James Leslie "Les" McMahon (26 February 1930 – 23 January 2015) was an Australian politician. Born in Sydney, he was a

plumber A plumber is a tradesperson who specializes in installing and maintaining systems used for potable (drinking) water, and for sewage and drainage in plumbing systems.

, gasfitter and drainer and then an organiser for the Plumbers and Gasfitters Employees Union of Australia (NSW branch). He was elected to

Sydney City Council The City of Sydney is the local government area covering the Sydney central business district and surrounding inner city suburbs of the greater metropolitan area of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Established by Act of Parliament in 1842, th ...

in 1967, Leichhardt City Council in 1968, and Sydney City Council again in 1971. In 1975, he was elected to 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 o ...

as the

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 la ...

member for Sydney, a position he held until his retirement in 1983 after being deselected for the seat in favour of Peter Baldwin. During that time in Parliament, he had two full-time staff, he was on three Parliamentary Committees for Labor, namely, the Industry and Works Committee, Health Committee and Urban Committee. McMahon was also on three joint Parliamentary Committees in the Commonwealth Parliament, House of Parliament Committee, Road Safety Committee and Public Works Committee (where he was appointed Deputy President). McMahon was also the Deputy Chair of the Labor Caucus and Deputy Whip in Parliament. A few months after retiring from Politics in 1983, he was employed as a Commissioner of the NSW Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, where he remained until he retired from work in 1993. On 11 February 2015, the Australian Federal Parliament observed a moment of silence in honor of McMahon following his death. The current sitting Labor member of the Federal seat of Sydney, Ms

Tanya Plibersek Tanya Joan Plibersek (born 2 December 1969) is an Australian politician who served as Deputy Leader of the Labor Party and Deputy Leader of the Opposition from 2013 to 2019. She has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sydney since 1998 ...

described McMahon as "a man of strong convictions" and quoted:

Biography

In 1952, McMahon married Patricia Wellings. McMahon and Patricia were married for 60 years before Patricia's death in 2013. They had 8 children, 24 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren. In 2013, McMahon's grandson Lee McMahon, wrote a biography of McMahon's life. The story is told pretty much in McMahon's own words from his perspective because the Commonwealth Parliament Oral History Project interviewed McMahon in 1989 at the age of 59, just six years after his retirement. McMahon died on 23 January 2015 in Sydney from prostate cancer.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:McMahon, Leslie Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Australia Members of the Australian House of Representatives for Sydney Members of the Australian House of Representatives 1930 births 2015 deaths Gasfitters Australian plumbers 20th-century Australian politicians Australian builders