Patrick Leslie Coleman (21 January 1895 – 6 October 1974), Australian politician, was a member of the

Victorian Legislative Council The Victorian Legislative Council (VLC) is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Victoria, Australia, the lower house being the Legislative Assembly. Both houses sit at Parliament House in Spring Street, Melbourne. The Legislative Co ...

for

Melbourne West Province Melbourne West Province was an electorate of the Victorian Legislative Council from 1904 until 2006. It was created in June 1904 when Melbourne Province was reduced in size (four members down to two), North Yarra Province and South Yarra Pro ...

representing the Labor Party from October 1943 until March 1955. He was a member of the Catholic Social Studies Movement ("The Movement") in

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 ...

, and was expelled from the ministry and the ALP as part of the

Australian Labor Party split of 1955 The Australian Labor Party split of 1955 was a split within the Australian Labor Party along ethnocultural lines and about the position towards communism. Key players in the split were the federal opposition leader H. V. "Doc" Evatt and B. A. S ...

. After his expulsion from the ALP in March 1955, he became, with Bill Barry in the

Victorian Legislative Assembly The Victorian Legislative Assembly is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Victoria in Australia; the upper house being the Victorian Legislative Council. Both houses sit at Parliament House in Spring Street, Melbourne. The presiding ...

, the parliamentary leader of the

Australian Labor Party (Anti-Communist) The Democratic Labour Party (DLP), formerly the Democratic Labor Party, is an Australian political party. It broke off from the Australian Labor Party (ALP) as a result of the 1955 ALP split, originally under the name Australian Labor Party ...

, which was briefly referred to in the media as the Coleman-Barry Labor Party. He was a member of that party only until June 1955. Coleman was educated at the Christian Brothers College in East Melbourne. He qualified as an accountant while working part-time for the Victorian Department of Education, and later owned various hotels. Coleman was a Commissioner of the

Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works The Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW) was a public utility board in Melbourne, Australia, set up in 1891 to provide water supply, sewerage and sewage treatment functions for the city. In 1992, the MMBW was merged with a number of sm ...

and a Melbourne City Councillor from 1939 to 1960. He was Government Leader in the Legislative Council from 1952 to 1955. He was Assistant Treasurer and Minister of Materials in the second Cain government from 1945 to 1947, and Minister for Transport in the third Cain government from 1952 to 1955.

Political career

Coleman was defeated in seeking re-election for his province in 1955. He unsuccessfully contested DLP

preselection Preselection is the process by which a candidate is selected, usually by a political party, to contest an election for political office. It is also referred to as candidate selection. It is a fundamental function of political parties. The presele ...

for the

Australian Senate The Senate is the upper house of the Bicameralism, bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the House of Representatives (Australia), House of Representatives. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Chapter ...

in 1958, in which he was defeated by Jack Little, Coleman's successor as ALP (Anti-Communist) and subsequently DLP Leader in the Legislative Council. It has been argued that Little was preferred as a DLP candidate because he was not a Catholic. The DLP was largely a Catholic party, and a non-Catholic candidate had certain electoral attractions, i.e. to show that the DLP was not intentionally sectarian and that members of all religions were welcome.Lyle Allan. "The Democratic Labor Party: Was It An Ethnic Party?", ''Recorder'' (Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, Melbourne Branch) No. 133, April 1985, pp. 6–10. Coleman did not again seek public office.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coleman, Les 1895 births 1974 deaths Members of the Victorian Legislative Council Democratic Labor Party (historical) members of the Parliament of Victoria Victoria (Australia) state politicians Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Victoria 20th-century Australian politicians