Thomas Richard Helm (born 5 April 1941) is a former Australian politician. He was born in

Bootle Bootle (pronounced ) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton, Merseyside, England, which had a population of 51,394 in 2011; the wider Parliamentary constituency had a population of 98,449. Historically part of Lancashire, Bootle's ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and arrived in Australia in 1980. He was a rigger before entering politics. In 1986 he was elected to the

Western Australian Legislative Council The Western Australian Legislative Council is the upper house of the Parliament of Western Australia, a state of Australia. It is regarded as a house of review for legislation passed by the Legislative Assembly, the lower house. The two Houses ...

as a

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 North Province, moving to Mining and Pastoral from 1989. From 1993 to 1997 he was Opposition Whip, and from 1997 to 2000 he was Shadow Minister for Works and Services. However, he resigned from the Labor Party on 27 July 2000 to sit as an

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

, and was defeated at the 2001 election.

References

1941 births Living people Independent members of the Parliament of Western Australia Members of the Western Australian Legislative Council Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Western Australia People from Bootle English emigrants to Australia 21st-century Australian politicians {{Australia-Labor-WesternAustralia-MP-stub