Thomas Tunnecliffe (13 July 1869 – 2 February 1948) was an Australian politician. Representing the

Australian Labor Party The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also simply known as Labor, is the major centre-left political party in Australia, one of two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-right Liberal Party of Australia. The party forms t ...

, he was a member of 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 presidin ...

for the electorates of West Melbourne (1903–1904),

Eaglehawk The wedge-tailed eagle (''Aquila audax'') is the largest bird of prey in the continent of Australia. It is also found in southern New Guinea to the north and is distributed as far south as the state of Tasmania. Adults of this species have lon ...

(1907–1920) and Collingwood (1921–1947).Peter Love
'Tunnecliffe, Thomas (Tom) (1869 - 1948)'
''Australian Dictionary of Biography'', Volume 12, Melbourne University Press, 1990, pp 284-285. Tunnecliffe was a bootmaker by trade, and became president of the Victorian Operative Bootmakers' Union in the 1880s. He was heavily involved in a number of radical political organisations around the turn of the century, including the Victorian Socialist League. He also served as president of the

Victorian Trades Hall Council The Victorian Trades Hall Council (VTHC) is a representative body of trade union organisations, known as a labour council, in the state of Victoria, Australia. It comprises 43 affiliated trade unions and professional associations, and eight reg ...

and the Eight Hours Committee. In 1903, representing the Labor Party, he won a by-election for the Legislative Assembly seat of West Melbourne. However, the electorate was abolished six months later following a redistribution, and Tunnecliffe did not return to the Victorian parliament until 1907, when he won the seat of

in the Bendigo region. After his defeat in 1920 by the Country Party candidate,

Albert Dunstan Sir Albert Arthur Dunstan, KCMG (26 July 1882 – 14 April 1950) was an Australian politician. A member of the Country Party (now National Party), Dunstan was the 33rd premier of Victoria. His term as premier was the second-longest in th ...

, Tunnecliffe went back to Melbourne and was elected to the Assembly in 1921 as the member for Collingwood, a seat he held for the next 26 years. In 1924, he served as Chief Secretary in the brief Labor ministry of

George Prendergast George Michael "Mick" Prendergast (20 May 1854 – 28 August 1937) was an Australian politician who served as the 28th Premier of Victoria. He was born to Irish emigrant parents in Adelaide, but he grew up in Stawell, Victoria. He was apprent ...

, and was elected by his parliamentary colleagues as deputy leader in 1926. When the Hogan Labor government came to power a year later, Tunnecliffe was appointed Minister for Railways and Electrical Undertakings. In the second Hogan ministry, formed after the 1929 state election, he was once again made Chief Secretary. In February 1932, at the height of the Great Depression, Premier Hogan travelled to London to talk to the banks about Victoria's desperate economic plight. While he was away, Tunnecliffe was acting Premier, and was much more willing than Hogan to reject 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 Depression ...

, which demanded stringent reductions in government spending. As a result, the Country Party withdrew its support from the minority Labor government and, in April, the government was defeated in a

confidence vote A motion of no confidence, also variously called a vote of no confidence, no-confidence motion, motion of confidence, or vote of confidence, is a statement or vote about whether a person in a position of responsibility like in government or mana ...

. Tunnecliffe, as acting leader, led the Labor campaign in the May 1932 state election, now completely rejecting the Premiers' Plan, which was the main issue at the election. The Labor Party Executive expelled everyone who had supported the Plan, including Hogan, although Labor did not run a candidate against him. Tunnecliffe was elected leader of the party. At the election, the newly-formed

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 federal elections in that time, usually governing in coalition with the Country Party. It provided two prim ...

(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 leader, Stanley Argyle, became

Premier of Victoria The premier of Victoria is the head of government in the Australian state of Victoria. The premier is appointed by the governor of Victoria, and is the leader of the political party able to secure a majority in the Victorian Legislative Assemb ...

. Tunnecliffe was Opposition leader until the 1935 state election, when Labor won only 17 seats and finished with third-party status, thereby not even qualifying as the official Opposition. Due to the weighting of country votes, the United Country Party polled only 13.7% of the popular vote and won 20 seats, whereas Labor's 37.9% only garnered it 17 seats. Tunnecliffe was a close friend of the businessman and gambling boss

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 ...

. In the view of some, Tunnecliffe was under Wren's control. Wren was also very close to Albert Dunstan, who was now the leader of the United Country Party. It has been claimed that, due to Wren's influence, Labor supported Dunstan's minority government from 1935 until 1943. Following the 1937 state election, Tunnecliffe was succeeded as leader of the Labor Party in Victoria by John Cain, Snr. Tunnecliffe was

Speaker of the Legislative Assembly Speaker of the Legislative Assembly is a title commonly held by Speaker (politics), presiding officers of parliamentary bodies styled Legislative Assembly, legislative assemblies. The office is most widely used in state and territorial legislatures ...

from 1937 to 1940, and continued as the member for Collingwood until July 1947, when he resigned due to ill-health. He died six months later. , - , - , -

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tunnecliffe, Thomas 1869 births 1948 deaths Members of the Victorian Legislative Assembly Speakers of the Victorian Legislative Assembly Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Victoria Australian artisans Shoemakers Leaders of the Opposition in Victoria (Australia)