sub ...
and platoon commander in the newly formed
Monash University
Monash University () is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Named for prominent World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. The university has a ...
Regiment (Mon UR). He was also Assistant Adjutant of Mon UR, and founded and edited the joint regimental publication, ''The Military Review''. Aldred had a three-month attachment to the Australian Regular Army over the summer of 1968–69, as a sergeant instructor in 1 Recruit Training Battalion (1RTB) at Kapooka in New South Wales.
Political career
Federal election
Upon election as federal member for
Henty Henty may refer to:
Australian geography
*Henty, New South Wales
* Henty, Victoria
* Henty (wine) an Australian geographical indicator and wine region in southwestern Victoria
*Division of Henty, a former federal electorate in Victoria
*Henty Highw ...
in the
Australian House of Representatives
The House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the upper house being the Senate. Its composition and powers are established in Chapter I of the Constitution of Australia.
The term of members of the ...
in the Liberal landslide of 13 December 1975, Aldred assumed a very active role in Coalition and Parliamentary Committees. He chaired the Government Members' Small Business Committee, working closely with the Industry Minister,
Phillip Lynch
Sir Phillip Reginald Lynch Order of St Michael and St George, KCMG (27 July 1933 – 19 June 1984) was an Australian politician who served in the Australian House of Representatives, House of Representatives from 1966 to 1982. He was deputy lea ...
, on small business policy formulation.
As Chairman of the Government Members' Worker Participation Committee, Aldred produced the first definitive set of proposals for a Coalition worker participation policy, to then prime minister,
Malcolm Fraser
John Malcolm Fraser (; 21 May 1930 – 20 March 2015) was an Australian politician who served as the 22nd prime minister of Australia from 1975 to 1983, holding office as the leader of the Liberal Party of Australia.
Fraser was raised on hi ...
. Many of the proposals were incorporated in a worker participation policy later announced by the productivity minister,
Ian McPhee.
Expenditure Committee
Aldred was an active member of the newly established Expenditure Committee of the House of Representatives and as Chairman of the Government Members' Trade Sub-Committee, worked closely with the Deputy Prime Minister and Trade Minister,
Doug Anthony
John Douglas Anthony, (31 December 192920 December 2020) was an Australian politician. He served as leader of the National Party of Australia from 1971 to 1984 and was the second and longest-serving Deputy Prime Minister, holding the position ...
.
Manpower Development Executive
Defeated in October 1980, by the later House Speaker,
Joan Child, Ken Aldred returned to the training profession. In early 1981 he took up the position of Manpower Development Executive with the Victorian Dairy Processing Industry Training Committee (VDPITC), operating under the auspices of the Australian Dairy Cooperation (ADC). In this capacity he spent over two years setting up training courses and training manuals for Victoria's dairy industry factories. He spent a considerable amount of time visiting factories in the state's three dairying regions, namely
Gippsland
Gippsland is a rural region that makes up the southeastern part of Victoria, Australia, mostly comprising the coastal plains to the rainward (southern) side of the Victorian Alps (the southernmost section of the Great Dividing Range). It covers ...
, the Western District and the Northern Region.
Ken Aldred left VDPITC on re-election to the federal parliament in May 1983. He re-entered the House of Representatives through the
by-election in Bruce, which followed the resignation of House Speaker, Sir
Billy Snedden
Sir Billy Mackie Snedden, (31 December 1926 – 27 June 1987) was an Australian politician who served as the leader of the Liberal Party from 1972 to 1975. He was also a cabinet minister from 1964 to 1972, and Speaker of the House of Represe ...
, after the Coalition defeat in the
1983 federal election.
House of Representatives
During his time as the MHR for Bruce, Aldred took a prominent role on defence and economic issues, as chair of the Opposition Defence Committee and the Opposition Treasury Committee.
In 1985, he was elected by the Liberal Party to represent Australia at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, as the Opposition Parliamentary Adviser to the Australian Mission. At the UN, he became involved in committee work on the international drug trade and on Antarctica.
Shortly afterwards in 1986–87 he was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the then Leader of the Opposition,
John Howard
John Winston Howard (born 26 July 1939) is an Australian former politician who served as the 25th prime minister of Australia from 1996 to 2007, holding office as leader of the Liberal Party. His eleven-year tenure as prime minister is the s ...
. Following an electoral re-distribution he was elected to represent
Deakin in the 1990 federal election and remained there until the 1996 election, when he lost pre-selection to his successor,
Phil Barresi
Phillip Anthony Barresi (born 8 August 1955) is a former Australian politician. He was a member of the House of Representatives from 1996 to 2007, representing the Victorian seat of Deakin for the Liberal Party. Prior to entering politics he w ...
.
Throughout his six years as member for Deakin, Aldred was a most active Liberal member on the Joint Parliamentary Committee of Public Accounts, spearheading the inquiries into business migration and the
Australian Taxation Office
The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) is an Australian statutory agency and the principal revenue collection body for the Australian Government. The ATO has responsibility for administering the Australian federal taxation system, superannuati ...
. The Charter of Taxpayers' Rights and other reforms to Tax Office administration were largely attributed to him.
As a result of these inquiries, abuses of the Business Migration Programme were eliminated and significant reforms were made to Tax Office administration, including the introduction of the Charter of Taxpayers' Rights.
At this time he was also Chairman of the Opposition Immigration and Ethnic Affairs Committee. During the 1980s, Aldred successfully advocated for the immigration to Australia of a large group of Jewish
refuseniks
Refusenik (russian: отказник, otkaznik, ; alternatively spelt refusnik) was an unofficial term for individuals—typically, but not exclusively, Soviet Jews—who were denied permission to emigrate, primarily to Israel, by the authori ...
from the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, when they had been refused admission by the federal Labor government.
Controversy
In November 1989, Aldred and Senator
Jim Short alleged that Labor MP
Lewis Kent was "an agent of a foreign power" and had ties to the
UDBA
The State Security Service ( hr, Služba državne sigurnosti, sr, Служба државне безбедности; mk, Служба за државна безбедност; sl, Služba državne varnosti), also known by its original name ...
, the Yugoslav secret police. Their allegations were based on a statutory declaration from a member of Melbourne's Yugoslav community. Kent vigorously denied their claims, describing them as a smear campaign. The House of Representatives later voted on party lines to suspend Aldred for two days, following a report from the privileges committee.
Aldred was disendorsed by the Liberal Party for Deakin in 1995 for the 1996 federal election and subsequently used
parliamentary privilege
Parliamentary privilege is a legal immunity enjoyed by members of certain legislatures, in which legislators are granted protection against civil or criminal liability for actions done or statements made in the course of their legislative duties. ...
to make allegations of involvement in espionage and drug trafficking against a prominent Jewish lawyer and a senior foreign affairs official, using documents that were later found to be forged,
which had been supplied to him by
LaRouche movement
The LaRouche movement is a political and cultural network promoting the late Lyndon LaRouche and his ideas. It has included many organizations and companies around the world, which campaign, gather information and publish books and periodicals. ...
front organisation the
Citizens Electoral Council
The Australian Citizens Party (ACP), formerly the Citizens Electoral Council of Australia (CEC), is a minor political party in Australia affiliated with the international LaRouche Movement which was led by American political activist and conspir ...
. He also alleged that the
Department of Foreign Affairs had twenty child sexual abusers employed in senior positions, and named senior diplomat
John Holloway, who was charged and later acquitted.
Publications
Aldred was a regular writer on policy issues for magazines and newspapers. Additionally he was co-editor and contributor to three books.
The first, ''The Heart of Liberalism'', was produced in 1994 with fellow Liberal MPs
Kevin Andrews and
Paul Filing
Paul Anthony Filing (born 20 December 1955) is an Australian former politician.
Born in Wegberg, Germany, he was a police officer and company manager in Australia before entering politics. From 1987 to 1989, he was Campaign Co-ordinator for the ...
. It presented a pragmatic and centrist philosophy and set of policies for the Liberal Party.
After politics
After leaving federal parliament in 1996, Aldred was President and later Chairman of the Society of Australian Industry and Employment (SAIE) 2001–08, during which he devoted much time and energy to promoting the interests of Australian industry. This included editing and contributing to two books on industry policy, ''Rekindling the Flame'' in 2000, and ''Getting on Track'' in 2004.
From December 1996 until his death, Aldred was the proprietor of one of Australia's major
equestrian
The word equestrian is a reference to equestrianism, or horseback riding, derived from Latin ' and ', "horse".
Horseback riding (or Riding in British English)
Examples of this are:
* Equestrian sports
*Equestrian order, one of the upper classes i ...
centres, the Victorian Equestrian Centre (VEC) in
Upper Beaconsfield. The VEC offers children's riding clubs, school holiday camps, riding lessons, trail rides, specialised training programs and
agistment
Agistment originally referred specifically to the proceeds of pasturage in the king's forests. To agist is, in English law, to take cattle to graze, in exchange for payment (derived from the Old English ''giste'', ''gite'', a "lying place").
H ...
. The VEC also founded the concept of Interschool Equestrian Challenges, with four of them being run each year.
Aldred died unexpectedly on 17 April 2016 and is survived by his four children.
Hansard, 19 April 2016, Condolence Motion: Ken Aldred
Retrieved 20 April 2016
References
Further reading
* Aldred, Ken; Andrews, Kevin and Filing, Paul (eds.)(1994), ''The Heart of Liberalism''. The Albury Papers, Mitcham, Victoria.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aldred, Ken
1945 births
2016 deaths
Liberal Party of Australia members of the Parliament of Australia
Members of the Australian House of Representatives
Members of the Australian House of Representatives for Henty
Members of the Australian House of Representatives for Bruce
Members of the Australian House of Representatives for Deakin
20th-century Australian politicians
People from East Melbourne
People educated at Melbourne High School
Monash University alumni
Politicians from Melbourne
Public servants from Melbourne
Military personnel from Melbourne